News & Reviews:   Fitbit

Fitbit agreed to pay a fine of $12.25 million (~RM54.4 million) after an investigation found that the lithium-ion batteries in its Ionic smartwatch overheated, in some cases causing burns to users. The incident caused the smartwatch to be recalled from the market in 2022.

Back in May, Google announced that it intended to revamp Wear OS. With the help of Fitbit and Samsung, Wear OS 3.0 is intended to be revolutionary. Surprisingly, we won't have to wait for Samsung to launch the Galaxy Watch 4 to get a glimpse of it. In fact, one aspect of it is already available.

On the first day of Google I/O 2021, the tech giant has announced that it will join forces with Samsung and Fitbit to bring the Wear OS to the next level. By combining Samsung's Tizen and Fitbit's popular features, the new Wear OS is expected to bring an improved user experience to the Android smartwatches.

Yup, you read that right. New case studies are saying that smartwatches may have a key to detect a COVID-19 virus. According to research from Mount Sinai Health System, Stanford University and other reputable medical and academic institutions, smartwatches such as Apple Watch, Garmin and Fitbit can detect infections before the symptoms start appearing up to 7 days.

Back in November 2019, Google announced a deal to acquire Fitbit for USD 2.1 billion (~RM8.47 billion). That didn't happen because US regulators claimed that Google was aiming to use the data from Fitbit users to sell ads. Unfortunately, Google seems to have won this time, as it has successfully completed the move.

Fitbit has officially announced that from 5 October 2020 onwards, the Fitbit Sense, Fitbit Versa 3, as well as the Fitbit Inspire 2, will be available starting from as low as RM498. The aforementioned products can be purchased from authorized dealers such as allIT, Best Denki, Foto Flash, Harvey Norman, Shopee, Lazada, Timekeeper, as well as TMT from the date mentioned above.

Welcome back TechNavers! For this edition of TechNave NewsBytes 2020 #15 we have Samsung about their TV innovations through the years, Huawei got 8 awards for their networking prowess and Shopee is going to be holding a Live Kpop Fest… online. Celcom rewarded their Game Hero finalists, Maxis rewarded their eKelas and Digi is offering SMEs another online option via their MyDigi Bazaar.

Intel announced their Hybrid processors, HP donated laptops, Yoodo’s Gank team got into the Malaysia Book of Records, Fitbit has some Father’s day deals and Shell has some promotions on their cashless payment options. edotco is offering job opportunities, Micron is planning a UV robot fest and Kaspersky has some GReAT ideas. 

Nokia did a survey on 5G, eGG are doing the NBA 2K League and Snap announced some Snap Partner Summit highlights. Grab announced their Grab for Good report while for this issue of TechNave, the Special comes from unifi with tips to improve your home wifi performance. Check them out.

The number of Covid-19 cases in our country is still unstable these days as it has soared up to 277 today compared to yesterday's 93. With that being said, it means that the fight against the pandemic is not over yet and we should be cautious to continue keeping ourselves safe. Today, it has been announced that the wearable company Fitbit has gotten its new ventilator approved by the U.S. FDA (Food and Drug Administration), and the production is scheduled to begin this month. Fitbit is another non-medical company that took an effort to join the fight by providing medical supplies.

In conjunction with the upcoming Christmas celebrations, you could get a fitness tracker for yourself or a loved one from Fitbit at up to RM200 off from 9 December until 27 December 2019. The products that are being offered include the Fitbit Inspire HR, Fitbit Charge 3, Ionic, Versa Lite, as well as the Ace 2.

Google has officially announced today, that they have recently acquired FitBit for USD2.1 billion(~RM8.75 billion) with plans for the newly acquired company to produce wearables in the future. With all that said, future wearables by Google will come with Wear OS installed instead of FitBit’s very own operating system that’s currently used most of the Fitbit wearables out there in the market.