Sony Corp (ADR) (NYSE:SNE) recently revealed its latest smartband intended to monitor user’s fitness and health. Named as the SmartBand 2, the latest tracker includes a monitor that continuously checks heart rate of the users, and can identify the activities which increase their heart rate and the ones that return it to its normal state.
The new wearable device will also determine the overall movements and activities of users, their sleep and stress levels, according to the company, so it can tell if their day is a rough one, even if they are not aware of it. The SmartBand 2 can also be paired with smartphones running iOS and Android and will light up a screen and vibrate to notify about emails, incoming calls or messages.
Sony’s new band offers multiple useful key features, though it faces competition from a number of other activity trackers in the market. Firms, such as Garmin, Fitbit, Misfit, and Jawbone, sell a range of bands with heart rate monitoring, smartphone pairing, exercise tracking and sleep monitoring.
Even Chinese cell phone firm Xiaomi has stepped into the segment with its Mi Band, priced at $30. And obviously, variety of smartwatches, like Apple Watch, offer their own health and fitness tracking features.
Sony also offer an app named Lifelog that works with its Xperia devices as well as smartphones running Android. Lifelog record users’ activities, stress levels, heat beat and other factors. The app also track the locations where users have been and how active they were during a certain period of time.
The SmartBand 2 will hit the market next month in 60 different countries and will carry a price tag of about €119. A spokeswoman at Sony stated that the gadget will be offered through select vendors in the United States, though she didn’t disclosed the specific timing.
