Just because smartwatches sales have been decreasing at an alarming rate for the past year, doesn’t mean some device makers are done making intelligent timepieces. Look at New Balance which announced a new Android Wear smartwatch at CES 2017.
Called the RunIQ, the wearable is designed for sporty people who enjoy workouts and running. As New Balance puts it, the RunIQ is hoping to “help athletes take performance to the next level with the ability to run, track, and listen unthered.”
The device comes equipped with a circular 1.39-inch display and an Intel Atom Z34XX processor nestled under the hood working with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage. The RunIQ takes advantage of a heart rate monitor, GPS and a battery that can sustain a 24-hour life cycle or a 5-hour one with the GPS running.
The RunIQ smartwatch features a host of functionalities meant to sustain the user’s daily workouts. The wearable can Sync with Strava so runners can share their workout stats with a global community of athletes without having to open the application a mobile phone.
The Map Every Workout! feat taps into the built-in GPS functionality in order to track course, pace and distance of your run. With Keep the Pace users can track run times and intervals with a dedicated one-tap LAP button.
RunIQ can be used to read notifications for call and social media and reply while in transit. Last but not least, New Balance knows runners love to listen to music so it has embedded the Bring the Music feature into its smartwatch in order to allow athletes to sync, store and listen to playlists downloaded via Google Play Music.
If you’re a runner and like this Android Wear watch, the good news is that you can place a pre-order starting today. The RunIQ costs $299 a pop and should start shipping out February 1.
