Fitbit is winning at fitness trackers. According to the latest IDC estimates, it sold 4.7 million devices between July and September this year, beating Apple, Xiaomi and Garmin to the top spot.
Even the Charge HR, Wareable's recommendation, isn't perfect, though, and Fitbit's CEO and co-founder has just let slip what we can expect in 2016. Speaking to Time, James Park said that Fitbit fans can look forward to more advanced sensors such as stress and blood pressure monitoring, as well as more coaching and insights and further fashion partnerships.
Read this: The best fitness trackers you can buy
First up, the sensors. Fitbit has had a lot of success with its step and activity trackers but added HRM to the Charge HR in late 2014. What's next?
"We're definitely going to be releasing devices with advanced sensors that help people track not only more accurate metrics on what we're doing today, but additional metrics as well," said Park. "I can't talk specifically, but things people are going to be interested in in the future are blood pressure, or stress, or more stats about their athletic performance. Those are all things that we're working on and we'll continue to release over time."
That's all quite vague - and obvious - but it's good to get a sense of which direction Fitbit is heading in. Stress and recovery is something that comes up time and again, everyone from Sony to TomTom is interested in it.
Coaching and collaborations
Next, the coaching. Fitbit has a great app and community but it's fallen behind close rival Jawbone and the upstarts like Moov here in terms of making data useful to actually improving users' health and fitness.
"Up to this point it's been about gathering as much data as we can and the presentation and the visualisation of that data," Fitbit's CEO said. "Now I think a lot of that effort is going to go into making that data actionable, whether it's through coaching, insights, or guidance."
Third party apps and fashion collaborations, similar to the Tory Burch Fitbit Flex ranges, are also on the cards for 2016 and beyond.
"We're going to allow third parties in some ways to tap into the power of having an always-on device on someone's wrist," said Park.
Fitbit is already doing pretty damn well selling both beginner and mid-level trackers from the Fitbit Zip to the Fitbit Surge. We haven't seen a new device launch since early 2015 but Fitbit has done a good job of pushing out updates to keep users happy, from battery life improvements to the recent auto exercise detection update for the Charge HR and Surge.
Even if we have to wait until spring or summer 2016 for a new, advanced, stress tracking Fitbit, it's more important to get it spot on.
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