We recently reported that Microsoft had discontinued the Band 2, throwing the future of the entire Band line into doubt. Now photos purporting to be of a Band 3 prototype have surfaced which, if legitimate, would prove Microsoft was working on a new device.
The pictures were posted on the Windows Central forums by user 'FUD Hater' who also supplied some information on the Band 3, such as that it would have been waterproof, tracked blood pressure with a built-in EKG, and would have included RFID (radio frequency identification) support.
In one of the pictures the wearable is shown displaying a swim tile - the leaker claims the Band 3 would have been able to track swim sessions - but the overall design is pretty similar to the Band 2.
At this point we get the feeling Microsoft has halted the Band series, given the Band team appear to have dispersed into other projects. The leaker of these new shots doesn't give anything away, but theorises that Microsoft has indeed called it a day, or that some of these ideas may one day resurface in another wearable.
Read next: Meet Welt, the smart belt that knows if you're getting fatter
We hope so: for its faults, the Microsoft Band and Band 2 had a lot of good ideas in them, and we'd be interested to see Microsoft push the health monitoring aspect above and beyond its competitors.
In a statement, a Microsoft spokesperson told us,"We do not comment on rumor or speculation."
How we test
By Hugh Langley
Now at Business Insider, Hugh originally joined Wareable from TechRadar where he’d been writing news, features, reviews and just about everything else you can think of for three years.
Hugh is now a correspondent at Business Insider.
Prior to Wareable, Hugh freelanced while studying, writing about bad indie bands and slightly better movies. He found his way into tech journalism at the beginning of the wearables boom, when everyone was talking about Google Glass and the Oculus Rift was merely a Kickstarter campaign - and has been fascinated ever since.
He’s particularly interested in VR and any fitness tech that will help him (eventually) get back into shape. Hugh has also written for T3, Wired, Total Film, Little White Lies and China Daily.