Adidas Fitness Tracker: Too Little, Too Late

Google announced in the past few days several major innovative products which are designed to bring wearables into the mainstream. These include the Android Wear operating system, as well as Google Fit, a platform designed to enable the easy tracking of fitness data. With this in mind it is then a shame that other companies aren’t trying to so hard…

Yes Adidas, we are looking at you.

The German sportswear company has been running a line of wearable fitness trackers for a while now, in competition with Nike and Fitbit. Unfortunately, their latest product is both underspeced, and devoid of any form of innovation.

The new Adidas fitness tracker is devoid of any form of innovation.

Leaks have confirmed the imminent release of the miCoach Fit Smart, a smart watch/fitness tracker which can measure heart rate, steps, position, and possibly other metrics. It features a weatherproof plastic construction, notification lights and a LED dot display.

These would be innovative features, had they not been around three years ago. The world of wearables has moved on from these chunky and non-interactive devices. Fitbit is producing ever smaller and more unintrusive wristbands better suited to sports, while Samsung, LG and Motorola are all producing fully fledged smart watches that combine the functionality of a computer with that of a fitness tracker, while at the same time utilizing touch and voice controls.

Slowly but surely Adidas will be left in the dust, should they continue with their current product strategy. In the long run, it would be prudent for them to follow Nike’s lead, and abandon the product side of fitness tracking to the major manufacturers, while at the same time doubling down on software and accessories.