New Fitbit Alta Blurs Line between Fitness And Smart Watch


The world’s most recognizable wearable brand—Fitbit—has a new product for consumers to be excited about. After releasing the Fitbit Blaze about a month ago, which was seemingly Fitbit’s entry into the smart watch market, the company has finalized the Fitbit Alta for sale.

Coming in at $130, the Alta appears to be a hybrid between the Fitbit Blaze and the more standard Fitbit Flex. It is first and foremost a Fitbit product, so it has essential fitness tracking capabilities like recording the entire day of activity, tracking the wearer’s sleep for the night and reminding the wearer to move a certain amount for the day. The Alta also carries software that automatically recognizes exactly what exercise the wearer is partaking in, logging the activity from there.

But, it comes with a much sleeker design than a product like the Fitbit Flex. It comes with a small vertical screen that makes it look like an undersized smart watch. The Alta can even receive call, text and calendar alerts—once more showing it is blurring the line between fitness tracker and smart watch.

The battery runs for five days without charge.

The release of the Fitbit Alta, and the Blaze before it, come in the wake of recent legal allegations against Fitbit. The class-action lawsuit claims that Fitbit’s heart-rate monitors are faulty and misleading consumers.

Neither the Alta nor the Blaze come with a heart-rate monitor, but if this lawsuit comes to fruition, Fitbit will have some backup products in their repertoire.

To see Fitbit Alta’s official launch video, watch below: