The Apple Watch could soon be sold discounted or free to Aetna’s 23 million members, as a way to improve health outcomes and lower insurance costs, according to a CNBC report. Apple held a series of meetings with Aetna executives and hospital chief medical information officers, discussing the possibility of a plan that included the… Read more »
Nokia has rebranded all Withings products and will be retiring the brand, a year after acquiring the French health-tech company for $191 million. The three wearables, Go, Steel, and Steel HR, will remain part of Nokia’s portfolio. Go is a simple E-Ink activity and sleep tracker with one year charge, available for $50. Steel does… Read more »
Fitness and Activity trackers are on the rise, and now that the functionality has been figured out, many companies are looking to incorporate better designs that are more attractive and less sporty looking. With new competitors entering the market, smartwatches are beginning to be offered as fashionable accessories, rather than just basic health gadgets. … Read more »
NBA teams will not be allowed to use a player’s wearable data in contract negotiations or transactions, according to a bargaining agreement between the league and the National Basketball Players Association. The agreement ensures that wearable data will only be used for tactical purposes and an arbitrator will be able to impose fines of up… Read more »
Jawbone might pivot to the medical industry as it exits the consumer market, according to people close to the company. It has already sold all its assets for the Jambox speaker business, and has heavily reduced its customer support staff. The private company is apparently talking to several investors about a new funding round, aimed… Read more »
Most wearables come with some form of fitness and health tracking, some make it the primary reason to purchase the device. Fitbit, Jawbone, and Garmin have sold millions of devices to health conscious consumers, but after a few months, a good chunk of these devices can be found gathering dust in cupboards or on eBay… Read more »
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2017 is on the horizon and ahead of the ReadWrite team heading to Vegas, we are getting ready for another week of announcements and insights into the future of wearables. CES has always been a great event to launch new products, as seen last year with the Under Armour Healthbox,… Read more »
According to a recent Gartner survey, almost a third of fitness tracker or smartwatch owners end up ditching them. The survey studied about 9,000 users from the U.S., Australia and the U.K. Reasons for the dropped tech use vary from wearables breaking, to just becoming bored of them. “Dropout from device usage is a serious… Read more »
Halo Wearables, a wearable fitness startup, wants to bring hydration tracking into the mainstream with Halo Edge, the company’s first wearable. Instead of monitoring heart-rate and step-count, Halo Wearables believes tracking hydration will prove more useful for athletes. See Also: Fitbit buys Pebble as wearables consolidation continues “Hydration for us is another element which has… Read more »
Google Glass failed to win consumers, partly because of the design that made the augmented eyewear stand out in a crowd. VSP Global’s innovation lab, The Shop, which built custom frames for Glass, wants to approach eyewear tech from a different angle. The Shop has partnered with the University of Southern California (USC) Center for… Read more »
