You may have to wait a bit longer for Fitbit’s next smartwatch.
Yahoo Finance has learnt from two sources that Fitbit’s smartwatch project ran into issues which has led to the delay of its launch from spring to fall.
“In one of the more final prototypes, the GPS wasn’t working because the antennae wasn’t in the right place,” one of those sources told Yahoo Finance. “They had to go back to the drawing board to redesign the product so the GPS got a strong signal.”
The design team also had problems making the smartwatch fully waterproof. As to the design, the sources describe its aluminum unibody chassis as “very retro-looking” and “definitely not sexy”. The smartwatch reportedly has a color display with 1,000 nits of brightness, a built-in GPS chip, heart rate sensor, support for mobile payment, music playback and storage from Pandora, and four days of battery usage on a single charge.
There are also rumors about a pair of Bluetooth headphones from Fitbit which is similar to Apple’s Beats X. The headphones are said to be available in ‘Nightfall Blue” and Lunar Gray’.
Fitbit’s difficulties in designing a stylish and waterproof smartwatch seem odd considering that it should have the necessary talent to do so from its acquisition of Pebble and Vector. The mobile payment service on the next smartwatch is likely utilizing NFC payment solutions from Coin, a mobile payment firm that Fitbit acquired in May 2016.
