Companies often unveil new a product by putting an executive on stage and making them say nice things about it. Other times, they’ll launch a fancy webpage and put up glamorous photos of whatever they’re launching. Sony, on the other hand, appears to be unveiling a new product today by accidentally publishing information about it in the Play Store. Which, I suppose, still gets the job done.
Sony reveals SmartBand 2 wearable with heart rate monitor
is The Verge’s executive editor. He has covered tech, policy, and online creators for over a decade.
The slip-up makes it appear that Sony is making a new version of the SmartBand, its wearable that’s meant to help people track what’s going on in their life. This new one, called the SmartBand 2, adds a heart rate monitor, which should make it function much better as a fitness tracker. It also has a brand new app, which is what appears to have gone live in the Play Store early and revealed this information. The new app looks a lot better than Sony’s dedicated Lifelog app, but you’ll apparently still need to download both to get the full experience.
Like the existing model, the SmartBand 2 is also able to track steps and sleep, alert wearers of incoming messages on their phone, and vibrate when they have an alarm. It also has a dedicated button you can press to take a snapshot of all the data it has at the given moment, which is supposed to help you record meaningful moments in your life. That seems like a bit of a stretch, but it certainly sets the band apart from the many similar offerings already out there. It’s not stated when the SmartBand 2 will be released, but given that its app is out there, it seems like it should be pretty soon.
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
