Going against the grain of Fitbit’s typical wrist-worn design, the company’s next health and fitness tracker could be worn on your finger as a fashionable ring.
A patent for this device has just surfaced online, giving us a look at a ring-based device made specifically with the intent of offering more reliable SpO2 (blood oxygen) tracking than a smartwatch.
Even though blood oxygen tracking is very much in vogue with smartwatches (thanks Apple Watch 6), the technology used to conduct these tests on wearables isn’t quite up to scratch with traditional equipment. This is because smartwatches use reflected light so that information can return to the sensor, but the Fitbit ring would project light from one end to have it absorbed by a photodetector on the other – yielding more accurate results.
Related: Fitbit Sense Review
It is worth pointing out that a patent can sometimes never amount to more than that, and this is no guarantee that a finger-worn device will ever emerge from Fitbit’s labs. If the ring does see the light of day however, it could be a huge indication of where Google plans to take Fitbit, following the former’s buyout of the latter.
The newly released Fitbit Luxe has already been marketed as a stylish fitness tracker that can be worn like jewellery, and so a ring-based product would feel like a natural extension of that shift into fashionable tech. Be prepared folks, this might be the end of Fitbit as we know it.
If you’re feeling as if this all sounds a bit too futuristic then you might like to know that Fitbit will be late to this particular party, having been beaten to it by the Oura ring.
Related: Fitbit Versa 3 Review
The Oura Ring has already been on the market for several years, and while it hasn’t taken the fitness world by storm, it does have a few dedicated users who swear by it. The question is, if Fitbit can come out with its own version, will that be enough to sway people? Let us known your thoughts in the poll below.
Leave a Reply