The world of optical heart rate monitors for athletes is growing fast – Fitbit has just taken the wraps off its new Surge, a ‘Fitness Super Watch’ which combines eight (count ‘em) sensors including GPS and optical HRM.
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Unveiled alongside the more affordable Charge (£99) and Charge HR (£119) models – which combine activity tracking, Caller ID and in the latter’s case an optical heart rate monitor – the Surge will cost £199 when it lands early next year.
Coming in three different colours (black, blue and our pick, tangerine), the Surge features built-in GPS to track pace, distance, elevation and more, and its smartwatch features include Caller ID, text alerts and mobile music control.
Claimed battery life is an impressive seven days, and other features include automatic sleep detection, multisport metrics, a backlit LCD touchscreen and food intake tracking.
But it’s the optical heart rate monitor which is likely to garner most interest, based on PurePulse technology for automatic, continuous heart rate tracking.
We’ll be getting our hands on one shortly to see how it stacks up against similar tech from Mio and TomTom…
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