- Masimo, the company that sued Apple over patent infringement, has unveiled its own blood oxygen monitoring smartwatch called the Masimo Freedom.
- The Masimo Freedom is a health-focused device that can track blood oxygen levels, hydration index, respiration rate, pulse rate variability, pulse rate, steps, and detect falls.
- The smartwatch is currently in prototype stage and will be available for sale later this year at a price of $999.
Archive link: https://archive.ph/aOUXX
$999
I have no use for a HR smart watch but at this price it’s not even a possibility. Hundreds of dollars is acceptable but this is a hard no for me. My Casio G-Shock GBD 200 + GadgetBridge has all the features I want from a smart watch and costs about $150.
However, I will say kudos to Masimo for sticking it to Apple. Not many people can go against a giant like that and win.
This is less than some of the more feature-rich Garmin watches. That said, Garmin’s offerings are best-in-class, so they can justify it.
Garmins (or most of them) also last for a month with a single charge, unlike most smart watches. For me that’s worth a little premium.
Yeah I laughed when I saw the battery life on a smart watch. I have to charge by Garmin every a week with regular use and I still think that’s too frequent.
I’ve never gotten more than a week tops from my Garmin watches, a handful of runs and it needs a recharge. And I need to fully charge it if it’s a long run or risk it dying on me while I’m running.
Depends on the model and your settings I guess. I use a Fenix5, and it lasts like 18-20 days with a run every second day (tho I keep pulse ox off). Could be more if I had gotten a solar one, but those were pricey back when I got mine…
I’ve only used the upper end of the forerunner line. But getting 18+ days from the fenix with regular sports use seems well above spec, they spec it with up to 57h in GPS mode and 18d in regular smart watch mode without sports activities.
Garmin software, particularly their integration with third parties absolutely bloody sucks. Their hardware is amazing though.
I haven’t had an issue in the 8 years I’ve owned Garmin stuff. What apps are you having trouble with? I sync with Strava, training peaks, swim coach, humango, and probably others over the years
That is more than the last two phones I’ve bought put together, Holy Balls. No way am I spending a grand on a smart watch.
The G shock sounds tempting.
You were never their intended audience to begin with. If you’re going to balk at a mere $1k, you’re not the customers they want.
Yeah, you could get a really nice traditional watch for a fraction of the cost and have money left over. And it won’t be obsoleted by a company turning off their servers 5 years down the line.
Really I don’t see the point of smart watches.