The first Misfit wearable was the Misfit Shine. It is a small little puck like device that resides in a rubber strap for your wrist. Misfit also had a small clip, a necklace and even a pair of socks for you to place the puck inside to help you track your walking and such. We had a set that we received for review at CES 2014. We had a good time with them and they certainly looked pretty slick. Now Misfit has announced a new tracker that goes to the opposite side of the coin and is targeting the sporty thrifty people out there with its latest Misfit Flash.
The Misfit Flash resembles the Shine except it is made from a soft-touch plastic that is waterproof to 30 meters (Shine is 50 meters). The new Flash will be offered in a variety of flashy sporty colors such as Frost, Onyx, Fuchsia, Zest and Wave. There will be a total of 7 color offerings at launch time this October. Similar to the Shine it runs on a single CR2032 coin cell battery with a battery life of about 6 months. Just like the Shine it will track your steps, calories burned, distance traveled along with sleep duration and sleep quality.
“Flash is the only fully featured activity and sleep tracker in the world for under $50, making it an incredible value,†said Tim Golnik, VP of Product and Design at Misfit.
Interestingly enough, the Misfit Flash was created in partnership with The Coca-Cola Company. Apparently they are a long-term strategic partner of Misfit. Anyways, to sum up the whole announcement, Misfit launched a plastic version of the Shine to appeal to a broader market of more sporty individuals that couldn’t wrap their head around a Shine at $99.99.
While I enjoyed my time with the Shine, they really need to dump some time and money into the Android companion app. I understand there is a pretty decent tie in from Apple with John Sculley in the mix and the company name, Misfit, stemmed from Steve Jobs, but if you are going to go cross-platform, make the apps work and be as useful as competing OS platforms are. Point in case, the iOS Misfit app is pretty outstanding, where as the Android app lacks a large portion of the functions and has some serious sync issues. Maybe an update is coming with the release of the Flash to help ease the pain. Hey, I can hope right? Regardless of that small caveat, you might be interested in the Misfit Flash. If so, direct yourself over to the Misfit website to pre-order one when ever you are ready.
Press Release:
BURLINGAME, CA September 16, 2014— Misfit, makers of Shine, today announced its second wearable product, Misfit Flash, a versatile and easy-to-use fitness and sleep monitor.
Crafted out of a special soft-touch plastic, Flash is comfortable, extremely durable, and waterproof to 30 meters, making it fit for even the toughest uses. It comes in seven unique colors including a lemon-lime Zest, funky Fuchsia, and minimalist Frost.
“Flash is the only fully featured activity and sleep tracker in the world for under $50, making it an incredible value,†said Tim Golnik, VP of Product and Design at Misfit.
Like Shine, Flash never requires charging and can be worn virtually anywhere—on a user’s wrist, pants, shirt, shoes, lapel, or even on a keychain. Flash includes the very best of Shine’s user experience and automatically measures steps, calories, distance, sleep quality and duration, and even tracks cycling and swimming. The entire front of Flash is a button; to check your progress toward your daily activity goal and the time of day, simply press it. Flash syncs wirelessly with the Misfit App on iOS and Android phones.
Available for $49.99 in the United States, Flash will be available at Best Buy, Target, Amazon, Walmart and other retailers worldwide in October, and can be pre-ordered now at misfit.com/flash.
Flash was originally created in partnership with The Coca-Cola Company, Misfit‘s long-term strategic partner, to encourage active lifestyles globally. Misfit‘s first product, Shine, launched in late 2013, and is now available in tens of thousands of retail locations in over 40 countries.
About Misfit
Misfit invents and manufactures great wearable and smart home products. The company was founded in 2011 by Sonny Vu with John Sculley, the former CEO of Apple and Pepsi, and Sridhar Iyengar, co-founder and former CTO of AgaMatrix.
