NEW YORK—Samsung has just introduced a new wireless set of earbuds called Gear IconX, which in addition to delivering music the music you expect to hear, will measure your heartbeat, steps and other fitness tracking metrics, without you having to carry your phone.
It also ties into the S Health app on Samsung phones.
As with other wireless headphones, IconX communicates through your phone via Bluetooth. But you only need your phone if you're planning to stream from your phone, say on a music service. For listening to songs stored internally or for health tracking, you can leave it behind.
Samsung's completely cut the cord, too. There is no cable or cord connecting the left earbud to the right. Samsung is by no means the first company to bring out such 100% cordless earbuds. But it's the first with this type of name brand recognition.
IconX will cost around $200 when they hit the market later this year.
During the brief time I got to sample them, they felt comfortable in my ears. They're light—about the weight of a U.S. quarter. The sound was decent (though I want to listen longer). There was a tiny bit of trial and error before I mastered swiping on the earbud for the proper set of audio or other controls.
An apparent cause for concern is suspect battery life: just about an hour and a half, Samsung says, when you’re streaming music or about 3 ½ hours when you’re playing songs stored internally; you get 4 gigabytes of storage for that purpose. In other words, these truly are meant to be worn while you're at the gym or for relatively short workouts—look elsewhere for headphones to wear during long trips.
One nicety: You can charge IconX in its compact battery-equipped case, twice in fact before you have to plug anything in.
Samsung introduced another new wearable that also communicates with the S Health app on Samsung phones (as well as third party fitness apps). It’s the Gear Fit2 fitness band that is a successor model to the first Gear Fit that came out nearly 2 ½ years ago. The new bracelet tracks the usual parameters—steps, calories burned, floors climbed, sleep quality and your heart rate.
But there are improvements: a wider 1.5-inch high quality curved touch display with a vertical orientation that the first Fit lacked. You had to turn your wrist or head in an awkward fashion to actually view the display properly on the original Fit.
Also new to Fit2 is standalone GPS tracking, and compatibility beyond Samsung’s own devices across the Android line, so long as you're using software version 4.4 or later. (Fit2 runs Samsung’s own Tizen operating system.)
Other features to take note of are smart notifications for texts, calls and such that you can respond to without your phone. Fit2 is also water resistant and has 4GB of internal memory for storing music.
Samsung is promising three to four days of battery life with typical usage, which is this instance would be pretty good. This new model costs $179 and comes out June 10.
I wondered if Fit2 would cannibalize Samsung's more full featured Gear S2 smartwatch but the company doesn't believes there's a ton of overlap in the market.
Ben Arnold, executive director, industry analyst for the NPD Group , says when it comes to what we think of as smartwatches, Samsung is the No. 2 brand behind Apple.
“At this point, I do think fitness trackers are putting some pressure on the smartwatch market, as they offer a core piece of the smartwatch use case— fitness tracking — at a lower price," Arnold says. "In many ways pricing and the straightforward use case of fitness trackers make them an easy entry point for consumers into wearables. Both products are evolving, however.“
