IFA 2019 officially kicks off from September 5th and will run through September 11th in Berlin, Germany. Most of the world’s major tech brands will be in Berlin for IFA to introduce a range of consumer electronic products. Strategy Analytics has a team of analysts from our devices teams in attendance to cover key news and device introductions.
On the first official day of the show (as opposed to the previous two pre-show days that are packed with announcements) we saw many interesting announcements covering wearables. If Mobile World Congress in February is about all things mobile, IFA, with its focus on consumer electronics, is especially popular for introducing new wearables, setting them up for the imminent holiday shopping season.
For smartwatches, health and fitness were the common themes at IFA this year.
Garmin leads with Smartwatches
Garmin introduced the Garmin Venu this year. The Venu is a fitness fanatic’s dream, tracking respiration, hydration and sweat loss, as well as a feature that displays animated exercises that the user can incorporate into their fitness routine. Speaking of display, the Venu is Garmin’s first smartwatch with an 1.2 inch AMOLED screen, and it is brilliant and lovely. Somehow, with all of these features, the US$400 smartwatch still manages to promise battery life of up to 5 days. All in all, it looks like Garmin managed to get everything right with the Venu.
Garmin Venu
Garmin also introduced the Vivoactive 4 and 4S smartwatches at this year’s IFA. Like the Venu the new Vivoactive smartwatches offer a suite of fitness oriented applications. While the Venu has an AMOLED display, the newest additions to the Vivoactive series stick with the tried and true transflective display. While not as bright and rich as the Venu’s AMOLED display, by staying with transflective, the new Vivoactive 4 and 4S are able to promise up to eight days of battery life and are priced at US$350, US$50 cheaper than the Venu.
Garmin also updated its Vivomove series of smartwatches with additional style options. The Vivomove series, which includes the Luxe (US$550), the Style (US$299) and the Vivomove 3 & 3S (US$249) are more traditionally styled watches which display hour, minute and second hands until the display is swiped and smartwatch applications are revealed.
Finally Garmin brought out special edition Legacy Hero Series watches. The Captain Marvel Special Edition features style cues from the comic book hero, as does the Captain American Special Edition. The Captain Marvel edition gives up to seven days of battery life and the Captain American model promises up to eight. Both models offer constant heart rate monitoring, GPS and NFC sensors, health trackers including sleep tracker and are priced at US$400.
Other Smartwatches
A host of other vendors also released smartwatches with health related features. Asus introduced its VivoWatch SP smartwatch, which includes ECG and a PPG sensors which allow it to track pulse transit time, SPO2 levels, sleep, stress and blood pressure. The watch also comes with GPS and an altimeter and promises up to 14 days of battery life.
Smartwatches from Emporio Armani, Michael Kors, TCL, Puma, Diesel and others were on display. For more on the smartwatch market and other wearables, Strategy Analytics Wearables Devices Practice offers in-depth coverage.