Google and Fitbit Made a Kids’ Smartwatch #WearableWednesday
Wired’s Adreinne So takes a look at the Fitbit Ace LTE. A Fitbit fit for your kid? An interesting option to keep kids off screens for just a little longer. Alternatively it could just be a gateway.
At $230 with a $10 subscription required feels a little steep for the 7 and up set. But, it could be a good option if you’re in the market for a pint-sized wearable.
The watch has the usual suite of sensors, like the accelerometer, optical heart rate sensor, altimeter, magnetometer, ambient light sensor, and gyroscope. But Google Research worked with experts like Lauren Sherar, a professor of physical activity at Loughborough University in the UK, to create child-specific exercise algorithms and show that movement in a graphic called the Noodle. It’s a snake character that slithers around the perimeter of the display until the child has reached the World Health Organization’s recommended 60 minutes of activity per day.
Instead of interval-based or zone-based training, the Fitbit Ace LTE has interval-based gaming. Google enlisted the efforts of independent Australian gaming studios to develop short, engaging 3D active games for the new Fitbit Arcade platform that draws on the data from the watch’s accelerometer and other sensors and engages the haptic feedback and speakers.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Select Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: PyCon AU 2024 Talks, New Raspberry Pi Gear Available and More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!