Withings And Garmin Go After The Apple Watch At CES

After hitting the ground running last year with their Steel HR Sport, Withings is going all-in on wearables with their early CES announcement of not just one, but two new wrist-based fitness trackers. Hot on their heels, Garmin has announced a new vivoactive 3 Music with LTE support.

So how do these Apple Watch competitors stack up? Should Cupertino be worried?

Garmin vivoactive 3 Music

The Garmin vivoactive 3 Music is taking a page from Apple and offering LTE connectivity on the Verizon network. Now you can leave your phone at home and text, use GPS, and download music while you're on your run (or bike or swim or any of the other 15 pre-loaded fitness activities).

Garmin is also utilizing the new connectivity to keep you safer. You can enable Live Track on the vivoactive 3, letting friends and family keep tabs on where you're at. You can also actively send a message to your pre-defined emergency contacts with a button press.

The watch is Bluetooth enabled, so you can pair your favorite headphone and play music directly from the watch. Live streaming isn't available to conserve battery life, but hopefully it will make an appearance at some point this year.

While Bluetooth and LTE are the big draw for the upgraded device, it's still an impressive fitness tracker all on its own. It leverages tracking technology that's second to none, allowing you to accurately keep tabs on your progress. It will also use its heart rate monitor to keep tabs on your stress levels (letting you see if your extra training is helping or if you need to take a break) as well as your VO2 max, an important metric in determining how your overall fitness is progressing.

And yes, Virginia, there is sleep monitoring. While the vivoactive 3 Music will only get 4 hours of battery life when you're actively using Bluetooth, LTE, and GPS simultaneously, it will otherwise get 5 days of battery life. That's nowhere near Withing's offerings, but it's still strong enough to let you keep your Garmin device on during sleep. Even better, the Garmin Connect app will factor in your sleep score to see if you need to back off your training plan or if you're ready for even more challenges.

In all, it's an impressive amount of tech that's only been seen previously in more expensive high-end Garmin devices like the fenix 5 Plus. Pricing of the vivoactive 3 Music and the required Verizon plan aren't available just yet, but keep an eye on the Garmin page for details to pop up in the next six weeks or so.

Withings Move

The Withings Move is the fitness tracker that doesn't look like a fitness tracker, just like the Steel HR Sport before it. Even better, it only costs $69, as opposed to $200. You do lose the optical heart rate sensor and the teeny OLED screen for smartphone notifications, but you still have automatic and on-demand activity tracking via the Withings app as well as sleep tracking.

You also get 18 months of battery life. That's right. Eighteen. Pop this sucker on your wrist and you can ensure that no matter what you're doing or where you're going, it's logging the health metrics you care about.

It's a good thing it looks good, right? There are five colorways available for pre-order right now, with many more on the way. Withings is promising full customization, from the case color to the sub-dial later this year. For $69, you might as well customize a couple and keep one for work and one for play. You can pre-order on the Withings site.

Withings Move ECG

But what if you want ECG monitoring like with the Apple Watch? Then you grab the Move ECG. It has less customization options than the Move, but that probably has as much to do with the bezel requirement than anything else (you have to grasp either side of the bezel while taking an ECG reading).

You also get the same activity and sleep tracking as you do with the Move. What odd is that there's no optical heart rate sensor. For that, you'll need to get the Steel HR Sport.

Still, the inclusion of an on-demand ECG is a unique feature that's only been seen previously in the Apple Watch. The elimination of an always-on HRM also contributes to the Move ECG's exceptional battery life. Withings says you can expect to get a full year out of the battery.

It costs about double the price of the Move at $129, but if you need an on-demand ECG sensor on your wrist and don't want to pay $399 for an Apple Watch, it's an exceptional bargain (it's also your only other option at the moment).

Pre-orders aren't live yet for the Move ECG, but you can keep an eye on the Withings site for more information.