Under Armour pulled out of wearables back in 2017

First some background.

Under Armour had a bunch of fitness tracking products and kept the line going for a few years. Its flagship product was something called a Health Box collection. This consisted of a smart scale, a fitness tracker and a heart rate chest strap. All three were launched back in 2016 with partner HTC. At the time many had expected the well known brand would make a name for itself as a provider of connected health and fitness gear.

Essential reading: Top fitness trackers and health gadgets

But in early 2020, Under Armour announced it was ending direct software support for its HealthBox collection. Users were informed they will need to migrate data over to MapMyFitness.

The UA fitness band was essentially the 2015 HTC Grip, a $199 sleep and step-tracker with a touch display that never actually made it to the market. It was rebranded as UA Band with all the usual activity tracking features baked in, including step counting, sleep and heart rate monitoring.

Alongside the Band was the UA Scale – a sleek, glass-covered device that is able to recognize up to 8 users and monitor weight and body fat. Interestingly, the scale had speaker notifications to give you audible updates on progress and a cheerful welcome in the morning.

The third device was the UA Heart Rate chest strap. This provided you with more precise heart rate measurements than the band, and let you track workout intensity and heart rate zones.

All three of these were designed to be used with the UA Record smartphone app, which was functioning fine until the company pulled it from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. That was back in January 2020.

Under Armour followed this up with an announcement that customers that want to continue using HealthBox devices, will need to migrate their data over to MapMyFitness. This is a software platform that was acquired by the company back in 2013.

It was not an ideal solution. The issue with this was that the software was missing some of the UA Record features. This included some basics such as steps, sleep, weight and resting heart rate data. All essentially got were your workout stats and calories burned. Which left out most of the functionality.

However, that announcement did not come as too much of a surprise. The company had in 2017 pulled out of the wearables game due to slow sales. It ceised churning out new products in order to focus on developing its software platform and forging partnerships.

But things may be about to change.

A new Under Armour fitness tracker gets FCC approval

We spotted an FCC filing from February 2nd 2022 for an Under Armour Bluetooth fitness tracker. The device goes under the moniker Titan – model UAFP3. Here’s a screenshot of the marking label.

The actual filing does not reveal very much. According to the description, the product is meant for “data gathering as it relates to sports activities”.

A Confidentiality Request was filed by the company on September 16th 2021 which keeps most details under wraps for six months. That means they should become public in the middle of March – unless, of course, Under Armour extends the confidentiality deadline.

Regardless whether we see the device in March or in the months after, it is evident that Under Armour is toying with the idea of a return to the fitness tracking game. What it has going for itself is the well recognised brand name and past experience in this area.

This market is now crowded with players so it would really take something special for an Under Armour fitness tracker to generate significant interest. The name that was chosen does offer some hope. If you describe something as a titan in a particular field, you mean that it is very important and successful in that field. Let’s hope this turns out to be the case.

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Essential reading: Top fitness trackers and health gadgets

The widely used body mass index (BMI) provides a measure that allows for an estimate of healthy weight of an individual based on their height. While BMI largely increases as adiposity increases, due to differences in body composition other indicators of body fat give more accurate results. For example, individuals with greater muscle mass or larger bones will have higher BMIs.

Body fat percentage is a great measure of fitness level since it is the only body measurement which directly calculates a person’s relative body composition without regard to height or weight.

Contents

Recommended per cent of body fat
How to measure body fat
Smart Scales
Skulpt Chisel
Bello

Recommended per cent of body fat

Women, during the course of their life may need to sustain an embryo and then a baby from their own energy reserves. So they accumulate more body fat than men as some of it is stored energy to help nourish a child through its development. This is not to say that men don’t also use body fat as stored energy. Men just need less of it.

According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), body fat standards can differ based on age, gender, race, ethnicity and even activity level. However, to simplify the various standards, ACSM offers the version as shown below. The leanest athletes typically compete at levels of about 6–13% for men or 14–20% for women. Bodybuilders may compete at ranges even lower than these levels.

How to measure body fat

There are a number of methods for determining body fat percentage. This includes the more traditional, but less accurate, methods such as measurement with calipers or through the use of bioelectrical impedance analysis.

Then there are very precise methods, which are also very expensive costing upwards of several hundred dollars. These include whole-body air displacement plethysmography, near-infrared interactance and dual energy X-ray absorptiometry.

Fortunately, advances in technology are offering additional options.

Smart scales

Scales that measure body fat do this by sending a low electrical current through one foot and reading the current with a sensor under the other foot. Most of this current will flow through your “lean mass” as this is the most conductive, so none of the current will actually flow through your fat content.

Your percentage of fat is then estimated, and highly dependent on variables such as level of hydration, bone density, etc. The accuracy of body fat measurements provided by scales should therefore be taken with a grain of salt as they can be inconsistent and inaccurate at the best of times.

Essential reading: A roundup of the best smart scales on the market

Most smart scales measure more than just body fat. They measure weight of course, calculate body mass index (BMI), and some calculate lean mass, water weight and various other metrics. Equally important, smart scales also have the ability to track and store data which makes the job of keeping track of your progress that much easier. Much easier than writing everything down yourself.

For most people smart scales should provide a sufficiently precise estimate of body fat. For those more serious about their health and fitness, or for the gym rats among us, there are a couple of other interesting options worth trying out.

Skulpt Chisel

When you think of fitness trackers, Skulpt products don’t readily come to mind. That’s because they’re a different breed, that measure metrics that you wouldn’t normally capture with more ‘traditional’ activity devices. Rather than monitoring daily activities, such as steps taken and distance traveled, Skulpt Chisel measures muscle quality and body fat percentage.

The gizmo follows in the footsteps of the original first generation Aim device. The Aim was brought to life after a successful Indiegogo campaign back in 2014. That campaign set out with the goal of raising $100,000 in funding, but by the end raised four times that amount.

Just like the original, Chisel has 12 sensors on the back with optimized configurations and frequencies. These send a small current past the subcutaneous fat and through the muscle fibers, picking up thousands of data points per second. The technology then evaluates the flow of that current to measure the fat percentage per muscle, and rates that muscle’s fitness.

Chisel measures 24 different muscles on your body, providing the fat percentage and the MQ value for each individual muscle. The 24 muscles are (both left and right side): abs, biceps, calves, chest, forearms, glutes, hamstrings, lower back, quads, shoulders, triceps, and upper back.

Skulpt Chisel Gadgets & Wearables may get a commission

Is it perfect? It would be a stretch to say it is. You’ll find the little gizmo iz very sensitive to where it’s placed on the body. But with regular use, this tracker will give you better insight into your fitness and enable you to measure the results of your workouts more precisely. This will help you to understand where exactly you are losing fat and gaining muscle. Then when you head off to the gym, you’ll have a much greater understanding on which muscles you need to place most focus on.

Bello

An option in the making is called Bello. A crowdfunded project, the gizmo automatically measures fat volume around your waist with medical-grade accuracy.

It does this with near infrared spectroscopic technology and records it in the accompanying smartphone app. The company says Bello measures lipid, water, oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin making it the first portable device that can directly quantify lipid underneath the skin.

The FDA-approved product is going for around $190 on Indiegogo (50% off final retail price) which is not exactly cheap. Delivery to backers is expected this Summer.

Whether you opt for a smart scale, Skulpt Chisel or Bello, monitoring your body fat percentage is much better than just keeping tabs on your weight. Weight alone is not a good indicator of health because it does not distinguish between kilograms that come from body fat and those that come from muscle.

We are very excited where this technology will lead us and look forward to further innovative products in this area.

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Essential reading: Top fitness trackers and health gadgets

The athletic apparel brand is expanding its ecosystem of high-tech products by integrating the HOVR Infinite running shoe with Samsung’s Galaxy smartwatch, the UA MapMyRun app and JBL UA True Wireless FLASH headphones. With Under Armour, these products connect and complement each other and provide a wealth of information to enhance the running experience.

“We decided that part of this is to create a completely closed system for that consumer. So we’ve partnered with world-class experience providers in each area, rather than do it ourselves,” Jim Mollica, Under Armour’s senior vice president of consumer engagement and digital, told Sport Techie.

“Within that ecosystem you get real-time coaching, which has proven out for the average runner to get them five percent faster over a five-week period of time.”

The Samsung Watch with the MapMyRun watch app provides runners with a simple and seamless run experience while allowing them to leave their phone behind. The watch connects automatically to the HOVR Connected shoes, no set-up required. This setup can track many specific metrics in real-time, such as gait, cadence, stride length, pace and more. And by connecting their UA True Wireless Flash headphones, users get a running coach in their ear.

Under Armour debuted the line at CES 2019. The company says it will be looking for more opportunities to expand its ecosystem of connected products in the near future.

Source: Sport Techie; Under Armour

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Essential reading: Top fitness trackers and health gadgets for 2017

The company’s shares plunged on news that Q3 earnings fell 5% year-on-year to $54 million, on revenue of $1.4 billion. Market analysts had expected revenue to come in at $1.48 billion. Furthermore, Under Armour slashed its full year 2017 sales forecast citing lower demand in the United States and operational challenges. The company’s shares are now down more than 50% since the start of the year.

“While our international business continues to deliver against our ambition of building a global brand, operational challenges and lower demand in North America resulted in third quarter revenue that was below our expectations,” Under Armour Chairman and CEO Kevin Plank said in the earnings release.

“Based on these issues in our largest market, we believe it is prudent to reduce our sales and earnings outlook for the remainder of 2017.”

The outfit was founded back in 1996 by Kevin Plank, a then 23-year-old former special teams captain of the University of Maryland football team. Plank set up shop in his grandmother’s basement and, just when he was about to go broke, scored his first big sale, to Georgia Tech.

While the giant in sports apparel has a good following amongst youth, it has struggled to generate sufficient demand. Expansion into footwear, digital apps and wearables has not yielded the results expected. In a change of direction, the company is now pulling back from the wearables market.

Taking cue from Nike and its partnership with Apple, Under Armour will now focus on developing its software platform and forging partnerships instead. It will still sell its fitness tracker, heart-rate strap and smart scale but don’t expect anything new in the foreseeable future.

Source: CNBC; the Wall Street Journal

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The outfit was founded back in 1996 by Kevin Plank, a then 23-year-old former special teams captain of the University of Maryland football team. Plank set up shop in his grandmother’s basement and, just when he was about to go broke, scored his first big sale, to Georgia Tech.

Since then, Under Armour has grown to become a leading innovater in the health and fitness space employing some 13,500 around the world. They have an extensive line of workout apparel and accessories for athletes. The company has recently launched an all-encompassing package that can track and record every aspect of your health and fitness, a product called HealthBox.

Essential reading: Under Armour and HTC launch a family of fitness devices

HealthBox combines a fitness tracker with a heart-rate strap and a smart scale. All of these are intended to be used with their companion smartphone app, which can also work with other fitness trackers. Later on, the company added heart rate monitoring headphones to the family of devices, as well as the Speedform Gemini 2 RE smart running shoes which have built-in ability to track your runs.

While the Healthbox has received a lukewarm reception, there is lots of potential. Sales have apparently been doing well enough to warrant expanding outside the US.

The company’s chief digital officer Mike Lee recently hinted that it is preparing to launch several new products in 2017.

“We (Under Armour) plan to make more announcements on this front in early 2017,” Lee said.

Given that the company showed off its existing products at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, it is quite possible it may do the same at CES 2017 in a couple of months time.

“Our team is pleasantly surprised to see the amount of people that are engaging with sleep,” Lee added.

‘Through the automatic sleep tracking of UA Band, we have found that our consumers are not only logging sleep but interacting with the data through UA Record as well. Our community is beginning to understand the importance of sleep and how it plays into the overall ecosystem of sleep, fitness, activity and nutrition.”

Lee also spoke about the importance of food tracking and his belief that we are only scratching the surface of what can be achieved in this area. He should know. Lee co-founded MyFitnessPal, a free online calorie counter and diet plan that is now integrated into the Under Armour Record companion app.

We do not really know at this stage what Under Armour has in store, but watch this space. The company looks set to go head to head with the likes of Fitbit and Apple in its quest to become a major player in the wearable technology arena.

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HealthBox combines a fitness tracker with a heart-rate strap and a smart scale. All of these are intended to be used with the updated Record smartphone app, which can also work with other fitness trackers.

The UA Band is capable of all the usual activity tracking features, including step counting and sleep monitoring, along with a heart rate monitor. Alongside the Band is the UA Scale which joins an increasingly crowded market of connected scales. This is a sleek, glass-covered device that is able to recognise up to 8 users. In addition to weight, it can monitor body fat. Interestingly, the scale has speaker notifications to give you audible updates on progress and a welcome in the morning.

Finally, there is the UA Heart Rate chest strap which will provide you with more precise heart rate measurements than the band, and will let you track workout intensity and heart rate zones.

While the Healthbox has received a lukewarm reception, there is lots of potential. Sales have apparently been doing well enough to warrant expanding outside the US.

As of today, you can purchase Under Armour’s family of fitness devices in Europe and the UK. In the meantime, US customers have seen a limited time reduction in price to $350. In Europe, the retail price is set at around £350 for the three devices, while the Band on its own retails for £149.

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The purchase represents a strategy correction from Nokia, as the company continues to find its way after selling its mobile phone division to Microsoft two years ago. The planned transaction does not represent  much of a surprise, as Nokia has said that it was looking to branch out into health and wearables, as well as the internet of things.

“We have said consistently that digital health was an area of strategic interest to Nokia, and we are now taking concrete action to tap the opportunity in this large and important market,” said Rajeev Suri, CEO of Nokia.

“With this acquisition, Nokia is strengthening its position in the internet of things in a way that leverages the power of our trusted brand, fits with our company purpose of expanding the human possibilities of the connected world, and puts us at the heart of a very large addressable market where we can make a meaningful difference in peoples’ lives.”

Withings is the creator of a wide portfolio of wearable devices and high tech gadgets. This includes its stylish Activite range of watches, the recently announced E Ink tracker and thermometer, along with its connected range of products that include smart scales, a air quality detecting camera, sleep system and blood pressure monitor.

“Since we started Withings, our passion has been in empowering people to track their lifestyle and improve their health and wellbeing,” said Cédric Hutchings, CEO of Withings.

“We’re excited to join Nokia to help bring our vision of connected health to more people around the world.”

The news follows on the heels of a number of deals in the wearables space over the past year or so. This includes Under Armours trio of purchases (MapMyFitness, Endomondo and MyFitnessPal), as well as buys from Asics (Runkeeper), Fossil Group (Misfit), Adidas (Runtastic) and Intel (Basis Science).

The latest acquisition will be settled in cash and is expected to close in early Q3, 2016 subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

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The study was published by 7Park Data. The market research company analysed a US panel of millions of mobile device users to gain insight into wearable fitness tracker app usage. Unsurprisingly, the results show Fitbit far ahead of the pack with a whopping 73% share of ‘user minutes’ in 2015. It was followed by Under Armour and Up by Jawbone with just over 7% each.

“After capturing a new wave of daily active users thanks to seasonal enthusiasm during the holidays, Fitbit maintained its user engagement and continued the trend of keeping post-season fitness converts in 2016,” the report read.

The chart below shows the breakdown of usage:In terms of growth, we get more interesting results. The 7Park Data report shows that Under Armour Record ‘user minutes’  increased by 607% from the first quarter of this year compared to the same time last year. It was followed in second place by Garmin Connect with a 194% increase, Fitbit 124% and Strava 42%.

Essential reading: People love their fitness trackers – but not the apps

What we do need to take into account though, is that some of these apps have started off from a lower usage point, which means that even though the Under Armour Record app saw a six-fold increase in usage, the app still accounts for a small share of the overall total.

“Under Armour Record is integrated with all other Under Armour’s fitness and nutrition apps, allowing users to track all their activities in one place. This may explain the app’s rapid adoption and growth,” the report said.

In any case, the good news is that more and more of us who put on fitness trackers, tend to keep them on. At least until we purchase the next generation device.

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