The excitement. The anticipation. The leaks and the PR stunts. The gossip. And finally, the iPhone 4S.
Apple’s veiled approach to releasing new products always generates to a lot of excitement and even more rumors, and the chatter around release of the iPhone 4S was no exception. Even as developer of Apple compatible products, Wahoo Fitness and others were left in the dark, forced to wait for the official Apple announcement before beginning any development on compatible products. Well, here at Wahoo we don’t like to wait. One of the things we love about working for a small company is that we can be flexible and get things done quickly. And we can take risks. Big risks.
While the rumor mill was pumping out chatter on what the iPhone 4S would include, we had our ear to the ground. We like to think of ourselves as leaders in fitness technology and wanted to do the best things for our users. And with what we were hearing, we decided to take one of those big risks and go out and develop some products that we hoped would be compatible with the new iPhone 4S. Lucky for us, the bet paid off. And lucky for you, we’ve got some AWESOME new products for iPhone 4S users coming down the line.
In case you haven’t heard, the iPhone 4S has integrated Bluetooth Smart technology—it’s “Bluetooth Smart Ready”. This is the latest generation (4.0) of Bluetooth wireless technology and features ultra-low power consumption. TheBluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) released a great statement about all the potential uses of Bluetooth Smart:
“Bluetooth Smart devices are designed to gather a specific type of information—are all the windows on my house locked, what is my insulin level, how much do I weigh today?—and send it to a Bluetooth Smart Ready device. Examples include heart-rate monitors, blood-glucose meters, smart watches, window and door security sensors, key fobs for your car, and blood-pressure cuffs—the opportunities are endless.”
At first read, you are probably thinking, “Great! I can now do a few more awesome things with my iPhone 4S (and other Apple products like MacBook Air).” But this statement actually means a lot more – it's a seminal event in Apple’s accessory strategy and is a huge benefit to the end users. It’s an open door for inventive, creative companies to develop any accessory they can dream up and use Bluetooth Smart technology to connect it to an iPhone. In the past developers (like us) had to wait for established and approved protocols in order to connect something to an iPhone. Wahoo Fitness has been successful in pushing the boundaries with the ANT+ technology, but Apple just took it to a whole new level. Now there are no restrictions. This is a classic example of Apple “thinking different” – and Wahoo Fitness is committed to embracing this shift and making awesome, cutting-edge fitness sensors for smartphones, no matter what flavor of technology.
So coming to you (soon!) is the first ever Bluetooth Smart Heart Rate Strap, Wahoo Blue HR, which will connect directly to your iPhone 4S without the need for a Wahoo Key. Of course, your existing ANT+ Wahoo Key and ANT+ Heart Rate Straps will work as well. We only ordered a limited quantity, so if you want to be the first to have one you'll have to join our Wahoo Blue mailing list for the lastest news and for pre-order information.
Investing in products that work with this new technology is just another way Wahoo Fitness is working hard everyday to connect smartphones to fitness and make tracking your workouts as easy and seamless as possible so you can worry about the technology less and “Wahoo!” more.
