Yu Fit
Yu, a brand owned by Micromax, on Tuesday entered the world of wearables and fitness monitoring with two devices. While one of these, the YuFit, is fairly regular fitness band, the other device, HealthYu, is a unique small cassette shaped gadget that, according to Yu, will allow users to monitor their health in real time.
The YuFit will be sold at a price of Rs.999 while the HealthYu will carry a price tag of Rs.4,999. It will be available from Yu's official website.
Yu said the HealthYu is capable of monitoring blood pressure, body temperature, oxygen level, heart rate, respiration rate and even ECG in real time. This data can then be saved and if required shared with doctors.
In a way, the HealthYu is more of a personal medical device instead of a consumer technology gadget. While almost all phone companies, including Apple and Google, are eyeing health and fitness monitoring as the next feature for their phones, Yu is among the first phone companies to come out with gadgets that specifically monitors body vitals.
The HealthYu is small enough to be carried in a pocket. It has small suction cup like feet that help it attach to a smartphone's back cover. The device then pairs with an app running on the phone with BlueTooth and once the pairing is completed a user can keep four fingers on four visible sensor on the HealthYu to start tracking the body vitals.While the device seems to work fairly well, we are not sure about its accuracy unless it is widely tested by third-party researchers.
For the YuFit, the company is taking a slightly different approach compared to other fitness band makers. Unlike the fitness bands sold by, for example Xiaomi, the YuFit has a small display in it. This display is not only capable of showing calories burnt in a day or steps taken but also talks to the smartphone to show missed calls or notifications. It can also act as a shutter release button for the phone's camera as well as can work with the alarm in the phone to vibrate and alert consumers.
Micromax recently invested in HealthifyMe, a start-up based in Balgalore. The company is now using the technology from the HealthifyMe in its fitness devices. For example, Yu's fitness app will provide information on calories contained in food items. Wwhile apps like MyFitnessPal already do this, Yu said that for Indian food items, HealthifyMe has more accurate data.
The company will also offer a subscription service along with its fitness band. This service will give users access to personal trainers who will keep an eye on the fitness data of their subscribers and when required nudge them to jog harder.
The YuFit will work with compatible Android devices. For now Yu has not come out with a compatible app for iPhones but in future it may do so.
