Just how many activity trackers can this emerging, but admittedly niche market support? We have no idea, but Withings is hoping that there's room for at least one more. The company will be releasing the Pulse tomorrow for $99, and taking on veterans of the scene like Fitbit and relative newcomers like Jawbone. The tiny device counts steps, monitors your sleep patterns and can even measure your heart rate. Unfortunately, it can't do the latter constantly and in real time, though, that might be a slightly unrealistic expectation of any tracker. Like some of Fitbit's products it can also monitor your altitude, which is great for people who want to know how many steps they've climbed. The Pulse itself is quite small, about the size of standard issue pedometer and almost as light. The casing is made of a nice soft touch plastic that feels down right lovely in the hand, which is good since you'll be manhandling the Pulse more than most other trackers. It's a far cry from the glossy piano black finish it sported at CES.
On the top is a singe button that wakes the display and cycles through the various screens of stats, including the number of steps taken, calories burned and total distance traveled. The display is one of the more helpful we've seen on such a device. It's hardly a high-res LCD, but the monochrome panel is dense enough to spit out usable data with a quick glance. It also happens to be touch sensitive. A firmware update coming tomorrow will allow you to swipe through up to 14 days of activity, but the prototype we handled only had a one day history. The screen was relatively responsive to our input, though it struggled a bit when we tried to swipe down to initiate the heart rate monitor from the menu. Once you do get it to launch, you'll need to press your finger firmly against the sensors on the back. We had mixed success getting the Pulse to actually monitor our beating heart, however. It worked just fine for one of our editors, while the other is apparently the waking dead.
Withings is nice enough to include both a rubbery clip and a soft cloth band in the package. While you could theoretically wear it in the band all day, it's meant primarily to be worn while sleeping. Obviously it's going to be hard to pass judgement on the Pulse after just a few short minutes handling it, but it definitely shows promise. Check back for our full review in the coming weeks.
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