Puma smartwatch and self-lacing show

Image via Puma

Wearable Tech: A look at Puma’s smartwatch and self-lacing shoe

Puma partnered with the Fossil Group to create their own smartwatch.

Puma smartwatch and self-lacing show

Image via Puma

Europe’s biggest tech show is currently underway in Berlin. IFA 2019 will see the world’s biggest tech manufacturers tease their upcoming products and technologies.

A little bit surprisingly, in between Sony and Samsung German Sports, manufacturing giant Puma will be unveiling their first foray into the smartwatch market.

While it’s not uncommon to see sports branding on wearables up until now, that has mostly taken the form of special edition versions of existing products with company branding added; such as the Under Armour edition of the Samsung Watch Active 2 or the Apple Watch Nike+ series.

Puma have instead decided to partner with the Fossil Group and create their own smartwatch rather than piggyback on an existing product.

Puma’s Wear OS smartwatch 

Puma and the Fossil group have spent the last 12 months bringing the sports wearable to market. Only time will tell if the reward is worth the risk.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 chipset will power the Puma smartwatch and run Google’s Wear OS. The watch will have a 1.19-inch AMOLED display housed in a 44mm nylon and aluminium.

Puma have positioned their smartwatch somewhere between a lifestyle product and a sports wearable. The watch has a clean, attractive design; it is super light coming in at just 0.06 pounds or just over 27g.

Puma smartwatch self-lacing shoe
Image via Puma

Also read – Huawei Band 3 Pro: Why I dumped Fitbit for a cheaper fitness tracker

The watch is swim-proof, and with it running Wear OS should be equipped with NFC payments, heart rate monitoring, fitness tracking and Google Assistant integration.

The watch will ship with 4GB of storage and have 512MB of RAM which is par for most current wearables. Puma promises 24 hours of battery life and the watch will support 16mm straps using a single prong strap.

Puma’s wirelessly-connected self-lacing sneaker

While this is Puma’s first try at creating a smartwatch, the company is no stranger to merging sports and technology. Puma famously released a wirelessly-connected self-lacing sneaker, The AutoDisc, way back in 2016 already.

Earlier this year Puma announced that they were releasing a successor to the AutoDisc called the Fi; which is short for Fit Intelligence, will be equipped with micromotor that can be controlled from the shoe’s tongue.

It will allow the user to dial in the perfect fit for their sporting needs. Notably, the shoe won’t have any tracking tools so you’ll definitely not need to tie a lace ever again.

However, you will still need a watch, maybe even one made by Puma; if you want to keep track of your workouts.

Watch: Puma’s self-lacing training shoe