This week in The Wrap, there is a lot of news on hand with information to bring from Withings, Fitbit and Huawei. Also, we’ll talk about the PlayStation changes and review Apple’s MacBook Pro M2, all in five minutes.
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Transcript
During the last week of June this year, you’re listening to The Wrap, Australia’s fastest tech summary, and with the end of the year in plain sight, you might be surprised to learn that very little of what’s going on out there you actually have to do it.
Of course, you can use this week, the last remaining days of the Australian financial year 2021-2022 to look for technology deals if needed. But this week we’ve heard less about your wallet and more about your hands, because hands and wrists are part of the big news of the week.
Withings has a part in it, excuse the pun, taking advantage of the week to announce a new variation of its ScanWatch, which a couple of years ago was Australia’s first approved smartwatch with an ECG and an electrocardiograph, able to give you some insight. as for your heart.
Two years is a long time in the world of wearables, and while Apple and Samsung offer the technology to their devices locally, Withings is updating things again. The changes in the underlying technology of the new ScanWatch Horizon are not big, with the look more focused on this model. Instead of offering a simple watch style with a sleek design, the HorWan ScanWatch is made of stainless steel with a nautical focus, made to be larger than the minimalist approach of yesteryear.
It’s still the same technology, with the ECG, heart rate tracking and sleep focus, plus a small screen, but it looks more like a metal clock that you might see your father or grandfather swinging. -se.
Fitbit this week is also adding to the news on laptops, launching a new sleep tracker for many of its wearables, with a sleep tracker profiler for a month. Owners of a selection of Fitbit clothing devices that are also subscribing to the Fitbit Premium service will see tracking the time it takes before falling asleep, sleeping time, variations, and a host of other factors. all to get a measure of how you sleep and hopefully offer improvements.
They probably don’t have a section for parents caring for babies, so hopefully a bit of a bonus section that takes this into account, but if you have trouble sleeping and don’t have any kind of in your life, just could provide this little extra information to help.
And Huawei also has some handsets in this area, as the previous strong hit of smartphones also offers some technology for your wrists.
You haven’t seen a lot of Huawei lately, thanks in part to all the trade issues with the U.S. government. Without the ability to run the Google Play Store, Huawei phones are very niche locally. It can still be used, but hardly.
But their wearables have use, because they don’t need Google to work, and they can run on Android and iOS devices without worries.
There are a few more this week, and one is very interesting. There’s the Watch Fit 2, which is like a more budget-focused style of Apple Watch not made by Apple, a band 7 clearly inspired by Fitbit and a premium circular model, the Watch GT3 Pro.
But what catches us is the Watch D, an eight-hundred-dollar smartwatch that includes something we’d never seen on a watch: a blood pressure monitor.
We’ve been trying it out for most of a week, and it’s a total surprise. While the Watch D looks and feels like a thicker Apple Watch, it focuses almost entirely on health.
There is no payment support and the faces of the watch need more delicacy, but the blood pressure function is solid. It’s like a health-focused watch, though you need to be prepared to spend it. It is surprisingly charming, which is certainly nice to see.
However, wearables aren’t all we’ve heard this week. The games showed up, with Sony relaunching its PlayStation Plus service with three levels and basically doing what Netflix does for movies, but for games. Xbox already has it with Game Pass, and Sony does it for PlayStation on PS Plus.
Australians will miss the cloud games and PS3 titles, but depending on how much you spend, the games are basically available for PS4, PS5 and even some of the older consoles.
And finally, we’re looking at Apple’s latest MacBook, the M2 MacBook Pro, which is basically a preview of the upcoming Air. The new Air has a new design and a new chip, and while it won’t be out until July, the 13-inch Pro sets the pace.
With solid performance, it’s one of the fastest laptops you can find, but it may seem a bit like yesterday’s technology. It has the older design of the Macbook Pro, an older screen, fewer ports, and generally sits below where the 14-inch MacBook Pro is, despite being only a few hundred less.
It’s very hard to give a recommendation to the 13-inch Macbook Pro M2, because we don’t know what it’s for. Most will likely end up in the air, while Pro users will actually be better off with the 14-inch Pro. In any case, it only offers a preview of Apple’s upcoming computers. The next Air that is just around the corner.
For now, you’ve been listening to The Wrap, Australia’s fastest tech summary. A new episode can be found every week on Listener, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. For now, have a great week and see you next time at The Wrap. Stay safe, stay healthy and take care of yourself.