CES 2016 – speculation on what will come for us sports gadget people

Garmin will almost certainly release something fairly major and my guess would be an Edge 800 series model.  Maybe something optical (optical Fenix 3 announced) and running as well. There could be several products OR, in line with 2015’s strategy, one big one followed by a new product every month for the next few months. A new 800 or a Fenix 4 (930?) would count as a big release IMO but there seems to be a lot going on with updates to the F3 and 920 so my enthusiasm and expectations there have waned somewhat. Although the now-announced Fenix 3 with optical HRM is interesting 😉 There is a new Garmin TACTIX too but I’m not so interested in that.

Suunto have been very quiet with announcements and improvements, although they have released some products that you might not have heard about like the Suunto Traverse / Kailish but that’s not really the sort of stuff we cover. So will it be the eagerly awaited AMBIT 4. Maaaaaaaybe.

Polar have been busy with the nice-looking A360 and lots of minor announcements and upgrades but we’re probably due new bike/run and tri watches from them. It’s just a case of which will come first. All the current products in those categories were discounted before Christmas like the now-rather-good-V800 at under £200…bargain!

adidas have been quiet for a while. They’re investing in the market and the good miCoach running watch was some time ago and ahead of its time. Epson released something recently in the US with the SF-110 but if they’re serious about the sports and tracking markets then they will need to be announcing at CES, I thought they had plans to expand beyond their excellent running watch SF-810 into a tri watch…but I’m still waiting. My best guess for Epson would be a new tracker/sports band – a better looking version of the Pulsense PS-500

TomTom have done well with the Spark/Runner 2. Was that a sign of more things to come or a culmination of the efforts of a couple of years of hard work? I suspect more but I’m not sure about this week, although maybe a triathlon version of the Runner 2 would be plausible.

Wahoo will obviously be pushing the ELEMNT. Probably not anything else major.

MIO must have made a bit of money from their dalliance with Garmin. Or has the rug been pulled from underneath their feet with Garmin’s own optical HR development? MIO’s Link is still popular (and as good as it always was). Let’s hope they’ve been investing in R&D and have something to show – edit: MIO Slice – essentially an updated MIO Fuse.

The other MIO people, Magellan, have been heavily discounting their products eg the Cyclo 505HC. Either pulling out of the market (unlikely) or, hopefully, sprucing up their very decent product set.

Of course there will be Samsung/Microsft/Apple type things but let’s wait. FITBIT comments below.

Edit: CES is coming to a close and I’m a little disappointed but looking forward to late winter/early spring announcements instead.