Fitbit's First Smartwatch, Codenamed Higgs, Appears In Leaked Photos

Fitbit’s first real smartwatch has been leaked online and it carries over most of the same design elements as the Fitbit Blaze. The device was supposed to be released this spring, but several issues were to blame for its delay.

The photos of Fitbit’s new smartwatch, codenamed “Higgs,” were obtained by Yahoo Finance. Higgs will be the company’s first full-fledged smartwatch as the company tries to move forward from just making simple fitness trackers.

Yahoo Finance shared two photos of Fitbit’s upcoming smartwatch; one with a gold finish and another in black and silver. The device features a square display and seems like an upgraded version of the $150 Fitbit Blaze which entered the market in early 2016.

The square display, which is housed in an aluminum chassis, is said to come with 1,000 nits of brightness similar to the Apple Watch Series 2. On the right side of the Fitbit smartwatch are two physical buttons, while its wristband appears to be a flexible elastomer.

The design of Higgs was supposed to give it a retro feel, but apparently some Fitbit employees didn’t like it. “It was very retro-looking with the lines and stuff — definitely not sexy,” a source told Yahoo Finance back in April. “Several employees who saw the design complained about it.”

As for other features, the Higgs smartwatch comes with a built-in GPS chip, a heart-rate monitor, touchless payments and the ability to store and play music from Pandora. There’s no information on the battery capacity of the device, but a couple of sources told Yahoo that Higgs has four days of battery life between charges.

Fitbit’s smartwatch was supposed to be released this spring to get ahead of Apple’s annual fall announcement. However, the development of Higgs appears to have been difficult as Fitbit struggled with various issued on the device. The new smartwatch will hit stores this fall for around $300.

One of the major issues Fitbit faced when developing Higgs was getting its GPS feature to work properly. On the near-final version of the device’s prototype, the GPS didn’t work at all because the placement of the antennae was wrong. This forced Fitbit to redesign the device so that it is able to receive strong and consistent GPS signal.

Another feature that Fitbit had trouble with was making the Higgs smartwatch fully waterproof. Waterproofing is now considered to be standard on most smartwatches. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really made clear if Fitbit was able to make its smartwatch waterproof. If it hits stores this fall without waterproofing, the Higgs could easily be seen as an inferior product and could hurt sales.

Hardware issues are normal for most devices, but Fitbit also had some trouble with its smartwatch’s software too. Fitbit first considered to get Spotify as its official music streaming partner. However, Spotify was ruled out early on in development and Pandora took its place.

Fitbit is also working on its own app store where Higgs smartwatch users will be able download and install apps. Sadly, the Fitbit app store won’t launch alongside the Higgs smartwatch. Higgs will only include a small collection of “customized apps.”

Fitbit is also planning to release a pair of Bluetooth earbuds that are currently codenamed “Parkside” internally. The new earbuds will launch alongside the Higgs smartwatch and will sell for around $150.

The Fitbit Parkside looks very similar to Apple’s BeatsX buds where it can hang around the user’s neck, as pointed out by MacRumors. It features a metallic accent while the earpiece itself feature in-ear molds. It will arrive in two color options, nightfall blue and lunar gray.