There’s a new fitness band on the market from GOQii. It looks like many other fitness bands, with one important difference; it’s free. You get one at no charge when you sign up for the health and fitness services that help you make the most of the device. The product and service is currently only available in India and is now rolling out in the United Arab Emirates, but a yearly subscription in India costs less than US $200.
The wrist band has an OLED touch screen display, and is designed to run for three or four days between charges. It communicates wirelessly via Bluetooth LE to your smartphone, and the data is relayed to the cloud where it is accessed and analyzed by company nutritionists and health experts. You are assigned a coach who helps you set goals and encourages you to achieve them. This is intended to help users maintain their use of the system, which has been a problem with some of the fitness bands to this point. If you achieve your goal, your coach can send you a “high five” that will display on the band. And since the band displays time and date, you won’t need a separate watch.
You can even earn “karma” points as you improve your lifestyle through diet and exercise. You can then choose to donate those points to various charities, so that you can do good for others at the same time that you are doing good for yourself.
