While Google Glass didn’t quite catch on as the company had hoped, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an entirely bad idea. Especially in special use case scenarios. Enter: Garmin’s Varia Vision, a wearable headset designed for cyclists.

The Garmin Varia Vision features a small display that rests directly below your eye, and serves several purposes. Along with working to show you notifications and the like, it also features ride data cyclists might find useful like distance traveled, time, navigation prompts and performance alerts.

Coming in at $400, the Varia Vision fits onto either side of existing sunglasses for customizable comfort. Look for it to launch this April.

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There’s a new name in complete connected fitness systems that comes with a trusted brand reputation. HTC and Under Armour have partnered to unveil the UA Healthbox today, a fitness ecosystem that consists of a fitness tracker, heart rate monitor and scale that are well integrated with Under Armour’s suite of fitness apps like the well-loved My Fitness Pal.

The UA Band is a wearable, much like the Fitbit Charge with the design of a Nike Fuleband, the UA Heart Rate is an accurate chest strap and the UA Scale is a WiFi connected scale. All three work together to paint a more complete picture of your health, which is recorded and measured in Under Armour’s Record app.

At first blush, you might think Under Armour and HTC will have a hard time differentiating their connected fitness system next to Fitbit and Withings, but by bundling the products together under a trusted name, utilizing apps people already know and love, the UA Healthbox is already off to a better start than some competitors.

The UA Healthbox will be available January 22 for $400.

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Jaybird has consistently put out some of our favorite wireless earbuds for the last several years, and at first glance it looks like that track record is going to continue with the updated Jaybird Freedom and Jaybird X3.

The new highlight feature for both is the new MySound app, giving users the ability to create completely customized sound profiles for their wireless earbuds that actually stay with the hardware. So once you have the sound set just the way you like it, they will retain that sound profile until you log back into the app to make a change, no matter what device you switch to.

We have been recommending the Jaybird X line as perhaps the best option for sports-focused wireless earbuds for years now, and the X3 looks primed to live up to its lineage.

The design of the X3 hasn’t undergone any major changes from the X2, but frankly that isn’t terribly surprising given that the X2 have only been available since last August. The starting price on the X3 has slimmed down to $149 from the $179 that the X2 commanded at launch. The X3 will be available starting in Q3.

The Freedoms, on the other hand, have gone through a dramatic transformation from previous iterations and will be the high-end option from Jaybird at $199 when they launch in Q2. But with this stunning new design, they easily justify that price point.

The Freedom headphones have switched to metal construction for the earbuds and the inline remote. It is truly amazing how much they managed to slim down the design on these headphones, I haven’t seen any wireless earbuds to date that can match what Jaybird has done with the Freedoms. Jaybird claims they are “the only buds you’ll ever need for fashion, fitness and work.”

By themselves, the Freedom wireless earbuds offer 4 hours of battery life, which would be a little short on its own. But in one of my favorite new trends with wireless headphones, they also include a charging clip that carries with it an additional four hours of battery life, which means you can probably go outlet free with your wireless headphones for the better part of a week.

What do you think of the new offerings from Jaybird?

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Misfit is back at CES with a new fitness and sleep tracker – the Misfit Ray. The wearable is equipped with a 3-axis accelerometer, multicolor LED and vibration motor for “inactivity nudges” for call and message notifications along with a silent alarm. Like other Misfit devices, the Ray is water resistant (up to 50 meters) and runs on a user-replaceable battery which lasts up to six months.

While its previous devices were designed to go unnoticed, the Misfit Ray has been meticulously crafted to be to look more like a fashion accessory than a fitness tracker.  The cylindrical aluminum body of the Ray comes is Rose Gold and Carbon Black and is 38mm long and a mere 12mm thick. The Misfit Ray comes with a rubberized bracelet band, but Misfit has engineered the Ray so that it can be used with custom wrist and necklace accessories.

In addition to keeping track if your daily steps and sleep patterns, the Misfit Ray also works with the company’s Misfit Link app which turns the Ray into a remote for your phone, giving your the ability to control the camera, music, send messages and even trigger ITTT recipes.

The Misfit way is available for pre-orders on Misfit’s website now for $99, but won’t be shipping out to customers until sometime this Spring.

Gallery

Show Press Release

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LG has already announced the LG K7 and LG K10 at CES 2016, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t be seeing anything else from the Korean conglomerate. Yes, the company’s CES announcements typically revolve around new TVs, washing machines and connected home initiatives, but we’re hoping that LG has a new high-end smartphone or tablet that they plan to show off on stage. If now, we’re sure we’ll be seeing quite a few of them at Mobile World Congress at the end of February.

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The doors to the show floor don’t officially open until tomorrow, but CES 2016 is well under way. With the sun set to rise in Las Vegas in a few hours, we thought we’d give you a quick highlight of yesterday’s news since there’s a good chance that you didn’t get around to reading all of it.

Smartphones

The most exciting smartphone news from yesterday was the announcement that the Asus ZenFone Zoom with its 3X optical zoom camera will finally go on sale this quarter for $400 in the US. LG and Alcatel also chimed in with a handful of mid and low-end Android smartphones. LG’s K-series devices should be quite cheap, but come with 2.5D Arc Glass around the front and woven texture polycarbonate finish on the back which give the devices a premium fit and finish. The Alcatel PIXI 4 family is made up of four “Premium Entry-Level Devices” which include 3.5-inch, 4-inch  and 6-inch smartphones along with a 7-inch tablet. Besides the 3.5-inch phone, the PIXI 4 lineup is equipped with quad-core processors.

Unrelated to CES, the Samsung Galaxy A9 went on sale in China for roughly $500 and two new rumors regarding the Samsung Galaxy S7 popped up. One claimed that we would see a 5.7-inch variant of Samsung’s flagship phone with a 12 megapixel camera while the other claimed that microSD card support will return on the 2016 flagship phone.

Android Auto

We saw a handful of Android Auto announcements at CES 2015, but the platform is slowly making it way to more manufacturers in 2016. Ford will have Android Auto pre-installed on its Sync 3 infotainment system in its 2017 models and will even be updating 2016 models later in the year. Even Fiat Chrysler is committing to Android Auto in 2016 with plans to include the system on its uConnect platform which is used by Fiat, Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep.

Accessories

While there were a few dozen new smartphone accessories unveiled yesterday, the most exciting were the Altec Lansing Freedom Earbuds, Mad Catz’ “Designed for Samsung” announcement and the 2G smartwatch from Alcatel. The Freedom Earbuds offer true wireless freedom as the two separate earphones are not connected with a cable. They also offer IPX7-rated waterproofing with six-hours of battery life and a carrying case offers a three-hour additional charge and will be available in Q2 for $150.  The “Designed for Samsung” announcement from Mad Catz did not include any new smartphone gaming accessories that aren’t already on the market, but it guarantees that its products will be tested and certified to meet Samsung standards. This means you will not have any connectivity or usability issues if you invest in is a Mad Catz  “Designed for Samsung” accessory.

The Alcatel CareTime is a smartwatch for your kids with 2G connectivity. The colorful smartwatch features integrated GPS so that you can keep track of your children at all time and even comes with geo fencing capabilities. Anyone wearing the watch can make or receive calls and messages from pre-set numbers.

ChromeOS

Android related news is always fun to keep up with, but CES 2016 is turning out to be a big year for ChromeOS. Lenovo announced a high-end ThinkPad 13 Chromebook while Acer showed off its decently spec’d 24-inch Chromebase all-in-one and the entry-level CB3-131 Chromebook. We expect to see a few more ChromeOS devices to show their faced before CES closes up shop later this week.

Today

As today is CES Press Day, we’ll be seeing a lot of product announcement from big players like Samsung, LG, Sony, Huawei, Qualcomm and more. We’ll be covering all the stories as they unfold, but we’ll also be rolling the highlights into another recap post tomorrow morning. Stay tuned!

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