Any smart device comes with its own set of benefits and trade-offs, but there’s a big shoe waiting to drop with every one of them: anything connected can be cut at the other end, and nothing you the customer can do it. about you. Today’s example of smart stuff going dumb comes courtesy of Under Armour, which wants to render its fitness line of hardware very expensive paperweights.
The company quietly pulled its UA downloadable app from both Google Play and the Apple App Store on New Year’s Eve. In an announcement dated around January 8, Under Armor said that not only has the app been removed from all app stores, but the company does not provide customer support or bug fixes for the software. that, which will stop working completely as of March 31. .
Under Armor launched a lineup of connected fitness devices in 2016. Three of the trackers include a wrist-based activity monitor, a smart watch, and a heart-rate monitor. The ring and wrist strap retail for $180 each, with the monitor going for $80. Consumers can purchase all three together in a $400 bundle called the UA HealthBox.
Ars’ review at the time noted that none of the components, by nature, was a conflict, but as a three of them they spoke to each other for good reason. The linchpin of the whole operation is, instead, the software: the Under Armor Recording App. The record ties all the data from every app together into a complete health, fitness, and wellness log, allowing the user to see both high-level and granular data about their activity, weight, sleep, heart rate, and other metrics. The registry also serves as a one-stop shop for editing settings on any device.
In 2017, less than two years after launching the HealthBox line, the company gave up on the project. HealthBox, and the three products it contains, gradually disappeared from physical stores and digital shelves. “I think the market has come and we’ve come with it,” Under Armour’s chief technology officer said at the time. The company will instead return to its roots as a clothing line and focus on actual wearables, such as connected shoes, with a doubling down on the MyFitnessPal app, which it is. agreed in 2015.
Customers who have already spent hundreds of dollars on UA’s wearable line, however, can continue using them—until now. The end of the road is near, it seems, and all three products are about to meet their doom as Under Armor has killed Record for good. Users are instead expected to switch to MapMyFitness, which Under Armor bills as “an even better tracking experience.” The company also set a UA record Twitter account to private, effectively take offline to anyone except the following 133 accounts.
Download, however, collects and presents more data to users than MapMyFitness does. Under Armor writes in its FAQ to its customers:
Is there any data from the Record that is not available in MapMyFitness?
Yes—Steps, Sleep, Weight, How Do You Feel?, Resting Heart Rate, and Snack data will not be available in MapMy. Additionally, body fat percentage goals and images and some UA Record profile fields will not be transferred to MapMy.
Current device owners also cannot export all their data. While workout data can be exported and moved to some other tracking application, registered users cannot take weight or other historical data to carry forward with them.
A RSS told Ars that Under Armor did not provide any notification of Gba’s demise to customers who were using the app, based on the sun’s day on them as a silent surprise. (Update: After publication, an Under Armor representative told Ars that all registered users had been contacted by email on Dec. 20 or 21.)
The story of Under Armour’s scale of failure is, unfortunately, something of an endemic side-effect to the Internet of things. Not only can a company choose to pull the warranty you need to phone home at any time, but the company also has access and costs money all the time.
When this design involves something small and inexpensive like a smartbulb, disconnection is annoying but comparatively low-stakes. But when you have something like a $300 smart-home hubor $1,200 worth of home security products, consumers who have invested a fair amount of money in something are suddenly in flux.