New Balance is poised to enter the tech market with the introduction of their RunIQ watch.
We’re super-excited about this reveal – New Balance’s first smart watch, the RunIQ. It’s made for runners by runners, so we know it’ll have all the features we want in a running watch. In Australia the watch is available in black – it’s classic and looks good enough to wear as an everyday timepiece, which is a nice bonus.
But let’s be honest, what we’re really excited about is New Balance’s collaboration with Strava. It’s the first smart watch with on-board Strava GPS, which means you can share and access your stats in real-time.
At the launch of the watch at CES 2017 in Las Vegas, USA, Chris Ladd, Executive Vice President of New Balance, said the partnership with Strava brings running to life by creating a community of runners. With the purchase of the RunIQ runners can join the New Balance Global Run Club, a physical and virtual running community where runners share their favourite routes and accomplishments with members worldwide.
Want to train for a marathon but can’t convince anyone else to train for one with you? Well, gone are the days where you have to risk losing motivation. With the rest of the club watching your progress, you’ll stay accountable. There are also specific training programs and challenges for races and events that you can take part in either individually or with other members.
When you can sync and access music and messaging from your phone to your running watch, there’s really no reason to run with a phone, or with pesky cords. In conjunction with the release of the watch, New Balance has also released the NB PaceIQ wireless headphones, designed with help from Jabra, a leader in wireless headphone technology.
“We feel like as runners no one really wants to run with their phone anyway. We think you’ve got everything you need here – along with a set of Bluetooth headphones – to go on an awesome run,” says Ladd. We can’t wait to take the watch out for a spin and test it out for you.
The New Balance RunIQ watch is available now, visit newbalance.com.au for more details.
