Acer Liquid Leap fitness band smartwatch announced


Acer has entered the wearables race with the Acer Liquid Leap unveiled as a fitness band designed to communicate with phones - especially Acer's.


At an event detailing the company's 'back to school' range for 2014, Acer announced the Liquid Leap fitness band.


It's a 17mm-thick rubbery band with an integrated display, a design that's familiar among the many fitness bands we've seen so far this year such as the Fitbit Flex and Huawei Talkband.


Acer said it wants to make the Liquid Leap as “simple as possible”, but that it will offer activity tracking, and will be able to separate different activities.


“We've been very careful about what we do with wearable,” said Acer's CEO, and this cautious approach will continue with the roll-out of the Liquid Leap.


It will not be available in all countries at launch and will start shipping in the “end of July, beginning of August.”


The Liquid Leap uses a small OLED screen, letting it provide notifications as well as fitness tracking. In this sense it is somewhat similar to the Samsung Gear Fit.


Rather than using a removable core that you charge up, the underside of the Liquid Leap has a little charging contact that connects with a separate dock charger.


The Leap Liquid does not have GPS or a heart rate sensor, instead using motion sensors to record things like the number of step you take. This data is then transferred to your phone over Bluetooth.


Acer is keen to stress how well the phone pairs up with the upcoming Acer Liquid Jade, a high-end Android phone due to launch around the same time as the Leap. However, Acer's phones receive pretty poor distribution in the UK compared to other big-name manufacturers.


Acer says the Leap will come in five colours, including black and red. However, exact UK pricing is not yet available.


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