Samsung teams up with Adidas to launch fitness phone miCoach

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"miCoach is the most advanced interactive training system in the marketplace, blending sophisticated mobile technology with the most advanced in sport innovation and training," said Eric Liedtke, VP of Adidas Brand Marketing. "The uniqueness of miCoach is that it collects and analyzes personal data and then customizes training plans based on your fitness level and specific goals, while giving you real-time feedback during your workout via the miCoach phone."

Primarily, miCoach training system includes a quad band slider phone from Samsung acting as a fitness trainer, a heart rate monitor tuning into the rhythm of the user's body, a stride sensor to measure speed and distance while running and a web workout journal to help people design and keep track of fitness programs.

With SGH-F110 miCoach, users can get the 'personalized trainer' feel as the system encourages them as they run, telling them to "speed up" if they aren't keeping pace, and giving them updates on their heart rate, time left in their run, and more. Users are offered several targets, such as a certain period elapsing or asking the user to pace their progress further to achieve a desired level. Together with that the system also provides training tips and time updates during workouts.

All the information that the miCoach system reads is stored on the phone itself, and can later be checked, or uploaded to the miCoach fitness website. And using the data collected from the two sensors, the device analyzes and creates a personalized training program based on individual fitness level.

The miCoach mobile phone, SGH-F110 is a slim, 14.5-millimeter thick slider handset with a 2-inch LCD screen with a textured back to offer better grip. It comes in seven colors, including pink, red, dark gray, sapphire and silver. The handset includes a 2-megapixel camera and offers USB as well as Bluetooth connectivity.

miCoach is the latest in a series of gadgets aimed at health conscious gadget fans, following on from the Nike+ iPod alliance, and preceding Nintendo's forthcoming Wii Fit computer game.

Apple and Nike started the craze by introducing the Nike+iPod sports kit in the U.S. in July, 2006 aimed at people with active lifestyles.

The Nike+iPod system also keeps track of workouts, telling runners the distance traveled, calories burned and other information informing the user via earphones, as well as on the iPod display screen.

But the part where miCoach scores is that the user gets a Samsung mobile phone, while in the earlier combo the Apple one is just a music player. Any runner can stop their music and workout by pressing a button on the miCoach, then answer a phone call.

Though with the current offering of 1Gb memory they could have done better as comparatively the iPod Nano comes in 4Gb and 8Gb capacities.

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