- Samsung on Thursday, June 2 unveiled a $199 pair of smart earbuds called the Gear IconX, Engadget reports.
Samsung says the IconX is meant for people who have a more casual relationship with exercise. Each bud weighs 6.3 grams. The device tells you how far you've run, how fast you're going and how fast your heart is beating. There's a heart-rate sensor built into these things, the technology website says. Also, there's a voice coach feature, which is meant to help runners trim their lap times and surge into higher intensity zones.
The IconX has 4GB of internal storage. Usually, only one earbud is connected directly to the phone; the other connects to the first bud to keep audio playing at the same time.
Each bud has a sort of capacitive touch patch on it, and the gestures needed to use it are easy to learn. If you need to change tracks, double-tap to skip to the next one or triple-tap to go back.
The IconX will last for 3.6 hours on a charge. That estimate dips to 3.4 hours if you throw in some workout tracking, and plummets to 1.5 hours if you're streaming music from a phone with activity tracking on.
