Microsoft plans to phase out its Band fitness tracker, the second cutting-edge tech product to face a day of reckoning today after live-streaming app Meerkat also announced it would close its doors.
Like Meerkat, which was an alternative to the more popular Twitter-owned Periscope live streaming platform, the Band struggled to compete in the wearables market. It was teeming with features not found in many other activity trackers, though it suffered from an uncomfortable design and an awkward touch screen.
Microsoft confirmed today that it has stopped selling the latest Band 2 on its website and has no immediate plans to introduce a successor.
"We have sold through our existing Band 2 inventory and have no plans to release another Band device this year," the company said in a statement to ZDNet. "We remain committed to supporting our Microsoft Band 2 customers through Microsoft Stores and our customer support channels and will continue to invest in the Microsoft Health platform, which is open to all hardware and apps partners across Windows, iOS, and Android devices."
The $250 Band 2 continued the original Band's theme of being feature-packed but uncomfortable to wear. In his review, PCMag analyst Tim Torres found that the discomfort stems from its curved AMOLED touch screen, which is built right into the wristband. That means the display is situated horizontally across your wrist, so you have to orient your entire forearm in an awkward, skewed way to look at it dead on.
Although Microsoft may be phasing out the Band, its continued support for the Microsoft Health platform indicates a desire to compete with similar offerings from Apple and Google. Microsoft's plan, as ZDNet notes, appears to be to rebrand the Health platform as a service for obtaining health and fitness insights regardless of what type of fitness tracker its users are wearing.