Reasons why you won’t see an ECG monitor on a Fitbit yet

Fitbit recently just announced its new line of devices, but before you ask where the ECG monitor is, the company’s CEO James Park has an explanation for the exemption. He says they are working on a version of it for its trackers. But don’t expect it to come out soon. Park gave two reasons. Firstly, with FDA approval in the US, it takes time to get that product out. So, he can’t give a specific timeline. Secondly, he wants them to develop the technology in a way that’s different from Apple’s take. How they’d be able to do this is something we can’t say just yet.

"I think for us it's making sure that it’s really clinically relevant. It’s not just about alerting people, but making sure that there’s a good next step," Park told Wareable."I’m a big fan of these technologies and early detection coming out, but if you read some of the criticisms it’s about the number of false positives, the unnecessary raising of people’s anxieties. And if you look at some of the use cases, you’re being told if you have AFib today this is not for you, or if you’re under 65 don’t really use it. For us our strategy it’s not been about getting the latest features out there first, so when you see us launch FDA-regulated features like [sleep] apnea or AFib, we’ll be taking a different approach."