Misfit Flash, a waterproof sleep and fitness tracker, aims for affordable

Misfit Flash in band and clip modes.Now that Apple has a watch on the way and smartwatches are arriving from all directions, what do companies making fitness trackers do? Misfit has an answer: lower the price. The Misfit Flash, a full-featured waterproof pedometer and sleep tracker with a months-long battery life, will only cost $50 when it arrives in the US in late September, and £50 in the UK in November. (Australian pricing and release dates are not yet available, but $50 converts to around AU$55.)

The $100/£80 Misfit Shine, which debuted last summer, is a surprisingly good little activity tracker that has plenty of perks: it has a cool design, snaps into accessories to become a watch, clip-on, or pendant, is waterproof, and runs on a battery that lasts for months.

The new Flash is the same idea, but it costs $50 (or £30) less and is made of plastic instead of aluminum. It's still waterproof to 30 meters, has a replaceable coin battery that lasts 6 months, works with wrist or clip-on accessories, and has a clever ring of 12 LED lights, just like the Shine does. You can click the Flash's top like a button to show daily progress via the ring of LED lights, or tell the time via flashing dots for hours and minutes. The Flash uses an accelerometer-based pedometer, but doesn't have any heart-rate functions.

The Misfit app for syncing sleep and activity tracking works via Bluetooth with iOS, Android, or Windows Phone, and recent software updates allow multiple devices to be paired for families. The Flash's new design is also tweaked to stay in its accessories better: it snaps up into an included wristband from the bottom, ensuring it won't pop out the top like the original Shine sometimes did.

Misfit's new Flash will hit US stores like Target, Best Buy, Amazon, and Walmart, and Currys and PC World in the UK. It comes in seven bright colors. It's cute. If the new Flash works as well as the Shine does and only costs $50, it could be an awfully good little holiday stocking-stuffer. Now that wearables are everywhere, humble fitness bands may have just hit their new target price.