HTC cancels previously unveiled Grip fitness band that was slated for a Spring 2015 launch
HTC won't ship the Grip after all, but its fitness ambition lives on — Hey, remember that time HTC built a fitness tracker (with a little help from Under Armor) and showed it off in Barcelona?
Context & Ripple Effects
HTC's Grip was unveiled in Barcelona in March as its first wearable fitness tracker, built with Under Armour after the sportswear company's MapMyFitness acquisition made HTC an official hardware partner. The Spring 2015 launch slipped quietly until now — the device is cancelled outright rather than rescheduled.
The cancellation is not the end of the partnership. By October HTC and Under Armour had delayed the fitness hardware again, promising not one tracker but a suite of related products for early 2016 — a plan that materialized as the $400 HealthBox combining scales, fitness and heart-rate trackers.
First-order effects
- Buyers who wanted the standalone Grip band lose that option entirely; the only path to an HTC/Under Armour wearable is whatever ships next under the promised product suite.
Second-order effects
- Under Armour's software-plus-hardware strategy, built on its MapMyFitness platform, now leans on a bundled multi-device play instead of a single band — pushing HTC's contribution from one SKU toward the HealthBox package.
Third-order effects
- The episode sketches how first-time wearables makers handle a weak single-device bet: kill the band, reframe the category as an ecosystem bundle, and let the partner's app platform carry the value.
The trend: Fitness wearables are consolidating from standalone trackers into multi-device ecosystems anchored by partner software platforms.