If you don't want to bring your big expensive smart phone with you while running, this could be an alternative. But as a runner I love having my pace on my wrist watch - it has fundamentally changed how I run. So I think they missed the boat on this (because it doesn't apply to me) but in reality there are a lot of runners who don't care about pace and might love such a device.

And additionally I don't like taking my phone with me - not because it is big but because after a few miles I can't directly interact with it via the touch screen because my fingers are too sweaty. So they might be on to something if the UX of the device turns out to be nice.