Microsoft Band, the first device powered by Microsoft Health, helps you achieve your wellness goals by tracking your heart rate, steps, calorie burn, and sleep quality. It also helps you be more productive with email previews and calendar alerts - right on your wrist.
What makes this better than the other fitness bands? Heck if I can figure it out.
More info here: http://recode.net/2014/10/29/microsoft-takes-another-stab-at-health-market-with-cloud-service-199-fitness-band/
<Microsoft employee shill alert>
What’s most impressive to me about this was in how it was announced. It’s out…now, less than 12 hours after it was announced, with few if any notable leaks beforehand (other than basic stuff like that Microsoft “might” be working on some sort of watch-type thingy)
For $200, it has built-in GPS, which is huge. It means it can do quite a bit without being paired to a smartphone. And it can pair with iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices. Its sensor package is also open to licensing by other companies, as Microsoft has worked closely with Jawbone and many others:
The Band is sort of Microsoft’s take on the Google Nexus strategy, which Microsoft hopes will show others how to build great trackers. Microsoft is even licensing the ten sensor modules it has developed, so others can build new and different ways to measure your heart rate and step count. “We think there are many people who are going to have brilliant ideas,” Mehdi says. “The truth is there’s all sorts of wearable tech that other people have, and our platform will be happy to accept that data, and deliver data and insights back. So with different types of wearable — on your wrist, on your head, on your body — who knows what the right idea is? We wanted to take the approach of saying let’s bring the industry along, and contribute.”
In the meantime though, the comparable Fitbit that was just announced (the Surge) doesn’t come out until early next year, and it also costs $50 more than this. I don’t think the Fitbit Surge does anything that the Microsoft Band doesn’t do, so that’s a pretty huge deal IMO.
And while the Apple Watch isn’t a direct comparison, since it’s more of a fashion thing, it doesn’t have built-in GPS, and it starts at $350 ($150 more than this band). So it can’t do much of anything without being paired to an iPhone. I personally don’t like running or working out with my phone, so it’ll be nice to be able to exclusively wear a band like this and then sync with my phone later. The Apple Watch also doesn’t come out for many more months from now (rumor is that it won’t even make Valentine’s Day).
So it certainly is expensive compared to most fitness bands, but from what I can tell, it’s actually quite a bit cheaper than the other feature-parity fitness bands out there, without necessarily sacrificing any functionality on the device itself. And beyond the device, Microsoft is planning quite a bit on the services side of thing, with ambitious plans to keep updating the apps and the device software (covered in detail at that Verge article)
Yeah… Reading through the specs, this Band is pretty badass. I don’t know if it’s $199 worth of badass to me, but it’s impressive.
Looks a little chunky, but that’s hard to judge from the promotional pictures.
I almost bought a Jawbone Up on several occasions, but never quite convinced myself of the need. I suspect this will replace the Up as the fitness gadget I will repeatedly almost buy.
Doesn’t look like I can wear this while swimming, else I may have been pulling my wallet out. Still very interesting, so I will be keeping an eye on this for sure.
You definitely can’t. It’s water resistant, fine in the rain / washing hands / light splashes, but not waterproof.
http://microsoft.com/band/waterresistance
Microsoft Band meets these standards for water resistance:
IP67: IP67 means protection against temporary immersion at depth of 1 meter for 30 minutes.
IP6X: No ingress of dust. Complete protection against entry of dust.
IPX7: Protection against temporary immersion (at depth of 1 meter for 30 minutes).
I just bought an UP24 (it was $60 off inexplicably) to replace my broken Fuelband and it’s quite nice.
This looks awesome. Can you use it away from the phone? IE will it record if I’m running without the phone? It seems to be so according to LMN8R but just making sure.
GPS + Optical heart rate sensor for < $200 is really pretty darn competitive. I’m currently using a mio link with my iphone 6 and man optical heart rate sensors are freakin awesome and that was $100. I’ll never go back to a chest strap.
It’s not clear but can the band be paired with your phone over bluetooth 4.0 to provide real time heart rate data to your phone apps or is the bluetooth just used for syncing data?
Also they need more partners. What they have is a good start but I want runtastic added!
Yes. MS says they designed it to record and track your activity without the phone, then when you sync it later with the phone it uploads data to the cloud.
Yeah, it does require a phone for syncing and such, but you can temporarily use it without a phone for GPS tracking and other activities:
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/productID.308308800#buy-product
Can the Microsoft Band be used without a smartphone? How is the functionality affected?
A: To get the full Microsoft Band experience, you must pair the device with a smartphone. However, even without a paired mobile phone, you can still enjoy some of the fitness functionality of Microsoft Band such as: steps, calories burned, heart rate measurement, basic running, exercise, and sleep summaries. The Microsoft Band’s watch functionality also works independent of a smartphone, including stopwatch, timers, and alarms. Other Microsoft Band’s features, such as access to Cortana (when paired to a Windows Phone 8.1 device) and guided workouts, can only be experienced when paired to a smartphone. You must pair the device with a smartphone at least once to complete setup via the mobile app.
Very interested. Do any of these fitness trackers store music? My dream device has GPS tracking for running, without needing a phone, and also streams music to my bluetooth headphones. Maybe that’s too much of a battery killer at this point.
I don’t know of any that stream music without a phone sync.
Interesting. Onboard GPS and optical heart rate monitor.
Where can I buy one?
Apparently nowhere but the USA for now.
I am very interested, but the poor water resistance puts me off. I really liked my Fitbit Force, but was frequently taking it off for concerns about getting it wet (doing dishes, helping my youngest shower, etc). I am currently using the Garmin Vivosmart and love that I can just leave it on doing any of those things and not worry about it.
I’m very impressed by this product! Microsoft has particularly wowed me by being open to other operating systems (Mac Store app for OS X at launch?! Whoa), and by the variety of sensors and functionality the band presents. Unlike a lot of the other products mentioned in this thread, the Band also includes a UV sensor, which they say is for letting you know if you’ll need sunscreen when you’re out on your run, but could theoretically also be used to measure exposure to sunlight for those with Seasonal Affective Disorder or other ailments associated with poor exposure to sunlight, especially in the winter months in northern latitudes.
I also really love the fitness programs / coaching the Band apparently offers. The example I read about had the user say they wanted to do a bodyweight circuit, and then the band guided them through the tricky timing of a proper aerobic circuit, all while monitoring effort via HR. Nice.
So, I’m very interested, even though it can’t be used for swim tracking. Much like the Apple Watch, I can’t help but think proper waterproofing is coming in v2, so I’m adopting a wait and see attitude.
Can this control music playback on your phone? I can’t find anything about it in the literature.
Looks pretty good, actually. For $199 compared to $99 for my Fitbit Flex, which does nothing but step-counting, it’s a pretty solid deal.
Considered buying it, but then I realized I have old-man eyes and can’t see a bloomin’ thing within arm’s reach without my reading glasses, which sorta’ defeats the purpose of using this thing out and about.
Being old sucks.
It can’t control music yet in general, but you can kind of control music using Cortana voice commands if you are using a windows phone.
