CrippsCorner
ClioSport Club Member
Astra VXR
There's been a little discussion on this in the Apple Watch thread, but thought this was a bit too big to just add in there! I got mine yesterday and wrote a review for another (technology) forum I use. Yes, I'm a sad b*****d but there you go...
So after a very long wait (6 months from US to UK) yesterday I received my Microsoft Band; here are my initial impressions. By the way, I've not previously owned any kind of smartwatch or fitness band before
16:30 – I’m home from work! Unpackaged my delivery and had a good old look around my new hardware. I must say I’m delighted by the size, design and weight of the thing. I had read many times it was ugly and imposing, but really it’s quite sleek. I put it on and straight away felt it was also much more comfortable than I had read about… quite the relief. Microsoft haters do make me laugh sometimes
17:00 – I’m upstairs and plugging it in for a charge, whilst reading through the manual and app to get this paired up and into the OS. However, this wasn’t as easy as it could have been; the process went as follows…
• Attempted to pair... nothing. Rebooted phone, then paired
• Band needed an update, crashed @ 25% and came up with a network error
• Found out you can't turn the Band off unless you're already in the software. So randomly guess (correctly) how to do a full reboot on it (hold down both buttons for a length of time)
• Then wouldn’t pair again, so deleted it from Bluetooth list and tried again... it worked
• Update attempted again and this time it completed
• Asked for you to enter a name for the Band, did so
• Said 'Almost finished' on Band, however came up with a network error on the phone
• Tried resetting/rebooting both, disconnecting/reconnecting Bluetooth etc. and all I ever got at any stage was the network error. Couldn’t even get anything else up on the app, it effectively died
• Deleted app and reinstalled, finally everything worked and I was in!
18:00 – After getting everything up and running I thought I’d put my free ZAGG InvisibleShield on. Usually I’m not a screen protector kind of guy but as I decided to wear the Band on the inside of my wrist (outside is just impossible for real use) I thought I’d give it a go. Slightly more to one end than the other but ultimately it’s looking good
19:30 – I’m off to meet my girlfriend and a chance to give the step counter a go. Worked well but I think the calorie counter is somewhat off the mark! A tad too optimistic… certainly doesn’t match up with RunKeeper
21:00 – Ashleigh starts to take an interest in the Band and asks how much it was lol, too rich for her though as she’s not really into her gadgets as much. She has suffered from an irregular heartbeat in the past so we thought it’d be interesting to compare my heartbeat to hers. Indeed, it was slightly more jumpy, ranging from around 50-70… what this tells us I don’t know but I’ll look into it. One thing that was slightly disappointing though was that even the small Band on the smallest possible setting is still way too big for her, so that put the nail in the coffin as to whether she got one or not!
22:00 – I’m not popular in general lol but throughout watching a bit of television I get a couple of tweets and a text message come through… now my phones on the coffee table slightly out of reach from my relaxed position but boom, there are the messages right on my wrist! It suddenly feels really cool and useful. Pressing the action button scrolls through the messages in easy to read font size and as they’re not things I needed to reply to straight away I just glanced, read, and carried on the television. Love it
23:15 – Notice a cat hair underneath my screen protector! Tried getting it out but there was no chance… so I had to rip the thing off, decision made lol
23:45 – Bed time. Now, I’m not usually one for having things on my person when sleeping (I’m a rubbish sleeper) but I thought hell, I’ll give the sleep recording thing a go. It’s not the most comfortable thing to wear in bed but I relaxed the tightness and it felt okay. One other thing is I don’t like to be disturbed at night; I turn everything I own on silent! To make sure the Band didn’t buzz throughout the night I had to go into the app and manually turn each and every app notification off, which I’ll then have to turn back on again in the morning. This is pretty frustrating and a one-for-all switch would really be handy here, plus you have to remember to hit ‘save’ otherwise nothing takes effect, not something I’m used to doing on the phone
06:30 – Wakey wakey. Press the band and it says something like, “05:45 proper sleep” and I try to figure out how to get more information about this. Had to go into the phone app but it's kind of cool, tells you when you were in deep and light sleep, how many times you woke up and even a graph of your heart rate
09:30 – I’ve been at work for a while now with this thing on my wrist. It’s not ideal, as the screen makes my wrist stick out slightly from how I’m used to typing. At the moment it’s annoying, but I’m carrying on regardless seeing if I can get used to this
10:15 – Get called out to my first job, just across the road. Looked at my current steps and counted 200 until I got to my destination… looked at the current steps again and it had increased by 200, so I’m happy that the counter is very accurate! Also, I’ve tried this with hands in and out of pocket, both giving great results
12:30 – Sitting here on my lunch break playing games on my phone and an email comes through… no need to switch out of the game; just read the message on my Band, very helpful! I will note though that either in reading mode or just normal mode (where the message is tiny) you won't get the whole message if it's a long one. Also, you can't delete anything from your Band; I'm hoping there's a limit which will be reached and new messages will replace old ones?
12:45 – I always go for a walk around the outside of the buildings where I work at the end of my lunch break. I can confirm the screen is almost impossible to read in watch mode in the direct sunlight. You can increase the brightness for using the Band, but nothing increases the brightness in watch mode (presumably to save battery)
I’ve still got a lot to do and learn with my Microsoft Band. So far though, I’ve had a lot of fun with just mild irritations in between… I definitely don’t think it’s a gimmick but I wonder if I’ll still be infatuated with it after having it on my wrist for several week/months; time will tell I guess! Next up I’ll be looking at the work out stuff like guided workouts or possibly getting a Starbucks card associated with it; I wonder what’s healthier lol. One bug I've noticed though, is that it won't sync properly unless I restart my phone! Hopefully there'll be an update soon
Just to finish up, I’ve been wearing it today for 16 hours straight and it’s still absolutely comfortable, not a problem there at all, and the battery has only gone down 20%
So after a very long wait (6 months from US to UK) yesterday I received my Microsoft Band; here are my initial impressions. By the way, I've not previously owned any kind of smartwatch or fitness band before
16:30 – I’m home from work! Unpackaged my delivery and had a good old look around my new hardware. I must say I’m delighted by the size, design and weight of the thing. I had read many times it was ugly and imposing, but really it’s quite sleek. I put it on and straight away felt it was also much more comfortable than I had read about… quite the relief. Microsoft haters do make me laugh sometimes
17:00 – I’m upstairs and plugging it in for a charge, whilst reading through the manual and app to get this paired up and into the OS. However, this wasn’t as easy as it could have been; the process went as follows…
• Attempted to pair... nothing. Rebooted phone, then paired
• Band needed an update, crashed @ 25% and came up with a network error
• Found out you can't turn the Band off unless you're already in the software. So randomly guess (correctly) how to do a full reboot on it (hold down both buttons for a length of time)
• Then wouldn’t pair again, so deleted it from Bluetooth list and tried again... it worked
• Update attempted again and this time it completed
• Asked for you to enter a name for the Band, did so
• Said 'Almost finished' on Band, however came up with a network error on the phone
• Tried resetting/rebooting both, disconnecting/reconnecting Bluetooth etc. and all I ever got at any stage was the network error. Couldn’t even get anything else up on the app, it effectively died
• Deleted app and reinstalled, finally everything worked and I was in!
18:00 – After getting everything up and running I thought I’d put my free ZAGG InvisibleShield on. Usually I’m not a screen protector kind of guy but as I decided to wear the Band on the inside of my wrist (outside is just impossible for real use) I thought I’d give it a go. Slightly more to one end than the other but ultimately it’s looking good
19:30 – I’m off to meet my girlfriend and a chance to give the step counter a go. Worked well but I think the calorie counter is somewhat off the mark! A tad too optimistic… certainly doesn’t match up with RunKeeper
21:00 – Ashleigh starts to take an interest in the Band and asks how much it was lol, too rich for her though as she’s not really into her gadgets as much. She has suffered from an irregular heartbeat in the past so we thought it’d be interesting to compare my heartbeat to hers. Indeed, it was slightly more jumpy, ranging from around 50-70… what this tells us I don’t know but I’ll look into it. One thing that was slightly disappointing though was that even the small Band on the smallest possible setting is still way too big for her, so that put the nail in the coffin as to whether she got one or not!
22:00 – I’m not popular in general lol but throughout watching a bit of television I get a couple of tweets and a text message come through… now my phones on the coffee table slightly out of reach from my relaxed position but boom, there are the messages right on my wrist! It suddenly feels really cool and useful. Pressing the action button scrolls through the messages in easy to read font size and as they’re not things I needed to reply to straight away I just glanced, read, and carried on the television. Love it
23:15 – Notice a cat hair underneath my screen protector! Tried getting it out but there was no chance… so I had to rip the thing off, decision made lol
23:45 – Bed time. Now, I’m not usually one for having things on my person when sleeping (I’m a rubbish sleeper) but I thought hell, I’ll give the sleep recording thing a go. It’s not the most comfortable thing to wear in bed but I relaxed the tightness and it felt okay. One other thing is I don’t like to be disturbed at night; I turn everything I own on silent! To make sure the Band didn’t buzz throughout the night I had to go into the app and manually turn each and every app notification off, which I’ll then have to turn back on again in the morning. This is pretty frustrating and a one-for-all switch would really be handy here, plus you have to remember to hit ‘save’ otherwise nothing takes effect, not something I’m used to doing on the phone
06:30 – Wakey wakey. Press the band and it says something like, “05:45 proper sleep” and I try to figure out how to get more information about this. Had to go into the phone app but it's kind of cool, tells you when you were in deep and light sleep, how many times you woke up and even a graph of your heart rate
09:30 – I’ve been at work for a while now with this thing on my wrist. It’s not ideal, as the screen makes my wrist stick out slightly from how I’m used to typing. At the moment it’s annoying, but I’m carrying on regardless seeing if I can get used to this
10:15 – Get called out to my first job, just across the road. Looked at my current steps and counted 200 until I got to my destination… looked at the current steps again and it had increased by 200, so I’m happy that the counter is very accurate! Also, I’ve tried this with hands in and out of pocket, both giving great results
12:30 – Sitting here on my lunch break playing games on my phone and an email comes through… no need to switch out of the game; just read the message on my Band, very helpful! I will note though that either in reading mode or just normal mode (where the message is tiny) you won't get the whole message if it's a long one. Also, you can't delete anything from your Band; I'm hoping there's a limit which will be reached and new messages will replace old ones?
12:45 – I always go for a walk around the outside of the buildings where I work at the end of my lunch break. I can confirm the screen is almost impossible to read in watch mode in the direct sunlight. You can increase the brightness for using the Band, but nothing increases the brightness in watch mode (presumably to save battery)
I’ve still got a lot to do and learn with my Microsoft Band. So far though, I’ve had a lot of fun with just mild irritations in between… I definitely don’t think it’s a gimmick but I wonder if I’ll still be infatuated with it after having it on my wrist for several week/months; time will tell I guess! Next up I’ll be looking at the work out stuff like guided workouts or possibly getting a Starbucks card associated with it; I wonder what’s healthier lol. One bug I've noticed though, is that it won't sync properly unless I restart my phone! Hopefully there'll be an update soon
Just to finish up, I’ve been wearing it today for 16 hours straight and it’s still absolutely comfortable, not a problem there at all, and the battery has only gone down 20%
