It’s got a built-in GPS, so you can wear in around and don’t have to take your phone. It’s svelte and stylish. The display is small (keeping the device small) but it’s high resolution and touchscreen. In addition to all the standard quantified self stuff, it supports mail, messaging, calendar, and alerts. It costs $199, and it’s on sale now (for preorder). Most importantly, you can load it with Starbucks credit and use it to pay for lattes. Looks like a winner.
Funny how music industry wasn’t able to sell music on the internet. It took apple to do it.
Funny how health industry isn’t able to provide ehealth services on wearable devices. It takes microsoft to do it.
The device looks intriguing but Microsoft brand is not giving me confidence. Plus, they try to be ahead of Google with everything. I mean congrats for beating Google with the first move, but I’m pretty sure Google will raise the bar.
One thing I’d miss is that the actual health companies getting on the wagon to provide services underpinned by solid medical science to kick IT companies asses.
Of course. The health industry is into expensive equipment that works and takes lots of space; Microsoft, Google et al make tiny wearables that make people feel good about themselves. Health bands and smartwatches are vanity products.
Health bands are gimmicks with very little evidence to support them. That is why medical device companies don’t make them.
Measuring health parameters properly is vastly more complex than putting a cheap accelerometer and heart rate monitor on your wrist. eg measuring calorie consumption accurately requires a room sized metabolic chamber.
Edited 2014-10-30 09:39 UTC
This is almost the exact opposite approach to health compared to a medical device.
Medical devices are more about fixing broken bodies than preventing bodies to break. They are about low volume high price and long lifetime. They are problem-focused and not patient-focused
Health devices might motivate an individual to exercise more (good) but also to over exercise (bad). Wearing such a device will not make you healthier by itself, just more aware.
It didnt take Microsoft – Sony beat them to it a long time back – Microsoft’s design just looks like a complete rip off:
http://www.sonymobile.com/gb/products/smartwear/smartband-talk-swr3…
While the Sony strap looks more like the new microsoft one. Wearable devices for mobile phones have been around a while.
MotoAcitiv is the first one I can remeber, not sure if it really was the first.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motoactv
But unline the Sony device, the one from Microsoft has a built in GPS. As a runner, this is a HUGE deal in my opinion. Currently, running watches that have built in GPS units are kind of huge, much larger than what I’d like to wear on my wrist.
…but I still don’t think I’m interested in the Microsoft Band. Unless it has Linux / Jolla support.
> The device looks intriguing but Microsoft brand is not giving me confidence.
Plus, it’s got a crappy name that does nothing to describe it, and given Microsoft’s track record it won’t be any good until the third version, by which point Apple and Google will have dominated the market.
“helps you achieve your wellness goals by tracking your heart rate, steps, calorie burn”
Not really.
The only thing a health band can monitor accurately is your heart rate. This is not particularly useful because individuals heart rate response to physical activity is highly variable.
There is very little correlation between wrist movement, steps and physical activity. A cyclist in a 100km race would have almost no wrist activity, an orchestra conductor would appear to be very active.
The only way to measure calorie consumption with any accuracy is a room sized metabolic chamber. Physical activity is a very minor contributor to calorie consumption in non-athletes.
I wouldn’t be so pessimistic about them. Anything that encourages more people to move more and live a less stationary existence is a good thing. More than just losing weight, exercising is a good thing for overall health and wellness.
Having an accurate heart rate track is also beneficial for measuring the relative workout intensity.
I studied exercise physiology at university. Contrary to popular belief exercise (without dieting) is almost worthless for weight loss. In fact intense physical activity often leads to increased calorie consumption and weight gain.
Moderate exercise is certainly beneficial. However most of the health benefits occur with very modest levels (30-60 minutes of brisk walking per day) of activity.
Rating of Perceived Exertion(how difficult an exercise feels) is arguably a more useful measure than heart rate. However you can’t make money from RPE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_scale
IMHO geeks often seem to suffer from an intellectual superiority complex. They like to offer simplistic solutions to extremely difficult problems they don’t really understanding.
Fitness trackers aren’t solutions, they are tools. In much the same way that a urban farms don’t solve world wide hunger, fitness trackers aren’t complete solutions to anything. But they help. And that’s not a bad thing.
because it has a fixed strap.
There are a wide range or wrist sizes on people. I have a really big wrist bone. {stopped me breaking it on more than one occassion}. My partner has really small wrists.
On the plus side, MS is not alone here in dictating a ‘one size fits all’ requirement by having the strap part of the device.
There’s 3 separate sizes available, so it’s definitely not “one-size-fits-all”.
Words like this make me wanna puke. Taken straight out of Dynamics ERP marketing material and thrown onto a freaking consumer gadget.
I suppose I just have not been watching phones (no pun intended)…but the picture with the three phones is startling. I heard others mention how most phones are larger than an iphone, just never saw it side by side.
And Microsoft claiming full andriod and ios integration, in full view of shareholders? My, you really want on that health band bandwagon, eh?
I agree with others, however, these bands have a long way to go for real health integration.
Microsoft want to offer services. They don’t really care if the app interface is on iOS if the backend uses Azure.
Metro is clear design win.
If they keep squares colored differently!
The great news keeps flowing in!
PLEASE, never let Thom-the-blogger back in.
Not available in Canada or pre-order in Canada – same crap at the Moto-360 …..
if you are going to launch in the US, do the same in Canada .. at Apple can get that right …