
Microsoft Band 2.0 Review - bootload
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/the-new-microsoft-band-has-all-the-workouts-you-could-ever-dream-of/
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com2kid
As one of the lead software engineers on both the original Microsoft Band and
now the Microsoft Band 2, I still sort of feels surreal reading a review from
a news outlet that I've trusted since I was a teenager. A lot of what I first
learned about CPUs, pipelines, and memory systems, was from Jon "Hannibal"
Stokes.

I am happy that the Ars review is the one that reached the front page here. I
appreciate the work that all reviewers do, but I am always giddy to read what
Ars has to say.

~~~
Tomte
Looks like a fantastic device!

I'm just disappointed that Germany will again be left out, after initial
speculation in the news that we will be included this time.

Maybe the Band 3.

~~~
com2kid
We do support setting the Band UI to German! :)

(I am so sad that none of the reviewers mentioned our language support!)

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kyriakos
the problem is that its not available to buy.

sadly this is an issue with many Microsoft products, for example one of
Windows 10 selling points is Cortana and yet its only available for 3-4
countries without any indication on when the rest of the world will be able to
use it.

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steaminghacker
As a developer, I'm very interested in the band2. Personally, I think bands
are a better format that, say smart watches.

The MS band looks to me, a general purpose device rather than a dedicated
fitness product. I see a lot of potential for it. Like all things, the
dedicated fitness devices will be displaced by general purpose ones.

I'm interested in developing products for the Band to work under Android, but
there's no access to the microphone nor any voice recognition provided (that i
can see in the MS Android SDK).

Voice control is, in my view, essential for wearable devices like the band.

Anyone know if this might become available or if there's an unofficial way to
access the mic.

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com2kid
> Anyone know if this might become available or if there's an unofficial way
> to access the mic.

Mic access is restricted for privacy purposes. There is no remote way to turn
on the microphone.

Thank you for the suggestion though! I'll talk to the SDK team about it, our
first priority is user control, but of course we want to make the device as
powerful as possible!

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swuecho
Do not know if anyone have Brand 1.0.

It very bad (painful, the sensor will create a dent in your skin) if you wear
it for a long time. I bought it, wear it for 2 weeks and do not want to wear
it anymore.

So, The user experience is very bad.

when I say the 'sensor' I mean the one in the back of the watch. (sorry for my
wording. hard for me to express no technical things in English). Brand 2 still
have it. So be cautious when you buy it.

However good it is, if it does not feel comfortable. It is not good. I wonder
if anyone wear brand 1 for more than one month. I did not.

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lhl
I've been interested in activity trackers for a while and got a MS Band v1
pretty early on. Over the past year MS has been releasing more SDK/API access,
which has been great to see:
[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2015/07/15/micr...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2015/07/15/microsoft-
band-and-health-developer-platform.aspx)

One thing to note is that while the SDK (Win/iOS/Android) provides full sensor
access, it's stream access, which requires constant connection w/o auto-
reconnects for subscriptions. Sadly, there's no access to sync the device in
the way that the MS phone apps do - getting rollups requires using the MS
Health Cloud API, which is _post_ sync/upload.

Overall I've been pretty happy with my Band (I got a warranty replacement
after the screen started fritzing out a few months ago for no apparent
reason), but I'll be holding off on the Band 2 (and looking closely at the new
Garmin Vivosmart HR) for a couple main reasons:

* Battery life - my #1 complaint w/ the Band, still unsolved w/ v2. I'm able to sleep comfortably w/ my Band v1, but w/ about 1.5 days of battery life, it means it's always dying if I even forget to charge once. Once I do charge it I'll often-times forget it when going out, or it doesn't get fully charged and dies while I'm out and about, so in practice that means that I have it on me and charged maybe half the time. (by comparison, the Vivosmart HR claims 5d battery life)

* Waterproofing - the Band is still IPX67 while many other devices like the Garmins are 5ATM+ - this makes a huge difference in the scenarios of when you have to take the device off.

Some other thoughts:

* All the sensors are great and very few (if any devices) have anything close, but I've yet to see even a graph of the GSR measurements, much less get anything useful/actionable from it. The UV sensor is similarly pointless. Despite less sensors, other companies are doing some seemingly more useful things with their devices. (vo2max estimates, pulse oximetry, etc)

* You can change the time/time zone w/o an Internet connection - I fly and travel a lot and this was actually a huge problem w/ my Basis Fitness Watch, so I'm really happy that the Band fixed this very early on.

* I primarily have my Band synced to my iOS device, and I've had to reset/repair/resync the BT multiple times, but that seems about par for the course for all the devices I've used.

* One nice thing is w/ the v2 is that they fixed the charger placement - on the v1, it's on the inside of the device and basically leaves a indentation/welt in your arm and just generally was uncomfortable. Dunno how/why that ever got past any sort of product review. That and an OLED/wakeable display are good improvements, but don't make for a compelling $250 upgrade.

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danielovich
Useless device. Wrong heartrate which pretty much says it all. Try running in
a red zone with this band and let me know how big the fluctuations are.

Having a powermeter on my bike but no Ant+ in the watch. Forget it. And you
cant stuff all needed information into such a small screen.

No pace settng, no average, no stopwatchh...i could continue.

A fun gadget for a teenager, but I never consider using this as a workout
device. Not even close.

~~~
tallanvor
I have the first version of the band, and the heart rate monitor seems to be
quite accurate - I used it any my old Polar watch (where you wear a band
around your chest to monitor your heart rate) and found that they typically
only varied by a couple of beats per second, and the only time the band shows
major fluctuations is if you don't have it snug enough so it can properly
monitor the rate.

It works just fine for me both for strength training and running, and I'd
certainly recommend it to others.

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cakes
I had some issues with the heart rate monitor on the first band. I accept that
it was likely user error (my fault) but a few times during a normal exercise
routine it reported heart rate values well outside the where my heart rate was
(or should be)

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bootload
_" Speaking of sensors, the Microsoft Band has a lot of them. In addition to
fitness tracker essentials—tri-axis accelerometer, gyrometer, and
barometer—the Band also has ambient light, skin temperature, and capacitive
sensors, a microphone, built-in GPS, and a continuous optical heart rate
monitor."_

The technology to spy just got a lot more compact. What I didn't realise, as
the title suggests is, software is eating the fitness industry.

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johnchristopher
> software is eating the fitness industry.

Unfortunately it doesn't improve on the current state of things (health
improvements on a matter larger scale), although it's getting cheaper.

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bootload
_" health improvements on a matter larger scale"_

A weak aspirational statement.

This is a western consumer device/application and as such why should it have
to improve everyones health?

What is interesting is it allows individuals (rich in your terms) to use some
pretty sophisticated electronics along with consumer software to monitor their
health without having to see a health specialist. The data alone could be
useful for individuals medical practitioners.

I stand by what I said above.

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TeMPOraL
Maybe I'm reading your comment wrong, but you seem to have an exactly opposite
vision for what is good than I personally have. You say: data collection is
bad ("spying"), letting rich get individual health monitoring is cool. I say,
data collection is cool and let's have more of it to achieve johnchristopher's
"health improvements on a matter larger scale", and stop wasting perfectly
good tech on creating toys for clueless rich people.

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bootload
_" Maybe I'm reading your comment wrong"_

yes

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swatts
Thanks for clearing that up for us.

