Cliffs: Wait for the
BASIS (device) (
http://www.mybasis.com)
I
originally wanted to purchase the Jawbone UP because i think the design
of it looks great, and that it tracks sleep as well as other physical
activities, and can track food (though not great). But the reason i
didnt get it was because there was no Android app nor was there an
interface to your computer - you can only sync through your iPhone. They
were planning on releasing an Android app but on their forums, there
was no definitve answer as far as when, even though hundreds of users
were posting about it. And now that the UP got recalled, who knows if
and when Jawbone will re-release the UP.
I ended up getting the
Nike FuelBand and it's been ok, not so great. It lacks many features,
and feels more like a toy than anything really useful. When I log in to
view the dashboard and stats, the information it gives isn't displayed
very intuitively, and there really isn't much information at all. See my
answer here:
Nike+ FuelBand: Is the FuelBand worth the money? as to why I don't think it's worth it to get the FuelBand, at least not yet. More specifically:
- The
time on it goes off after wearing it for a few days, I've seen go off
by at most 30 minutes. Make it kind of useless as a watch at that
point...
- Can't set goals more than 1 day into the future
- No android app yet (supposed to come in the summer)
- Slow and unintuitive Nike+ site
- Lack
of any special features. Basically I log in to the site and view how
active I was during different times of the day. I don't know what else
they can add into it to make it more interesting, but that's for them to
figure out and i do they think they'll need to do that to get people
more interested in.
- Lack of any social element - you can't form groups, or challenge friends, etc...
The
Fitbit looks awesome as far as features go, and it has mostly
everything that I would want. The only thing I dislike about it and that
turns me off from buying it is the physical design. Being a clip, i
have to take it on and off as I change clothes, or if i wear it on a
band on my arm it's huge. I'd prefer it to be like the UP or Fuelband
where it's just a wristband.
Aside from those 3 products, the upcoming activity tracker I'm really really excited about is the
BASIS (device) (
www.mybasis.com).
It's a pretty sweet design as a watch, and it does almost everything
that the UP, Fuelband, and Fitbit do - i think the only thing it may be
missing is tracking food. But one huge advantage is that it tracks your
heart rate and temperature. That's amazing in my opinion - there's so
much information that can be gathered from those two metrics. Here are a
few things that I think are great with the Basis:
- Automatically can categorize certain activities, i.e. went for a walk, run, or sleep
- Ability
to view temperature and heart rate throughout the day - one example I
read that I love is say being to view your heart rate increase during
certain times of a day like during a meeting, or when you're talking
with a certain person. So you can look back (and hopefully categorize
that data / activity and know which people you talk to or what
activities you do increase your heart rate, showing when you're
nervous/excited. In this article http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/31..., Tim Chang (partner at Mayfield Fund) wrote:
When
I tried out the Basis demo, it overlaid my heart rate with my Outlook
calendar and even told me which meetings (and people) were stressing me
out the most (!). There were other surprising insights: I learned that
when I hit stop and go traffic on Highway 101, my heartrate often spikes
into the 90s from silent, internalized road rage. Those are the sorts
of self-discovery insights that make the Quantified Self experience so
rewarding. Numbers, presented with useful context, provide an immediate
path to better control over my own life.
THAT IS
AWESOME. I can imagine mashing that data up with so many things, i.e.
Foursquare or Google Latitude (location history) to see your heart rate
and physical activity based on where you are. With the Google Latitude
location history, since you don't have to check-in, you can mash up the
data between say the hours you sleep tracked by Basis with those same
hours that you're at your apt versus your girlfriends apartment, so that
can help show you that you spend so much time over there that it may be
a good idea to just move in together. Or with something like RescueTime
which tracks your computer activity and productivity - so if you're
intensely working on coding something and thinking really hard, your
heart rate my increase, vs if you're just reading some new article your
heart rate's steady. I can just imagine so many possibilities with this.
I really hope Basis will have an open API to do these types of things!
- I'd say it's somewhat stylish and designed well - it's functional as a regular watch as well
- The web interface looks great:
As
far as price goes, the Basis is the most expensive at $199, followed by
the Fuelband at $149, and the Jawbone UP and Fitbit are both at $100.
The $50 difference between the Basis and Fuelband is so worth it for the
amount of additional features it provides.
I would recommend waiting for the Basis to be released (BASIS (device): When will Basis be released for purchase?) and go with that, rather than the Fitbit, UP, or Fuelband.
