6 ms·

Microsoft Band 2.0 Review

72 points by bootload 11y ago

bootload 11y ago
"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.
- johnchristopher 11y ago
  > 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.
  - bootload 11y ago
    "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.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      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.
      - bootload 11y ago
        "Maybe I'm reading your comment wrong" yes
        swatts 11y ago
        Thanks for clearing that up for us.
com2kid 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    We do support setting the Band UI to German! :) (I am so sad that none of the reviewers mentioned our language support!)
    - kyriakos 11y ago
      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.
    - willyyr 11y ago
      I know this might has nothing to do with your role but do you have any clue as to why the band is not available for e.g. Germany even though you support multilanguage?
  - pjmlp 11y ago
    At a risk of stealing this thread, country restrictions was what made me disregard XNA and XBLA Live. Microsoft didn't care about Portugal store support. Now I cannot get the Band as well. So do we wait for Band 3 or go shop elsewhere?
nikolay 11y ago
I'm sorry, but watching the video, I just stare at those horrific nails and can't even hear what she's talking about...
lhl 11y ago
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/microsoft-band-and-health-developer-platform.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2015/07/15/micr... 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.
danielovich 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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.
  - cakes 11y ago
    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)
- chokolad 11y ago
  > no stopwatchh...i could continue. Huh? It had stopwatch since Band 1.
- lhl 11y ago
  The Band isn't "useless", but it's more of an activity/lifestyle level fitness tracker. I don't know why anything would have convinced you otherwise. Of the continuous HR tracking general-purpose devices, Band v1 was better than the competition at the time [1], but things have progressed significantly in the past year (everyone's building their own PPG stacks w/ multi-wavelength LEDs now). If you need ANT+ and more advanced tracking of course you'll need a more specialized device. You won't get powermeter support on a Garmin watch until you get into their triathalon range, like the $450 Forerunner 920XT. The tradeoff there is that there's no optical HR/continuous HR support. For Garmin, optical HR is only on the newest FR235, which doesn't have powermeter support either - that doesn't make it "a fun gadget for a teenager" - power meters are specialized, expensive (is there any <$800?) devices for a single activity. If you know that you need support for it, you should know what you need to look for, but don't expect the majority of people to care about it, especially since it's obviously not the Band's target market. I will say the thing that's a real shame is that there's no of the "pro" fitness device manufacturers (Polar, Garmin, Suunto, TomTom) that has 1) built anywhere near a decent API/platform for consolidating fitness data (something that MS, Fitbit, Jawbone, etc have done a much better job at) or 2) at the very least, allow multiple of their own devices to work together - ie, Garmin now has a decent activity tracker w/ the Vivosmart HR (no GPS) coming out, and a whole range of more serious/specialized fitness trackers, but you can't seamlessly use and sync both into Garmin Connect. That's just embarassing (also, Garmin charges a $5K fee for API access. wut?) BTW, for those seriously interested in their fitness gadgets, I recommend visiting, which has great reviews and an interested community, although sadly, not a forums: http://www.dcrainmaker.com/ http://www.dcrainmaker.com/ [1] http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/12/7193493/7-minutes-in-hell-workout-microsoft-band-basis-peak http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/12/7193493/7-minutes-in-hell...
swuecho 11y ago
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.
steaminghacker 11y ago
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.
- doublerebel 11y ago
  I totally agree, I far prefer a standard watch to a smart watch. A band can be simpler and more durable, it's too bad this one isn't more water-resistant for swimming/surfing/etc. I wonder if there's a way to coat it to seal it? Or is the limitation due to the touch interaction? Is there another dev-friendly optical HRM band with a mic?
- com2kid 11y ago
  > 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!

72 points by bootload 11y ago

"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.

johnchristopher 11y ago
> 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.
- bootload 11y ago
  "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.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    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.
    - bootload 11y ago
      "Maybe I'm reading your comment wrong" yes
      - swatts 11y ago
        Thanks for clearing that up for us.

com2kid 11y ago

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 11y ago
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 11y ago
  We do support setting the Band UI to German! :) (I am so sad that none of the reviewers mentioned our language support!)
  - kyriakos 11y ago
    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.
  - willyyr 11y ago
    I know this might has nothing to do with your role but do you have any clue as to why the band is not available for e.g. Germany even though you support multilanguage?
- pjmlp 11y ago
  At a risk of stealing this thread, country restrictions was what made me disregard XNA and XBLA Live. Microsoft didn't care about Portugal store support. Now I cannot get the Band as well. So do we wait for Band 3 or go shop elsewhere?

nikolay 11y ago

I'm sorry, but watching the video, I just stare at those horrific nails and can't even hear what she's talking about...

lhl 11y ago

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/microsoft-band-and-health-developer-platform.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2015/07/15/micr... 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.

danielovich 11y ago

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 11y ago
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.
- cakes 11y ago
  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)
chokolad 11y ago
> no stopwatchh...i could continue. Huh? It had stopwatch since Band 1.
lhl 11y ago
The Band isn't "useless", but it's more of an activity/lifestyle level fitness tracker. I don't know why anything would have convinced you otherwise. Of the continuous HR tracking general-purpose devices, Band v1 was better than the competition at the time [1], but things have progressed significantly in the past year (everyone's building their own PPG stacks w/ multi-wavelength LEDs now). If you need ANT+ and more advanced tracking of course you'll need a more specialized device. You won't get powermeter support on a Garmin watch until you get into their triathalon range, like the $450 Forerunner 920XT. The tradeoff there is that there's no optical HR/continuous HR support. For Garmin, optical HR is only on the newest FR235, which doesn't have powermeter support either - that doesn't make it "a fun gadget for a teenager" - power meters are specialized, expensive (is there any <$800?) devices for a single activity. If you know that you need support for it, you should know what you need to look for, but don't expect the majority of people to care about it, especially since it's obviously not the Band's target market. I will say the thing that's a real shame is that there's no of the "pro" fitness device manufacturers (Polar, Garmin, Suunto, TomTom) that has 1) built anywhere near a decent API/platform for consolidating fitness data (something that MS, Fitbit, Jawbone, etc have done a much better job at) or 2) at the very least, allow multiple of their own devices to work together - ie, Garmin now has a decent activity tracker w/ the Vivosmart HR (no GPS) coming out, and a whole range of more serious/specialized fitness trackers, but you can't seamlessly use and sync both into Garmin Connect. That's just embarassing (also, Garmin charges a $5K fee for API access. wut?) BTW, for those seriously interested in their fitness gadgets, I recommend visiting, which has great reviews and an interested community, although sadly, not a forums: http://www.dcrainmaker.com/ http://www.dcrainmaker.com/ [1] http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/12/7193493/7-minutes-in-hell-workout-microsoft-band-basis-peak http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/12/7193493/7-minutes-in-hell...

swuecho 11y ago

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.

steaminghacker 11y ago

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.

doublerebel 11y ago
I totally agree, I far prefer a standard watch to a smart watch. A band can be simpler and more durable, it's too bad this one isn't more water-resistant for swimming/surfing/etc. I wonder if there's a way to coat it to seal it? Or is the limitation due to the touch interaction? Is there another dev-friendly optical HRM band with a mic?
com2kid 11y ago
> 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!