3 ms·

How does the Basis rank against the other smart watches out there ? I see it's priced higher, $199, where others come in at $100 - $150. The one difference I s

How does the Basis rank against the other smart watches out there ? I see it's priced higher, $199, where others come in at $100 - $150. The one difference I see is that it can do heart rate monitoring, and a lot of the competition can't (yet). It's nice to see that they have an API to export your data too.

pisarzp 13y ago
It also measures your perspiration. They focused on gamification and achievements you can unlock ("slept full 8 hours" etc). However it lacks any wireless connectivity, so you need to plug to your computer to download data every day. I thought it's the most interesting of all smart devices, but I was looking for next gen which hopefully would be wireless and smaller.
- faulkner 13y ago
  If you're holding out for wireless connectivity you can buy the current model - it already has bluetooth.
- rmc 13y ago
  > However it lacks any wireless connectivity, so you need to plug to your computer to download data every day. Recent ones sync automatically over bluetooth with an smartphone
- tehwalrus 13y ago
  they all came with bluetooth AFAIK - just took a (always wired) firmware upgrade to the early ones to activate it. I regularly sync mine with my iPhone.
wonnage 13y ago
FYI, there's no API. Heart rate monitoring is a bit of a sham, if you're looking to use it during exercise. It's designed to gather more of an average rate throughout the day than give an accurate reading while you're exercising. The Basis tracks sleep without you having to put it in sleep mode (e.g jawbone UP), which is pretty handy. They recently added some features that attempt to recognize walking/running/biking automatically ("BodyIQ" is the marketing name). I found it oddly useful for seeing how long it took me to walk places. Coolest feature: if you rotate your wrist quickly (as you would to look at a watch), the face lights up automatically. Bluetooth sync works well with Android, pretty useless with iPhone (you have to keep the app open and phone awake or it tends to be flaky). Basically I like the watch, but for weird reasons - the health tracking isn't really that much better than others, but there are little surprises here and there that make it useful for me. YMMV, and I really don't think seeing how many steps you took in a day will ever be life-changing for anyone.
- rmc 13y ago
  There's no offical API, but you can figure out the HTTP calls to make. My husband wrote some Nagios checks for himself. We just gotta pay attention to the "heart rate is CRITICAL" alerts now :P http://tomsalmon.eu/2013/12/data-download-and-nagios-plugin-for-mybasis/ http://tomsalmon.eu/2013/12/data-download-and-nagios-plugin-...
  - wonnage 13y ago
    Haha, that's amazing - guess you can monitor anything with Nagios.
- lhl 13y ago
  While not publicly announced, a RESTy JSON API has been available since day one since that's what the web interface uses - it's very easy to access and there are plenty of open source libs like https://github.com/btroia/basis-data-export https://github.com/btroia/basis-data-export Heart rate isn't exercise-class (like the Mio Alpha) but is using the same green LED photometry, just not running at a very high temporal resolution. Agree that the Bluetooth implementation is terrible on iOS. Slightly better on Android, but I still end up using their (proprietary! ugh) cable to sync more often than not. The Basis is unique in the sense that besides the (Jawbone acquired) BodyMedia devices, it's the only multi-modal fitness sensor on the market right now, and IMO the photometry heart rate tracking, and the habits are a big step in the right direction. That being said, Basis seems to have made surprisingly slow progress and I have a feeling that Apple will eat their lunch sooner rather than later.

pisarzp 13y ago

It also measures your perspiration. They focused on gamification and achievements you can unlock ("slept full 8 hours" etc). However it lacks any wireless connectivity, so you need to plug to your computer to download data every day. I thought it's the most interesting of all smart devices, but I was looking for next gen which hopefully would be wireless and smaller.

faulkner 13y ago
If you're holding out for wireless connectivity you can buy the current model - it already has bluetooth.
rmc 13y ago
> However it lacks any wireless connectivity, so you need to plug to your computer to download data every day. Recent ones sync automatically over bluetooth with an smartphone
tehwalrus 13y ago
they all came with bluetooth AFAIK - just took a (always wired) firmware upgrade to the early ones to activate it. I regularly sync mine with my iPhone.

wonnage 13y ago

FYI, there's no API. Heart rate monitoring is a bit of a sham, if you're looking to use it during exercise. It's designed to gather more of an average rate throughout the day than give an accurate reading while you're exercising. The Basis tracks sleep without you having to put it in sleep mode (e.g jawbone UP), which is pretty handy. They recently added some features that attempt to recognize walking/running/biking automatically ("BodyIQ" is the marketing name). I found it oddly useful for seeing how long it took me to walk places. Coolest feature: if you rotate your wrist quickly (as you would to look at a watch), the face lights up automatically. Bluetooth sync works well with Android, pretty useless with iPhone (you have to keep the app open and phone awake or it tends to be flaky). Basically I like the watch, but for weird reasons - the health tracking isn't really that much better than others, but there are little surprises here and there that make it useful for me. YMMV, and I really don't think seeing how many steps you took in a day will ever be life-changing for anyone.

rmc 13y ago
There's no offical API, but you can figure out the HTTP calls to make. My husband wrote some Nagios checks for himself. We just gotta pay attention to the "heart rate is CRITICAL" alerts now :P http://tomsalmon.eu/2013/12/data-download-and-nagios-plugin-for-mybasis/ http://tomsalmon.eu/2013/12/data-download-and-nagios-plugin-...
- wonnage 13y ago
  Haha, that's amazing - guess you can monitor anything with Nagios.
lhl 13y ago
While not publicly announced, a RESTy JSON API has been available since day one since that's what the web interface uses - it's very easy to access and there are plenty of open source libs like https://github.com/btroia/basis-data-export https://github.com/btroia/basis-data-export Heart rate isn't exercise-class (like the Mio Alpha) but is using the same green LED photometry, just not running at a very high temporal resolution. Agree that the Bluetooth implementation is terrible on iOS. Slightly better on Android, but I still end up using their (proprietary! ugh) cable to sync more often than not. The Basis is unique in the sense that besides the (Jawbone acquired) BodyMedia devices, it's the only multi-modal fitness sensor on the market right now, and IMO the photometry heart rate tracking, and the habits are a big step in the right direction. That being said, Basis seems to have made surprisingly slow progress and I have a feeling that Apple will eat their lunch sooner rather than later.