I finally joined the fitness tracker bandwagon. After having a bit of a mishap with my phone two weeks ago, I did some research, bit the bullet, and ordered (what was at the time) a "cheap but decently reviewed" fitness tracker smart watch.
Amazon has it labeled as "
Damusy Fitness Tracker, Smart Watch Bluetooth Pedometer Activity Waterproof Wristband with Sleep Monitor Sports Bracelet Calories Track Call/SMS Remind for iOS & Android Smart Phone" and it's currently priced at $32.99. When I bought it (a mere seven days ago), it was $19.99. I figured that for what I really want it for, I don't need the $50+ watches. Unfortunately, there are a lot of pros and cons with this watch, and although I'm going to be keeping it, my experience has led as a reminder of doing a due diligence with further research.
I'll start off by saying this: It seems to accurately track steps. As I sit here and type, the counter on the watch isn't going any higher than it should be. Meaning, the mini computer in this thing is not counting my typing as steps. Somehow, it knows the difference between an arm swing, typing, any general hand movement, and actual walking. Don't ask me how; I don't know. The counter goes up in numbers as my hand moves, however, it goes down to what it thinks you've done for exercise. Simply stated, I just checked the steps number; it went from 6926 to 6946 as I typed this paragraph. The numbers then went back down to 6926 because I think it somehow knew my hand movement was not related to walking. Since there
is an option in the app to remind you to get off your butt and do some walking (it's called the Sedentary toggle), it "just knows".
Okay... on to the rest of the review.
I should have done more research in syncing the tracker to the apps I already have on my iPhone (MyFitnessPal and Runkeeper). Both apps have approved apps and devices they can sync up with, if you decide to purchase a smart watch or just want to use the motion tracking on your phone. Because I must have misread a reviewer saying they got their MFP and RK apps to see this tracker, I bought it. Wrong. Once I had it in my hands and did more searching, the smartband
used to sync to the fitness apps. For whatever reason that was bestowed upon using this thing, the major players decided to kick it to the curb. Thus, the only app that can sync / bind / be seen / used with the band is a free app called VeryFitPro.
VeryFitPro has mixed reviews in the Apple store. Once downloaded, if you're savvy enough to figure out how to pair the watch to your device, you're okay (once you charge the band... which took me about 55 minutes to get to 100%). I have yet to create an account with this app, so the minimal information it wants (height, weight, age, goal steps [sports target], sleep target [how long you'd like it to track your sleeping]) is okay with me.
Side note: it is pretty cool when you get to your daily goal steps - the tracker has a light vibration that occurs and the screen lights up - it shows a trophy and your numbers.
When you get everything to start talking to each other, you can customize the settings to however you want - lifting your wrist turns the watch on so you can see the time, turning the aforementioned sedentary alert on or off, setting a daily alarm (to which it lightly vibrates when the time happens), you can play with the camera part - this acts as a remote (I'll post a couple pictures and a video to prove this), and setting the SNS (text) alert as well as call alert. The SNS alert can link to SMS, Facebook, Wechat, QQ, Twitter, and other major brands. When you receive a text or notification from someone, there is a scrolling text where you can see who is notifying you and what they said. If they send an image, you can't see that unless you view it on your phone. With calls, it notifies you who is calling, but you'd have to go to your phone in order to accept or decline the call. With all the alerts and notifications this thing does, there is a toggle to have it warn you when you're out of (Bluetooth) range of your phone. This is dependent on what walls are around you - are you in the middle of a brick building or have open doors? Allegedly it has a 16 foot radius, but I've made it around my house and the B is still lit. But putting my phone on charge in an AV closet at work, to then reset a room, the watch can't see the phone.
Which brings me to battery drain. Leaving the Bluetooth on with this watch and my phone all day, my phone battery drains like nobody's business. I start my morning (at 7:30) with full battery. By noon it's around the 60% mark, sometimes 50, depending on if I've pulled my phone out at lunch to sync the steps information. By the time I leave work (at 4:30ish), my battery has been between 30 and 40 per cent. As oppose to the actual watch's battery, which is at a steady 72% right now. I haven't charged it since it arrived at my doorstep on Tuesday. Other reviews state the watch can last about 7 days. No mention about phones, though. I don't think it's any other apps using my phone, as I make sure to not have any running through out the day. I really think it's the fitness tracker, and it only happens when the phone and tracker are near each other, as I've left my phone in my car on Thursday when I got to work. In eight hours (of using the tracker on my wrist and having my phone [turned on, even] in my car), my phone read 80% battery life. So it definitely
has to be the tracker and it is probably always trying to connect to my phone, to lower my battery usage.
General other challenges include walking outside during daylight hours and not seeing the screen light up. You want to know what time it is, you have to be in the shade because this is a black watch, black face and white numbers and letters. It makes telling time a moot point unless you can get indoors. Or just pull your phone out.
I want to backtrack to the fitness app syncing. I've got MFP and RK connected to iHealth (aka HealhKit) in my iPhone. My steps write to iHealth which then gets recorded into MyFitnessPal. I can manually enter exercises into Runkeeper which then writes to MyFitnessPal. They all have played nicely for over a year. I'm happy with how they're working and I've got no gripes. Add VeryFitPro to the mix, and it's like oil to water. VeryFitPro can write steps to iHealth, but then iHealth doesn't communicate that to the other two apps. MFP and RK only see / record / etc. what iHealth captures, unless you are using an approved brand. This means something like
Misfit Shine Activity Monitor,
Fitbit,
Garmin vÃvofit 2 Activity Tracker /
Garmin Activity Trackers and a few other big name products, all have no problem in reading / writing / syncing to the apps used. Like having to download VeryFitPro to use the Damusy tracker, you
do have to download the app for whatever product you've bought in order to have the fitness apps know you're using it.
Unless there's a way to manually enter the information into the apps themselves.
Which I seem to have found a slight workaround.
In MyFitnessPal, there's an option to manually enter cardio or strength training. Scrolling through the smart watch, I can find the amount of time I've "worked out" (aka total time it measured me actually stepping through the day). Enter those minutes in the minutes category (once you select what exercise you did... ie "walking, 3.0 mph, leisurely pace") and MyFitnessPal fills in the rest (calories burned), and adds it to your total caloric exercise.
It seems like a lousy way to enter everything, but until the three apps can see each other, this is what has to be done.
Yes, I've sent a feedback email to VeryFitPro, but seeing how they are an Asian company and things need to be translated, I haven't heard anything yet. I don't think they respond to queries. The thing I didn't like about sending feedback, is there is an option to send a .zip folder with your email. It contains logs from using the app, including a text file with your phone information ("device info"). It's not your number that's included -that's nothing to worry about. But it's your phone's name (whatever you named your phone), phone brand / model, installed OS, app name, firmware version, MAC address, and more scarily important: your phone's UDID. I researched what UDID is and the internet told me it's "like your phone's Social Security Number".
UDID's description is as follows: "a unique device identifier (UDID) is a 40-character string assigned to certain Apple devices including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Each UDID character is a numeral or a letter of the alphabet. Using the UDID, third parties, particularly app vendors, can track subscriber behavior." (
Definition: unique device identifier (UDID)).
I don't like that if you send feedback to the company, they want all the nitty gritty particulars of the phone. They don't need to know my phone's identification numbers, as it's not relevant to the conversation, I think. Unless they are Apple (or Verizon, who is my phone provider), there is no reason any one or thing needs more than an email address to respond to, what app I'm using and what the problem is.
All in all, I am going to continue using this thing and see what it can do. Maybe I'll upgrade in the future, maybe not. It'll depend on how crazy things get and if I follow my own advice and do major comparisons / research.
That's it for now. I'll probably do more posting about this as the weeks progress.
Cheers;
Pictures or it never happened:
See Also (aka candy reference in title)
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See Also (aka what's in my photos and video)
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video editing using (with generic Pinnacle music):
