Microsoft’s New ‘Band’ Is a Smartwatch in a Fitness Tracker’s Body
(Microsoft)
It was while the Giants’ Madison Bumgarner was dealing high fastballs in Wednesday night’s World Series-clinching win over the Kansas City Royals that Microsoft finally decided to pitch us the details on its rumored smartwatch.
And no doubt hoping to shift the wrist-wearable market a bit, it looks like the team out of Redmond has dealt existing gadget makers a heck of a changeup.
Called Microsoft Band, the device looks and acts like a smartwatch living inside a fitness band’s body. Along the lines of the classic Fitbit, Nike FuelBand, and Jawbone UP devices, Redmond’s new offering is a low-profile, plastic wrist wearable that connects to your smartphone and measures your activity throughout the day.
But in the same vein of the Pebble smartwatch, Android’s Wear watches, and the forthcoming Apple Watch, Band also has a small, rectangular touch display that shows text messages, emails, incoming phone calls, and social media and weather info.
(Microsoft)
At a price of $199, Band comes in small, medium, or large sizes and is available to order from Microsoft.com right now.
Read more: Apple Watch Tops List of Hottest Fitness Trackers
Further hardware capabilities include GPS tracking (independent of your smartphone), ultraviolet light sensing to let you know when you’ve been in the sun too long, multi-axis activity recording for monitoring sleep patterns, and galvanic skin response sensing to measure stress levels.
The software built into Band, unsurprisingly, matches that of Windows Phone, with a swipeable, customizable tile-like interface for navigating between services. And Windows Phone’s digital assistant, Cortana, is accessible for things like note taking through voice commands with Band.
(Microsoft)
But transcending mere Windows Phone compatibility, Microsoft has built its new watch/fitness band to work with all three of the major smartphone operating systems, making it an Android and/or iPhone accessory, too. Apart from the now-2-year-old Pebble, the multiplatform play is somewhat of a novelty among the latest smartwatch releases, as Google’s and Apple’s devices will work only with their own smartphone software.
The Fitbit, Nike FuelBand, and Jawbone fitness trackers, however, do play nicely with at least two different smartphone platforms, as is the nature of most other activity bands.
Microsoft’s new Health app, where all of Band’s data is stored, is required to be installed before the device can be paired to your phone.
(Microsoft)
One glaring omission on Band’s list of features is any meaningful waterproof rating. Microsoft lists the device as “sweat- and splash-resistant,” saying that it shouldn’t be submerged in water for any period of time. Comparatively, most existing fitness bands pack some degree of waterproofing, and the same can be said for the Apple Watch and just about every Android Wear device launched this far.
So, with San Francisco’s baseball team winning its third Fall Classic in five years, there’s no denying it’s a proven winner. But Microsoft’s team, when it comes to wearables, anyhow, still has a lot to prove.
We hope to get our hands on a Band for a full review soon.
Email Daniel at dhowley@yahoo-inc.com; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley or on Google+ here.
