Gadgetory

hey everyone this is Jimmy with Jim's review room welcome to another review jawbone Nike and of course Fitbit dominated the fitness band industry for 2013 and moving into 2014 Fitbit had unfortunately a recall on their popular forced model and Nike and jawbone aren't due for a refresh until mid-november and in the meantime almost every other company's playing catch-up a Kickstarter companies like Atlas fitness amigo and move just the name of you smaller but more established companies like j-bird and even gaming equipment manufacturer Razer is joining in and then you have heavy giants like Samsung with its gear fit Sony with its life band and Garmin entering into the activity monitoring side with the vive fits and here I have the LG life band touch available retail for 149 dollars so without further ado we'll get started this is one of the more stylish and high-tech looking bands on the market the end of the band is made with a firm yet flexible piece of rubber that way you can straighten it and slide it onto your wrist one third of the band is then a curved hard plastic and the remaining 1/3 is an OLED display and one that later now you can find your fitment with a plastic wrist measure right on the box but what I have here is medium and although I typically do wear medium when testing out other bands the LifeVantage is more fitted you might have to go up one more size for those right in-between fitments of medium and large an element when first holding the life band touch it does have some weight to it it feels top-heavy where the screen is located but after putting this on I didn't feel any discomfort at all and it felt natural unusually wear a watch and it felt exactly like that though now everyday normal wearing to weightlifting and running didn't provide any serious issues the wristband although open still remained on my wrist and because of its more fitted design it stays on without much unreasonable play and I believe the only minor issue I had here is if the band sent more forward on my wrist and I were to do push-ups or place my hand and palm at a 90 degree angle the life band touch does clench in between my wrist and backhand causing discomfort at that time this of course can be remedied by moving the slightly back but it's something at least for me I had to be conscious about and overall it's been very durable no marks and Nick's or scratches on the rubber and not even one mark in the OLED display and I've accidentally smacked the OLED against the table when I first bought this too but as you can see no marks the button is very clicky and going over it's on-screen menu the first is your time indicator and with a gentle swipe reviews your date and remaining battery the next is activity mode which details how many calories you've burned so far the distance walked how many steps you've taken and last is to register the start of your workout and what's really unique that of course gives you your duration as soon as you click the start button here but by swiping right to left you have some menus that's specific to your current workouts in real time that is you can measure how many calories you've burned so far in that workout alone the distance steps speed pace and your heart rate if you have a heart rate monitor worn which I'll get into detail shortly now backing out on my workout session here and still an activity mode I can tap on calories and it shows my calorie burning goals and temp again and it shows a progress bar indicating how close I am to achieving this goal I set up through the app and more in the app as well soon in this review now exiting this and going into the last mode is music control and this is pretty simple and straightforward but it's something most if not all manufacturers currently don't have instead of taking your phone or tablet out you can control your music volume and skip or go back and songs on your phone or tablet wirelessly and unfortunately this doesn't work under the much-loved Pandora or other music apps the controls only work for songs on your locally stored playlist at least that's what I can tell from an iPad and the last few features on the physical aspect of the band before jumping into the software app the life band touch is splash resistant now / LG it's not meant to be submerged in water or worn in the shower and that's typical of most bands currently today the band does have a gesture function when you raise your hand up like looking at a watch the screen automatically turns on for viewing now this is to me has been pretty spotty at times and not 100% accurate but clicking on the button on the band will always work for you the LG life band also provides notifications for incoming calls text messages and works as an alarm clock as well and currently have this paired to an iPad but reading the instructions iPhones will only display a handset icon while Android has the ability to display the name of the registered caller in your contacts or just the phone number if it's an unregistered caller the left band works for both Android and Apple devices as long as these specifications are met on the screen you should be fine the biggest caveat is although it's Android compatible LG has noted in their instructions and website a list of known compatible devices and for example I don't see HTC One as being listed so be cautious when purchasing this if your phone is not displayed and through my testing I was able to achieve two days and 20 hours as being the average for battery life almost three whole days but regardless it's on the low end of performance when compared to the competitors and it's not hidden from LG as well as it's listed in their frequently asked questions and websites better is expected to last two to three days when I'm Bluetooth connectivity now moving on to the app here you have your home screen that displays how many calories you have remaining to burn off to reach your set goal a ring to visually illustrate your remaining goal and to the boundary is your distance travel today with steps counted now moving the screen further down reviews a graph and progression of your day the gray bars are just your normal daily movements while the red light color is x you've logged in through a workout and the last box of information is your current week which I found beneficial sitting right on the home page that way I can compare today's performance with yesterday's or let's say last weekend's etc to try to keep my bars up to par or to beat my previous performance records and like I said earlier your daily burn calories all can be changed right here the amount you start with is the recommended amount LG provides after you input your height weight and age and the last thing I wanted to touch base on was going back to the very top here if you haven't reached your goal yet the app quickly indicates how much walking that needs to be done to reach your set goal this little feature is similar to the polar loop as sometimes at the end of the day a small brisk walk can help you reach your burned calories now moving on to the next tab here is activity indicating again your burn calories and your progress and set goal but what's more important is further down showing the amount of time you spent walking versus running versus going up and down stairs the LG life band does have an altimeter that measures you going up and down elevations unfortunately it doesn't display how many flights of stairs climbed like the now recalled Fitbit force now scrolling to the next section shows each workout you've activated from your wrist and then recorded clicking on each workout breaks it down even further and you can see on your screen this shows the time you've spent working out with the expected distance and calories burned displayed and insulated earlier of what can be displayed on your wrist here the app shows your speed pace and again if you had a heart rate monitor your heart rate per minute would be shown here and since around the topic of heart rate monitors I highly recommend buying one it's another tool to help obtain even more accurate results to better your body and also your heart over time and this is where LG really shines the life band is a very open device working with many third-party apps and products for heart rate monitors LG shows that you can use their earphone HR monitors or using a chest strap monitor like the one from polar and since we're already here scrolling down reviews this Fitness app works with many popular apps currently like My Fitness Pal and RunKeeper and of course you can connect this to your Facebook or Twitter account for sharing your progress now going back to the activity tab here and continuing where we last left off you can see your weekly progress as well as your monthly progress again it's a great way to compare your performance over time to self-improve and the very bottom of the activity section are your workout records for the month the workout tab is next which is identical to the workout menu and your wrist here you can start your workout and in turn it will display data in real time there is a map on the bottom of the screen however the LG life band doesn't have any GPS capabilities unfortunately this is the only test I could not perform but I would only assume the app may be able to use your GPS from your connected smartphone to utilize the map I've animal has this experience or know of the answer please comment below and the very last tab here to the right is essentially your settings and help menu where you can set up your user profile which includes your height weight and age now with this information the LG fitness app can estimate your body mass index abbreviated BMI the BMI is then used to calculate your goal to fat-burning the rest of the menu are again settings you can change to customize what you want displayed or performed the frequently asked questions tab is very helpful in answering some interesting questions like how is my heart rate read with these sold separately LG earbuds or how often is my data synced the answer is infrared light shines and then reflects back measuring blood flow and in turn measuring heart rate and the answer to the second question data is synced every 30 minutes when within the Bluetooth range and data can be stored up to 30 days before needing to be synced in general and never viewed a lot of fitness bands since last year and it's always been one band has something while the other one doesn't an element this LG fitness band I think hits a very nice balance LG isn't trying to create and do all about actually partners with quality proven third-party apps like My Fitness Pal after I tested the polar loop and Garmin I'm a strong believer and chest heart rate monitors and this LG other provides their own HR ear films that is you can use again proven and reliable third-party company chest straps but this product is also called the life band and features like reminders through wrist notifications to get up and move to being able to control your music or screen phone calls does help with your day to day activities in conclusion I'm somewhat surprised this hasn't received more press than it has and we'll see what other bands haven't storm throughout this year but for now I think this LG is worthy to contend with the likes of jawbone Nike and Fitbit so I hope you enjoyed this review and it helped you in some way please take your time to like and subscribe to my channel and find me on Facebook or Google+ this is Jimmy with Jim's review room take care everyone bye you