Gadgetory

hey everyone this is Jimmy with Jim's review room welcome to another review now Sony's jumping on the bandwagon with their own smart band not necessarily a strong focused Fitness monitor but more of a life monitor recording almost everything that you do in life through your phone it's a real unique concept compared to the many bands I've reviewed since last year it's priced at just $99 retail making this very budget-friendly but does it have enough features and the features you want to justify a purchase so without further ado we'll get started starting off with its physical build sony provides two silicone wristbands one small on the other large with notches to fit your wrist the smartband itself is very lightweight and is actually one of the lightest I've reviewed so far the wrist strap itself is textured and it looks very modern but sadly over testing and wearing this for a while now it does attract slight dust and lint overtime but this can be remedied by periodically washing the band away now sony has tested and rated this at IP 58 certification meaning it's able to be submerged underwater for a period of time by wearing this it's been very comfortable very lightweight and a strap does stay secure and the band does come in 9 different colors you can purchase personas websites in swapping colors to accessorize for the day is very easy the main computer is detachable enabling you to switch bands now Sony does provide a micro USB charger that you can connect to either your computer or in my case I'd use my existing phone charger to charge the battery the battery takes just 30 minutes to charge and I'll detail how long the battery lasts later in the review and Sony keeps this very simple with very minimal displays there's just one button on the side and when pressed turns on and off the unit but also you'll switch from daytime or nighttime mode in all this is indicated by three consecutive lights for daytime recording and alternating lights for sleep recording and before going into the app itself here are some of the requirements that you'll need to ensure this works for you you'll need Android 4.4 Bluetooth 4.0 smart band host smart connect and the life log app and those last three items mentioned our apps found for free in the Google Play Store in a word of caution this was just from my experience I had some frustrations on getting this to install and work the first time I had to install each app wait until they updated it and after each update I had to manually restart the tablet and restart the Sony smart band and this wasn't indicated in the instructions and typically with any app is just a download and install procedure but that wasn't the case here so hopefully with this information it should go smooth for you now getting into the app it's a one-stop shop for all of your information the very top here is a graphical timeline that shows your actions throughout your day and it's activity one that shortly now below is a very simple interface with tiles that updates periodically with your life bookmarks calories burned steps taken for the day how much time you spent walking versus running how much sleep you've had time you spent on social media like Facebook or Twitter in the second row here shows how many photos you've taken for the day and the photos itself once you click it next how much time you spent listening to music movies playing games reading a book and the very last icon here I have is time spent on the Internet in each category can be clicked on and expanded for further information here calories breakdown your day to show where your most active and the bar chart separates your passive calories burned versus calories burned when you're exercising you can set up a goal to to try to achieve your efforts in the top right and you have the ability to compare your previous days weeks and months worth of performance now backing out here is the same exact concept for steps taken walking and running times with a bar graph as well with goal setting changes and different time periods to view but what is also very well done I believe is the sleep mode the sleep mode is good to determine if you're getting a good night's rest the band just senses any movements you have during your sleep and associates that with either light sleep deep sleep you can distinguish when you get up and walk around and this feature is just another tool to help you in becoming more self-aware of your own habits now going into the communication and social media tile the life log app breaks down which apps you are specifically on and how much time was devoted to each this is again the same for the other tiles like music videos gaming books and internet surfing the only real different tile here is your photos as stated earlier once you click it you can see what photos you have taken for that day and once you click on a photo it brings you to your built-in photo viewer on your tablet or smartphone and as stated earlier you have your visual timeline above where you simply press play on the top right corner here and this will scroll through your day seeing all the icons where you were active in the activities performed and while this is moving your metrics or numbers below populates as well and with each icon in the timeline you can tap this and this will review what you had done at that very time now other features includes a vibrating alarm that wakes you up in the morning and also a vibrating alerts when you're receiving incoming phone calls now because there is not a display you unfortunately don't see who's calling in you still need to pull out your phone to determine if you want to pick up the phone caller or not the only issue that I really had was apps that I've used like Flipboard and Netflix I believe were categorized in the wrong tiles Flipboard is mainly for reading of course but my register time is recorded under internet news and Netflix was registered under the gaming tile which clearly Netflix was meant for video watching and when using your apps on your phone or tablet only the app in the foreground is recorded a perfect example to help illustrate this is when I have Pandora on in the background and I'm working on other apps or just leaving my phone or tablet playing music that time is not recorded pandora has sustained the forefront for it to log in time that makes sense but the LifeLock app doesn't record when you have the ability to technically multitask in regards to battery life after testing this from a full charge I was able to achieve four days and nineteen hours into the unit died almost 5 days making the Sony smartband on par with some of the other competitors out there so as you can see the LifeLock app with the sony smartband is unique in seeing how much time you've been wasting or how much time you've been productive and all this is logged automatically and by the end of day and when we have several months worth of data to compare it's really intriguing to see our habits the sony smartband works but as you've seen so far it's not as robust or as interactive compared to some of the other competitors out there there's no motivational tips extensions on your goals or much more explanation and the life logging aspect but for the price something very simple to use and data that's just enough to understand you a little bit better there's a market out there I believe so I hope this review has given you some insight and a deeper look into the app itself please take your time to like and subscribe to my channel for future content this is Jimmy with Jim's review room take care everyone bye you