Gadgetory

hey everyone this is Jimmy with Jim's review room now Sony takes a different approach with their wearable technology it's not as focused on the health aspects so much instead it's focused on literally everything else Sony smart bands can see how long you've been watching movies for - playing games - how long you've been at social media and it's fascinating to see those who are really active with their smartphones and how their day breaks down in detail and I don't think there's anything else like this on the market currently well besides the affer mention I'll go into detail shortly about its features and see how everything performs on this $169 smartband talk so without further ado I welcome you guys to Jim's review room going over the physical features first - bands come in the box so size shouldn't be an issue the silicon is very smooth and slick to the fingers even on the textured side now it's a very nice feeling that's comfortable on the wrist and the screen in the brain to the smart band talk surprisingly isn't bigger than wearing a normal standard size watch then although the glass profile does seem wide and after testing it's comfortable and doesn't snag long sleeve shirts when worn at the office now with this texture there's slight dust accumulation less than some other textured bands that I've tried when worn with long sleeves but this can be easily washed off just something to be aware about if this is something that you do look into now as for the glass used after my testing and wearing this through my daily routine and sadly found the glass scratched now I haven't done anything out the ordinary through an office work but it's sad to see maybe a slight bump or brush against a table may have caused this now overall it's still a very lightweight still a quality band despite the glass being a little bit more sensitive compared to other competitors there rotating to the right here and looking at the physical buttons the longest button is for adjusting the volume up and down and below is the action or Menu button now rotating to the underside there's a built-in microphone with two speakers on either side and as the name proceeds the smartband talk is able to take phone calls now more on that test and my impressions shortly and last is the microUSB port for charging which is a huge welcome considering most other activity bands have their proprietary connections any micro USB wire you have laying around the house would just do now as for the battery life this is something where it falls short the battery life is claimed to be three days and with my testing it truly did last three days and possibly a few hours before it completely died now either way compared to other bands it's quite low considering the average is four to five days of life on the other manufacturers now moving on to this screen display in its on-screen menu the band uses this technology called e ink it's technology that you've seen a lot on the classic e-readers like the Amazon Kindle paperwhite now the text shown on-screen would resemble what text would look like on paper and with people claiming it's easier on the eyes now for a small screen like this and the brief moment that you actually do look at it I don't think it would matter too much but the technology behind it sounds really cool when doing some research but going into its menu it's really straightforward with the main screen showing the time in a dhow below that indicating your total progress in regards to steps or running for that day and now pressing the menu button opens the following screen revealing your total steps how many minutes you've spent walking in how much running and basically from the factory events about it and records do all the menu features but what's unique is on the smartband app you can download more apps than use and it downloaded right into the band itself here I have the weather showing right on my wrist with the next menu option being able to control my music and currently on your screen are all the apps that are available through the smart band app for download now it's not much but there are some useful ones on there now as stated earlier you can take incoming phone calls with this band which is quite unique and a new experience the phone number is displayed along with any notifications from your phone like text messages Facebook notifications or tweets from Twitter but keep in mind any messages are only shown briefly and you can't scroll through them and read the entire message and Sony does disclose that in its instruction manual or music guide and besides not being able to scroll and read the entire message once the band goes back to the main screen you can't go back and look at previously read messages but regarding answering phone calls on your wrist here at first I was a bit hesitant but after playing around with this feature it's useful actually for those really quick and brief moments now Sony states in its instructions to hold this approximately 20 centimeters from your mouth or close to eight inches here and speak naturally and during my testing I can hear the person on the other end clearly through the two small speakers right on my wrist and they can hear me clearly as well now testing with this someone said my voice did not sound like I was on a speakerphone which is a plus but just a very minor echo was noticed but she said that it's actually quite impressive for something that's coming off of my wrist here now I know this area will be subjective but it is an option or an intern ative to whipping out your phone that's stuck in your pocket when driving let's say or when your other hand is occupied in holding something the band during these moments seems the most convenient for me and actually came in handy again it's subjective on how useful this option may be but nonetheless it is still an option and before going deep into the app here the screen is very much viewable in bright sunlight which is great it's one of the perks of having that e-ink display and also in dim light settings you can actually still see the band for quite well from my experience the only time that you can't see it is of course in pitch black there's no Beth light that you can turn on now last year when switching in between screens you'll see a faded image in the background which persona is perfectly normal and just part of this technology the white screen displays much less but the black screen does give the ghosting effect again this is normal per Sony and the last feature here is smart alarms you can set your band to provide a pretty strong vibration from what I experienced or have a audible alarm go off as well on your wrist to wake you up in the mornings you can break it down to only certain days for the alarm to go off but what's more unique within 30 minutes of your absolute latest time of getting up here if the band can detect you recently entered into light sleep the band will then wake you up that way you feel less groggy and agitated versus waking up from deep sleep now it's only a 30-minute window in which you can adjust to 60 if you'd like but having this feature is of course quite unique but I'll be honest the band has always woken me up at the latest hours as I'm sure I'm always in the deepest sleep prior to waking up again that's just me now the previous menu here and a petticoat you earlier in this video was the sony smartband talk app now Sony also has another app here that you should download that works with their smart bands in general called life log and this is where it gets really interesting this app will record almost everything that you do on your smart phone or device that you have it paired to but with your smart band of course the smart man would supplement data to this app such as walking running and be sleep quality 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 its activity and more on 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've 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 and each category can be clicked on and expanded for further information here calories break down 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 as we review what you had done at that very time so that's it for these sony smartband talk I hope this video helped you in some way now if you do like my work be sure to add me Jim's Rovira on either Facebook Twitter or Google+ to get updates for me and updates and items I'm testing before I put them on the website so this is Jimmy with Jim's review room you guys take care and I'll see you on the next one bye