Gadgetory

hey guys this is David at the verge and this is the Microsoft band this is part of Microsoft's new huge Microsoft health ecosystem this is the first Hardware though it's the first of many but it's the first one so the big thing about Microsoft health is that it's all about these little bits of information right it's tracking things with ten sensors and also giving you notifications so the whole interface is just left and right swipes through everything these are called tiles and you can use some of them to see let's say your most recent text message from my friend who thinks I'm dead or your emails if you have anything new you get call notifications you get all kinds of stuff on here that's sort of a miniature version of a SmartWatch but this is really a workout tour so if you want to run you start the run and you hit the one button and then it snaps you right into a run you can turn on the GPS so it'll track you that way or you can just start running and then you want to end it you just end your run so the whole interface is really customizable you can have it start a workout and it'll actually know what you're doing it'll figure out that you're doing a push up it'll measure your heart rate the whole time there's an always-on heart rate monitor so it is literally every second taking your heart rate and it measures things like calories it measures your steps it measures how much you travel there's just a ton of data being compressed into one little band here so one of the coolest things about the band is that you can actually download workouts to it you can get a whole workout from Gold's Gym or Microsoft or what have you and then come onto here download it and it'll automatically start you on the workout so right now I'm supposed to be doing a via not entirely sure what that is but I'm supposed to be doing it for 20 seconds and it'll buzz it me when it's done and when it's time to move to the next one so I moved to the next one and it gives me the rest and then my set so this will guide you through all of your workouts and then if you order your phone it'll show you how to do proper form it'll show you how to do exercise all this stuff so it's working together to make sure you are totally set with your workout when it's off it's showing the time it's got this sort of ambient display mode this is very much a fitness device it has a few Smart Watch things again you can set a timer it's also designed to track your sleep so it'll know how much rest of the sleep you get and how much sleep you get period and it's goal is to combine all of this data into something that's really useful for you the band itself that you're not actually supposed to do that much of it if you pair it with a Windows Phone you can talk to it you can respond to a text pretty easily or you can quickly set a reminder or send an email but for the most part this is about tracking the stuff that you do it's about tracking your workouts it's about tracking your runs it's about tracking your sleep the band itself is kind of big it's a little chunky it's definitely not just a watch with a band or something like that it's there's tech everywhere here there's a heart rate sensor there's the charger it's see the heart rate sensor is always on the charger is here it's a little awkward and sort of a magnetic thing you put on the clasp is actually really cool so the clasp will slide so you can put it on and then change it so if you want it tighter or while you're working out but looser while you're wearing it normally it's really easy to do so that part is clever but the thing itself is kind of big and rigid and it's not the most comfortable thing I've ever worn on my wrist you're definitely going to be aware that it's there and with the horizontal screen - it's just a little bit awkward it actually works better if you put it on the inside of your wrist but then I just feel weird holding up the inside of my wrist like this so this is a Microsoft band there's gonna be a lot of hardware like this Microsoft is licensing its software it's licensing its hardware and there's going to be a gigantic ecosystem of devices that run on the Microsoft l2 platform but this is the first one it's $199 and it's the Microsoft damned you