Company – Misfit
Product Review – Misfit Shine – Fitness Tracker and Sleep Monitor (Jet) ($89.99)
Website – www.misfit.com
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As athletes we can be obsessive when it comes to our health, and I have to admit I’m a guilty one. I’m constantly looking for a fitness tracker to track my heart rate, steps, sleep, calories burned, oh and my intake calories. That’s why I was excited to find Misfit wearables. Misfit wearables are not only a fitness tracker but they tell time are sleek and have many different form factors. Whether you want to wear it on your arm, shoe, as a necklace, or just on your person I found that the Misfit tracker can be worn in any number of ways. The tracker is about the size of a quarter and it’s thickness is about a 1/4 of inch. It weighs roughly 10 grams an and you can barely feel it on your person, good thing it’s waterproof (up to 3 feet) because I found myself wearing it while in the water more than once this past summer while swimming. The tracker tells the time, though I must admit it takes some time to get use to as the lights can be confusing at times, but once you get use to it it’s fairly accurate telling time. I must mention the Misfit app and where the hardware and software come together in a match that is impeccable. The integration is seamless and I never had an issue with the device syncing. With their latest release Misfit is starting to integrate with other apps like MyFitnessPal in a bi-directional sync.

Who is Misfit Fitness Tracker?

Misfit is small innovative company based out of the San Francisco area. Their main mission is to. “Invent and manufacture great wearable computing products.” Their company consists of some of the brightest minds in hardware and software that range from “X” Apple employees, MIT graduates, and Olympians. When speaking with them about their tracker I never met a company that was so client focused, I had lost my original tracker on a run I was doing when I had it attached to my shoe. I contacted them about the loss and within a few days I had another one at my doorstep with no questions asked. I contacted them about wanting to test out different form factors of the tracker so they sent me a necklace, clothing clip, socks, and a few shirts, again no questions. Apart from a few issues I had with their necklace and shoe clip the quality of their accessories are very good and I would believe will hold up on durability.

The Misfit!

The Misfit I found can be used in a number of different ways as I alluded to before. I made sure that I wore the tracker in various different form factors. I wanted to make sure that I was doing the same type of activities to see if I would come up with different results. Each time I performed the same activity while wearing the tracker differently I would get close to the same results – this in my opinion is an excellent sign of the hardware’s 3-axis accelerometer. The device easily snaps out of one form factor and snaps into a different one. It fits snug in most of their accessories; however, their rubber (sport) clip needs a bit more work as the unit can snap out pretty easily. I mostly wore the tracker on my arm in a leather band that they sent me. Like with all leather you really shouldn’t it in the water as I’m now getting a funky smell from the band. Nothing to do with the quality, but more of a user error as I should know not to wear leather in water as much as I did.

The App

There are a few highlights I like to point out, as you can set daily goals and the app goes off of a points system. 1000 points would equal 1.5hr walk, 30min run, or a 45min swim. I would have liked to see other activities such as riding my bike, but the app did give you a good idea of how they gauge their point system. You can set sleep goals and the device will gently wake you when that goal is reached. And like most fitness trackers you can track your weight by manually adding your weight into the app. I would love to see them in the future integrate with a scale so that this fluctuations can be automatically updated. The tracker tracks your basics like steps, calories, and miles. I love that fact that I can see my history with a swipe. With the integration with such apps like MyFitnessPal I now can see in a snapshot what my daily intake was. As with my activities I can see my sleep cycle as well, the app shows me when I had deep sleep (REM) and light sleep and shows me the total amount in REM. Again, I love that fact that I can see my history with a swipe.

One of the areas of the app I never understood was the people part. They have a leaderboard and feeds but with so few people now using the device it seemed to be a confusing area of the app, I would think that when more people use the device this part of the app will morph to a useable area of the app. But for now I just don’t  understand the need.

Conclusion

Likes

• Price
• wide array of form factors
• Comfort
• Ease of use
• Style and sleekness

Dislikes

• Durability – on some of their accessories
• No website integration
• The clock takes some getting use to

Overall

If you’re looking to buy a solid fitness tracker that will allow you to wear the device whether you are in a marathon or out for night, then the Misfit is for you!