NO 24-hour heart rate monitoring on the Band

[pj737]

EXACTLY.

Notice he's made a bunch of references to the Mio product in this thread (basically promoting a product the is solely dedicates to HR monitoring)...



The guy clearly has an agenda

No, just trying to let other health/fitness enthusiasts that value and want TRUE continuous heart rate monitoring that the Band does NOT offer that feature despite its marketing.

 

[pj737]

I thought he had a medical condition, I had worked out a couple of diagnosis but thought it best to keep them to myself for fear of upsetting folks :smile:



Bob

No, but I appreciate your concern. I am a fitness/health enthusiast. I represent the core customer base for this product (fitness/health trackers)... people that exercise frequently, compete in various sports, eat well and are willing to pay decent money for technology that can assist us in our goals.

 

[pj737]

If you want constant monitoring for some reason (heart condition maybe) then turn on a basic workout and don't turn it off. Just don't complain when you don't get a full day of battery life.

I did that but the battery dies in under 3 hours. Which makes it useless for long bike rides, marathons, long runs, hikes, etc. It's a major limitation for a fitness tracking device.

 

[pj737]

I think he's pointing out potential bias by OP, who was conversely accusing others of bias. I noticed that OP also had a similar diatribe against the Samsung Gear 2 on Android Central, complete with the "false advertising" and "you all are fanboys" schtick. His participation in Mobile Nations is heavily weighted toward an interest in debunking the accuracy and usefulness of newly-released heart rate monitors. My money's on someone who has an interest in a competing product or perhaps just a plain agitator. Regardless, what started off as a decent point devolved into a complete and utter loss of credibility on the part of OP when he started attacking people and engaging in histrionics.

Bottom line is people that have a decent amount of brain cells will understand that a Microsoft forum (and its forum members) is not going to provide unbiased feedback regarding the use/features of a fitness tracking device.. when the people on this forum are generally NOT hardcore fitness enthusiasts. Unless you're a hardcore fitness enthusiast or into sports, training etc you will not care about my comments. Which is fine because I started a SPECIFIC THREAD about the SEVERE limitations of the HR monitor on the Band. The complainers on this forum are not hardcore fitness people; they are (generally) people interested or have a liking to Microsoft products; over the eons Microsoft has not introduced a product SPECIFICALLY targeting FITNESS-ORIENTED people. So of course I expect to get buried here.

If you post to a hardcore fitness forum about the Band not being able to read entire emails, etc, you're not going to have a bunch of dooshie forum members saying "shut up nobody cares about reading emails, we just want to track our metrics - beat it loser". But here when somebody cries about MICROSOFT'S BLATANT FALSE MARKETING about a feature a lot of fitness buffs have been waiting years for, all I get is bashed to the ground with nonsensical analogies, blabbering about technology when they have zero understanding of it and twisting commonly accepted words like "24-hour" and "continuous" into some ridiculous new meaning that only applies to readers of this forum. As long as other health enthusiasts read my posts they will be well-informed when they buy the Band. It will save Microsoft a little bit of money on all the returns they'll get from unhappy hardcore fitness enthusiasts.

 

[Yonic Boom]

Microsoft, j'accuse!

 

[pj737]

I ddon't understand why this matters.

It doesn't. But on a biased forum like this, it magically does.

 

[pj737]

Couldn't agree more here. I purchased this because I thought it would tell me if I burned "30 extra calories" if I decide to exclusively use the stairs for a day. Personally, I think it is tracking heart rate more often than the app shows. If you look at the sleep chart, the heart rate updates a lot more frequently than the day view. How accurate these readings are is another story.

So if you took the stairs all day instead of walking on level ground the difference in burn would be about 30 calories. Thank you for the completely nonsensical post.

No, it is not tracking more than the app shows. I've already explained this and you are welcome to go back and read the entire thread. Again, you know if it's on simply by looking at it. There is a bright green LED that only goes on for a few seconds every hour unless you "wake" the Band by pressing the large button. Otherwise there is ONE reading PER HOUR. If you neurotically press the big button all day yes you will get more readings.

 

[pj737]

What a tiresome thread over a word..
(I binged it...)

Continuous indicates duration without interruption.
Or is it..
Continual indicates duration that continues over a long period of time, but with intervals of interruption

whichever it is, I hope the Band comes to my part of the world... I'm getting it.

If you ask 1,000 people of the general public, exactly 1,000 out of 1,000 will translate 24 hour continuous heart rate monitoring as monitoring ALL THE TIME. Meaning the optical sensor would be on ALL THE TIME.

If you ask the people on this forum, they believe 10 seconds every 3,600 seconds (hour) or roughly .003% of the time is "continuous" and "24-hour".

I got a good chuckle typing that because as ridiculous as it sounds, that is entirely true.

 

[pj737]

I have observed mine turning on, on its own, at least 3 times today. That's when I was paying attention. It happened when I was actively moving - not necessarily exercising but not sitting around doing nothing

The optical sensor takes one reading every hour automatically. Period. Nothing to argue here anymore. If you manually press the button it will wake the device and take your reading. The device does not take your reading AUTOMATICALLY any more than once an hour during the day when you are sitting down, running, sprinting, etc.

 

[pj737]

Everyone else is saying it does. So clearly you have a defective device. Take it back for an exchange.

At this point you're just ranting and ignoring everyone else's statements. Mine should be delivered Tuesday next week and I will keep an eye on it.

Thank you for the advice. I did take it back and replaced it with a new one... and the new device behaves identically.

 

[pj737]

"I can't wait to hear the response after this"

When you say something like this, it means you don't care about good accurate discussion. You're just getting a high off the argument for sake of argument.

Your entire attitude in this thread has been bullish and insulting. Ranting on and on, despite our efforts to solve your issues. But please, get yourself off and keep push this argument. At this point it's just entertainment.

Four members specifically mentioned on this forum that Microsoft does not state anywhere that the device is "continuous". So instead of letting misinformation spread around on a forum I specifically started to help others make an informed decision about buying the Band, I squashed it with facts.

 

[pj737]

"Continuously 24 hours"
Well, if it can record even once per hour for first 24 hours and then to next 24 hours, then it's continuously.
If it can record once per 6 hours for first 24 hours and then to next 24 hours, then it's still continuously.
Even if it track only once per 24 hour and then to next 24 hours, it's still continuously.

So your "continuous" means? once per minute? once per second? or once per millisecond? or you want faster? For whatever speed, you will still find a way to rant about it. Just admit that you're being angry because no one think the same with you here. And seem like others just use it just fine with "health" aspect.

Per your first comment, you wanted it to monitor your heart rate 24 hours and I can see people here provide screenshots of it working 24 hours with full information.
Then you rant about it should keep "continuously" track your heart rate when you're exercising. Did you read this comment from Daniel? You should try it


And yes, you already knew that you couldn't get supported comments in this forums, yet you keep posting in it, do you want to prove something? Want supported comments? Just post this to Microsoft-hate-forum and you'll be praised for this discovery.

We here all respect feedbacks to improve something, but keep ranting about it without even listening to people here is kinda unpleasant, don't you think :3

24-hour continuous means the HRM is ALWAYS ON and continuously monitoring your heart rate. It's really not that hard to grasp. What if the device took a reading only twice a day? I would still be having this completely nonsensical argument with the forum members here.

 

[pj737]

it does check continuously. i'm guessing the intervals aren't narrow enough for you. perhaps you're a hypochondriac. who knows.

healthwise, your heart rate is not supposed to widely fluctuate under normal circumstances. it changes based on oxygen demand so it changes the most during exercise, a disease state, or severe stress/duress. why would you need it to check every millisecond when you're just sitting there? under those conditions, your heart rate should be stable.

I found the heart rate meter to be continuously checking my heart rate. Maybe it's not every millisecond but it's good enough during rest. Ad when you do exercise, it narrows the interval. So what's the issue? The intervals are narrow enough for exercise and narrow enough for rest.

the true usefulness of these monitors isn't the absolute number, it's the trend the number indicates. if the person are truly under duress, you'll see it all over the person. it won't take a monitor to tell you the person is in trouble. he'll be sweating, have a feeling of heaviness, cloudy mind, etc. whether your monitor says your baseline is 70 and your HR increases to 200 or whether your monitor says your baseline is 80 and increases to 210 says the exact same information. It's the trending that's most important.

And when you go to a doctor. He doesn't look at a single number. He looks at a trend. If you're doing a stress test, he's looking at the plasticity of your heart and how well it recovers after the exercise is completed. If you're just doing a normal checkup, he's taking your value and seeing whether you're progressing or regressing, healthwise, against your chart history. He's not going to measure your heart rate for 20 minutes every 30 seconds.

I've seen patients demanding antibiotics. Demanding a CT scan. Demanding a mammogram. All when their cases don't warrant it. Testing more often doesn't fix the problem. A CT scan has 600x the radiation of an X-ray. You shouldn't be testing on a whim. If your doctor is telling you to get these scans all the time, you should check his credentials. A good doctor wouldn't overprescribe broad spectrum antibiotics either. A good doctor would use a narrow spectrum antibiotic if the situation demands it or start off with a broad spectrum and dial down as the offending organism is deciphered. Mammograms haven't show to decrease death rates at all. Isn't that the point of testing? To decrease death rates, increase health indices, etc.? The point of testing isn't to just test.

I used a couple analogies earlier in the thread, some of which were obviously not read by the forum posters here.

One of the analogies was an automobile's ability to determine what the fuel efficiency of your last drive was. In order to determine what the car's true MPG number is, the car needs to monitor fuel flow, engine RPM and speed CONTINUOUSLY (key word here guys). If the car only gathered that data for 1 minute out of the 60 minutes, the data is ENTIRELY USELESS. Yes, entirely useless. It provides absolutely no value... in fact it's so useless it shouldn't even be done. Why? What if you were heading up a steep hill gunning it for that one minute it took the fuel/RPM/speed reading? After your drive the computer would spit out an abysmally low 10 MPG. But if you average over the course of the drive when you were driving flat and level (with an average of 30 MPG) without gunning the engine, the number would be 29 MPG. The difference is staggering. If the car pinged the data 10 times (10 minutes) out of the hour, it would still be useless and erroneous data. There is no material difference when comparing the collection of heart rate data (except instead of fuel burned, the metric is calories burned). If you cannot monitor it CONTINUOUSLY, the data is entirely useless. It serves no purpose other than a gimmicky feature intended to oohhh and ahh uninformed people.

 

[ytrewq]

Where does Microsoft's advertising use the word "continuous?" I can find where it says "24-hour heart rate monitoring," but I can't find the word "continuous." If the word "continuous" is there, I tend to agree with your view that it's misleading. But if it just says "24-hour monitoring," I think that could mean either continuous tracking or periodic sampling.

As for how often it samples, who told you that it only samples once per hour? Mine samples a lot more often than that. I haven't watched it "continuously" to count how many times the green light flashes per hour, but it's a lot more than once.

As for the accuracy, I would think that if you want hospital-like accuracy, you're obviously not going to get that out of a wristband. Nothing in Microsoft's advertising suggests otherwise. Mine has been a lot more accurate than some of the people on this forum are reporting. But it probably varies by person just because some people's heart rate is easier to see than others. My wife had a Polar chest strap that gave her horribly inaccurate readings, even though it worked just fine on me. I think all consumer heart rate monitors fall into the category of "try it out and see if it works for you." Maybe someday the technology will improve. Until then, be glad Microsoft has a good return policy if you aren't happy with it.

As for the bias/agenda thing, I don't know pj737, but I can see that 12/14 posts on this page are written by him. That's a lot of posts on one page for a guy who doesn't have an agenda.

 

[teemulehtinen]

I think what should happen is that Microsoft publishes a White Paper like Nokia did on its camera innovations. That should provide all the key technical nitty-gritty and detail that is missing from the conversation right now. It would go a long way to answering the question by PJ, which in my opinion are actually totally valid, but also casting some light into how this may evolve and develop in the very near future.

Particularly, if the band is as Daniel pointed out in his post regarding the short supply a demonstration piece and an example, such a White Paper would be more than welcome.

 

[ks_yeoh]

I did that but the battery dies in under 3 hours. Which makes it useless for long bike rides, marathons, long runs, hikes, etc. It's a major limitation for a fitness tracking device.

Probably because of the GPS. I wonder if they can add an "eco mode" just so maybe they can track location using mobile phone GPS when it's paired and turn off the screen like in sleep mode.

 

[pj737]

Where does Microsoft's advertising use the word "continuous?" I can find where it says "24-hour heart rate monitoring," but I can't find the word "continuous." If the word "continuous" is there, I tend to agree with your view that it's misleading. But if it just says "24-hour monitoring," I think that could mean either continuous tracking or periodic sampling.

As for how often it samples, who told you that it only samples once per hour? Mine samples a lot more often than that. I haven't watched it "continuously" to count how many times the green light flashes per hour, but it's a lot more than once.

As for the accuracy, I would think that if you want hospital-like accuracy, you're obviously not going to get that out of a wristband. Nothing in Microsoft's advertising suggests otherwise. Mine has been a lot more accurate than some of the people on this forum are reporting. But it probably varies by person just because some people's heart rate is easier to see than others. My wife had a Polar chest strap that gave her horribly inaccurate readings, even though it worked just fine on me. I think all consumer heart rate monitors fall into the category of "try it out and see if it works for you." Maybe someday the technology will improve. Until then, be glad Microsoft has a good return policy if you aren't happy with it.

As for the bias/agenda thing, I don't know pj737, but I can see that 12/14 posts on this page are written by him. That's a lot of posts on one page for a guy who doesn't have an agenda.

I suggest you should respect peoples' time. Someone had to waste a good 30-40 seconds of their life reading your uninformed post when you could have at least given him/her (i.e. all readers of this forum) the respect to read the thread from the beginning instead of form thoughts and conclusions in your head when you only read the last handful of posts. If you read all the posts, you would have seen my post where I provided actual screenshots (with website addresses still active as of my typing) of Microsoft sites that specifically state CONTINUOUS heart rate monitoring.

It took me all of 12 minutes to respond to all those posts. 12 minutes in 3 days. I wouldn't consider that much dedication to being part of an "agenda". You need to raise your standards a bit there.

Apparently here on this forum, I am guilty of an agenda even if all I wanted to do was provide other health enthusiasts (that's NOT you) information in their decision making process of whether they should buy the Band or not. I absolutely must be making money here. I have to. Geezz... I guess I'm the moron for doing all this without pay!

 

[pj737]

Probably because of the GPS. I wonder if they can add an "eco mode" just so maybe they can track location using mobile phone GPS when it's paired and turn off the screen like in sleep mode.

Exactly. Without the GPS data, the run/hike/bike/etc summary is useless information. So you have to activate GPS to get any value from the exercise/activity. Of course you can always depend on the GPS signal from your phone. But the Band isn't linked by bluetooth to your phone's GPS data... which is sad because most people bring their phones with them (for music, phone for safety, etc etc) on their runs/hikes/bikes/etc. Perfect opportunity to improve battery efficiency of the Band and they overlooked it.

 

[elyl]

Apparently here on this forum, I am guilty of an agenda even if all I wanted to do was provide other health enthusiasts (that's NOT you)

​You're coming across as a real jerk in this thread, pal. This is just one example. You're not going to find many allies for your crusade when you talk to people like this.

 

[BlackSheriff84]

Security company ad on TV-

"We will guard your home with 24-hour continuous video recording of your property. Any criminal activity will be recorded."

One day a customer of the advertised security system gets robbed. Customer calls the security company -

"Can you please pull the video from the incident last night when our home was burglarized"

Response from security company -

"We are sorry but our 24-hour continuous recording of the property only provides one image per hour. We are sorry to regret that the robbery took place outside of that time frame. Please have a nice day."

Again, the bias on this forum is profoundly deafening. :smile:

Hahaha their own security robbed them...