Is it possible to use Band 2 without Microsoft Health?

[Windows Central Question]

Hi, I'm thinking about buying a Band 2 for a long time now. Since I live in Germany it's not that easy, because i'd have to order it from the UK, which is kind of annoying.
But the biggest point that stands against buying it, is that as far as I know I am forced to save all my data on the servers of Microsoft. For which there is no obvious technical reason. In my opinion it was sufficient if the the data was stored on my phone and only uploaded if I want it to. No, I don't need to hide anything, I simply don't want to share every little bit of information about me because it doesn't support the main purpose for which i'm gonna use the band for, which is self motivation. One could say now, that it's easier to achieve this purpose by comparing to others, but there are so little people in Germany who actually own and use a band, especially in my region that i see no use in comparing online (maybe I got a wrong idea about the way all of this works, but I'm happy to learn).

I hope, I made my point clear. In short my question is: Can I use the Band 2 without sending my data to the servers of Microsoft and store them only on my phone/PC?

 

[Ryujingt3]

As far as I am aware there is no way to save data offline from the Band to your own device only at this time. However, I could be wrong. Others may be able to also add their insight. But, as a Band 2 owner (in Thailand so I had to import it too) I cannot see any way to do what you are asking.

 

[LarsCor]

Nope, not possible. Even if you would disable all connections from your phone, the app wont work. You need the app, you need the internet connection. And there are reasons to upload the data. Not just comparing, but some stuff is managed in the cloud. I believe the detected sleep for example is calculated in the cloud, not on your phone (like: whoah, it seems this person was laying still for three hours, with a lower heartrate and body temperature. Pobably he was sleeping).

 

[DeNachtwacht]

No, I don't need to hide anything, I simply don't want to share every little bit of information about me because it doesn't support the main purpose for which i'm gonna use the band for, which is self motivation. One could say now, that it's easier to achieve this purpose by comparing to others, but there are so little people in Germany who actually own and use a band, especially in my region that i see no use in comparing online (maybe I got a wrong idea about the way all of this works, but I'm happy to learn).

You got it wrong indeed. You can compare your statistics with people in your own age group, weight/length group, sex et cetera so online comparison is very important if you want to be motivated. There is no geographical comparison yet. And besides that, the app does nothing more than connecting to the cloud, and that's where all the calculations are being made: in the online/cloud environment. As far as I know, that is the same with all the other health trackers, so if you don't like it unfortunately there just is no alternative.

 

[jsooney]

Unfortunately that's the case with all the health trackers that I know of. If you read Fitbit's ToS it says they sell your data to others, supposedly anonymized of course. Who knows what can happen to it really. Maybe Facebook buys Fitbit one day and starts correlating your accounts and sells your data to insurance companies and others. You kind of have to make a choice, either accept the monitoring or opt out and not be able to take advantage of certain products and apps. It's kind of a tough one.