Re: Surge vs Band - impressions after one day
I agree with jfdavis17 the Surge is not nearly as sexy. Here are my initial impressions after a day with both.
Fit and comfort - for me the comfort is about the same. I don't find the Surge to big or bulky and when I wear the band on my left had I don't notice it is there.
Battery - Here the Surge wins hands down.
Interface - The band wins here for the device interface, but until MS integrates with Health Vault and has a web interface the Surge wins. For the Android app, they both have pro's and cons - I like that Surge allows food input so I can track my intake vs output in one place rather than having to go to myfitnesspal for that.
Features - The Band wins here. there is no stopwatch on the Surge and only phone call and text notifications. Those are delayed a good 5-10 seconds behind the notifications on the Band. No other notifications at this time. None of the Band other 'wow' features either - uv sensor, starbucks, downloadable workouts, etc.
Display - The Band wins again - thew monochrome on the Surge may help with battery life, but is hard to read.
General Differences - The Surge adds an altimeter to count floors climbed - nice but not needed for me. The Bad has the temperature sensor and galvanic skin response that when implemented
should provide added functionality, Both have GPS - haven't tried it on the Surge yet to compare. The Surge does have different work outs to choose from - as opposed to just run and workout - it has weights, yoga, circuit, tennis, spinning to name a few. I have not seen or discovered what difference this makes on the reading, or if it is just to track what the activity was for your records. The Surge tracks sleep automatically, rather than telling it you are going to sleep. Nice, but not a huge deal for me. The Surge and the band had similar data for the night.
Accuracy - Tis(for me) is the biggest failing of the band right now - I hope this gets fixed with updates. When exercising (circuit weights, tennis, etc) The HR readings on the Band tend to be high (15-25 bpm) above other devices (Polar chest strap, Surge) this in turn creates a higher than expected calorie count for the work out. For instance a 1 hour circuit is reported by the band at 676 calories with an average HR of 139. The Surge reports the same workout as 439 calories with an average HR of 108 - this seems more in line with the perceived effort. Interestingly the Band only reported about 640 calories prior to the workout vs about 950 for the Surge. By 8pm (when I am writing this) the Surge has me at 2848 calories for the day and the band at 2455. My perception is that the band underestimates general calorie burn and overestimates workout burn. This might average itself out on a single workout day, but days with multiple workouts I believe I get an inaccurate reading. This really needs to be fixed - I am hopeful this will get addressed when they implement the other sensors (temp, galvanic skin response).
Here are screen shots from my workout this morning - it was a series of weight and circuit activities (incline push up, barbell row, body Ts, flutter kicks, chest press, etc)
For the Surge (worn on left wrist):
For the Band worn on the right wrist:
You can see the difference (as I mentioned above). I like the additional data from the Surge - but I miss the recovery HR that the Band shows.
I'll post more in the coming days.