Band without phone

[Nigel Baxter]

Is anyone using the Band without a phone?

My plan is to just use it with a Surface. Does this make sense?

 

[TwoClipz]

I guess it depends on what you want to use the band for. If you'd use it primarily as a "smart" watch, than no. You wouldn't get call and text notifications, and you'd only receive email and other notification when you're within range of your Surface. If you want to use it just as a fitness band than I think it would work. The band will still keep track of your fitness and sleep info and update Microsoft Health (and other apps) once in range of your Surface.

 

[Nigel Baxter]

Thanks. I don't need call or text notifications - I have a nasty work supplied phone that won't sync. I'm just interested in health tracking and want to make sure that I'm not going to be missing anything in that regard by not having a suitable phone.

 

[gadgetrants]

you'd only receive email and other notification when you're within range of your Surface

I think this would require (a) a Bluetooth link to the Surface, and more importantly, (b) the Surface running the phone Health app -- is the second one do-able?

​-Matt

 

[NBrookus]

Which Surface? Pro or RT?

 

[gadgetrants]

Thanks. I don't need call or text notifications - I have a nasty work supplied phone that won't sync. I'm just interested in health tracking and want to make sure that I'm not going to be missing anything in that regard by not having a suitable phone.

In that case -- assuming that you aren't able to run the phone app on the Surface -- then your computer would function like any other PC: you'd have to attach your Band to the Surface from time to time and run the Sync app (I'm assuming you're NOT using the RT, otherwise most bets are off). The good news is you could then dump whatever data are on the Band into your cloud Health account, and of course view it on the Surface (using the web browser to view the Dashboard) -- the bad news is that you'd have to remember to do a manual sync pretty often. It presumably wouldn't sync automatically like the Band does with the phone. The catch is that AFAIK nobody knows how many days of data you can collect on the Band without syncing before it begins to delete old data. I'd do it every 1-2 days to be safe.

-Matt

 

[James8561]

On initial set up you must pair the band to a supported smartphone. After that the device should work standalone with occasional sync to desktop windows app via USB.
Download Microsoft Band Sync app for Windows from Official Microsoft Download Center

 

[Nigel Baxter]

My Surface is a Pro 2. My wife has a Lumina 930 so I suppose I could use that for setup as long as I can use my Microsoft account and it doesn't insist on hers.

 

[Schneidz]

I use pc to sync and have gone all weekend without a loss of data from sleep, walk or biking. I'm stretching it to 3 days this weekend w/report back.

5/4/15 I last ran a sync on my band on Thursday 4/30 and then lasted Friday, Saturday, & Sunday walking with GPS (2-5 miles every day) and logging sleep data every night, ran a sync this morning Monday and it collected and saved all data, nothing lost.

 

[anon(8555314)]

You can buy a budget Lumia such as the 635 off contract for less than $50, or a dual sim budget windows phone for around $80. Even a Budget Windows Phone would increase your experience dramatically over not having it connected to a phone.

 

[pallentx]

I personally wouldn't try this. You could probably find a way to get by, but products from Garmin, Polar, or others would probably make more sense. While the Band doesn't need a phone constantly connected, it was definitely designed around a phone being in the picture. It all depends on your use.

By "health tracking", what exactly are you looking for? Calories burned? Logging runs/bike rides? In my experience so far, the Band is not reliable as a pedometer. I hope they can update software to improve this. GPS seems to work very well. If you want to track runs and sync, it could be a good option.

 

[Schneidz]

back to the top, looking for others' experiences with out WP

 

[gadgetrants]

back to the top, looking for others' experiences with out WP

Thanks again for reporting back your 3-day syncless experiment. That's cool that you didn't lose any data.

-Matt