In the quest for the quantified self, there's no shortage of gadgets and gizmos that can help you keep tabs on your every waking, and even sleeping, moment. So what makes the Misfit Shine ($119.95 direct) different? For one, the company isn't kidding when it proclaims the Shine as "the world's most elegant physical activity monitor." Its anodized aluminum casing and thoughtful design touches put this tracker ahead of the fashion-forward Jawbone Up when it comes to looks. The Shine offers a more barebones approach than feature-packed trackers like our Editors' Choice, the Withings Pulse, but if you value form over function, the Shine is worth considering.
Design and Setup
At first glance the aluminum-clad Shine appears devoid of all design flourishes, save for a polished, beveled ridge that's reminiscent of the iPhone 5's chamfered edges. But once you learn to use the Shine, you'll see there's more to the quarter-sized tracker than meets the eye. The matte face hides tiny, laser-etched holes that reveal 12 white LEDs below the surface. They activate when you tap twice on the Shine's face, and show your daily goal progress followed by the approximate time of day. Misfit includes a nifty magnetic clip and wristband mount, effectively making the Shine an elegant watch that will appeal to minimalists. It shows a bit more glanceable information than the FitBit Flex, but pales in comparison to the Pulse's 14 days' worth of detailed information on the device itself. Misfit also sells an optional leather band and a necklace mount for $79.95 apiece.
There's some assembly required, but Misfit includes all the necessary tools and detailed instructions to get you started. You'll have to open the Shine with an included pry tool and install the included CR2032 coin battery. Snap the two pieces back together and you're good to go—the whole process takes just a few minutes. The rubber wristband and clip stretch to fit into the ridge around the Shine's edges. The trickiest part is getting the twelve o'clock position lined up correctly, but it's really only a small annoyance all things considered. Misfit rates battery life at up to 4 months with regular use. The Shine is also fully waterproof so you can take it swimming or in the shower, and it'll even stand up to accidental washing machine cycles. That's a big plus, as broken devices from accidental washes are all too common with trackers like the Fitbit One and Withings Pulse.
Unfortunately, the Shine is only compatible with iOS devices, and only newer ones at that (iPhone 4S or newer, third-gen iPad or newer, iPad mini, and fifth-gen iPod touch or newer). The device connects using Bluetooth 4.0, but the pairing process isn't quite the same as your typical tracker. Once assembled, the Shine will enter pairing mode, and you'll have to download the free iOS app to start pairing. The Shine has to physically rest on your iDevice's screen to connect and sync. It's actually a pretty cool process, but I could see it becoming tiresome, especially if you want to sync on the go and use the wrist strap—you'll have to remove the Shine every time you want to sync.
Using the Shine
Misfit doesn't try to shoehorn a ton of features into the Shine, which might be appealing for some, but makes it a more limited device compared with Fitbits or the Pulse. There's a 3-axis accelerometer inside that tracks movements, but doesn't have an altimeter to track steps climbed—the Pulse and Fitbit One include this, but the Fitbit Flex also omits the altimeter. The Shine can discern between walking, running, swimming, or cycling, but the last two require an extra step for tracking. In the app, you can designate an "activity" mode that alerts the Shine to a certain activity. You can choose between sleep, swim, or cycle, and activate the mode by tapping three times on the Shine's face. Many activity trackers struggle with activities like cycling, so it's nice to see this built in support. You'll need to sync the Shine and use the app to change the activity mode, however, which is a bit cumbersome.
The Shine aggregates all the recorded activity into its own point system, but you can also use the app to see the precise amount of steps or miles walked. You set basic goals in terms of points, and the Shine app tracks all of your progress and plots it along easy to read graphs. Misfit takes it one step further and breaks down activity levels into playful categories like "kind of active" to give you a better sense of what went into your point total. Different activities are represented as pleasant, colorful tiles with time stamps—it's a fresh visualization that is easier to digest than a simple line graph. The app will also tell you how much activity you need to reach your goal, which I found helped encourage activity better than keeping track on my own. Thousands of steps can seem like an insurmountable goal, but when it's put in terms like "20 minutes of walking left," it's easier to get motivated and achieve a goal. The Shine also tracks calories burned, but this is simply an estimation based on basal metabolic rate and time active.
Measurements were in line with trackers like the Pulse, but you should be aware of variations based on how you wear the Shine. For instance, it recorded more steps when worn on my wrist as opposed to clipped to my belt loop. The Shine automatically knew when I was running, and activity tracking for cycling and swimming was fairly accurate in my tests, though again the position of the device yielded slightly different results. Misfit should include a way to change the wearing mode in the app to optimize its results. Sleep tracking is straightforward, but lacks the depth you'll find with the Up or Pulse. You can see how long you slept, but you can't see the patterns in how deeply you sleep like with the aforementioned trackers.
Where the Shine falls short is the extra features you'll find in basically every other tracker. The Pulse has a built-in heart rate monitor and the Jawbone Up has a great silent alarm and more comprehensive sleep tracking. Fitbit and others also include ways to track things like diet and integrate with other devices and apps. Misfit says it'll be opening up its API, but for now you're limited to the Shine app.
Fashion Over Function
The Misfit Shine is as much a fashion statement as it is a fitness device. It is, in my opinion, easily the best looking device in its class, and it's more versatile than most of its competitors that offer either a clip or a wristband, not both. I also really like that I never had to worry about keeping the Shine charged, and the fact that it can function as a pretty cool looking watch was a nice bonus. But for all the things Misfit got right, the Shine will likely be too basic for the typical user. It's more about fitting in seamlessly with your life and gently nudging you towards better habits, rather than radically altering it, like some more feature-rich devices look to do. Our Editors' Choice remains the Withings Pulse, which simply offers the most comprehensive set of features in a design that is attractive in its own right. And if you prefer the wristband style tracker over the clip style, we recommmend the Fitbit Flex.
No comments:
Post a Comment