Microsoft cites features like 24-hour heart rate monitoring and built-in GPS as “cutting-edge” technology that combines the power of all of 10 sensors built in to the Microsoft Band.
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Whether they use an iPhone, an Android, or a Windows Phone, users can receive text messages on the Microsoft Band and reply with a “pre-set instant response.” They can also see incoming calls and voicemail notifications, as well as receive notifications about friends’ tweets or Facebook updates. Incoming calls, texts, social updates, or weather alerts are visible on the band. For Windows Phone users running the 8.1 update, Cortana can answer questions, take notes or set reminders, perform tasks like sending a text message or playing a song, or give driving directions and updates on traffic, weather, stocks, and sports. It also provides guided workouts and GPS run or bike mapping, integrates a timer and alarm, and even includes Cortana, Microsoft’s digital assistant, when used with a Windows Phone. The Microsoft Band tracks heart rate, steps, calorie burn, and sleep quality, and also enables users to see email previews and calendar alerts on their wrists. With its entrance into the wearables space, Microsoft has chosen to keep its focus clear, and is concentrating on fitness. Many consumers who have purchased a wearable device in the past use it infrequently a year later, and Microsoft has much to prove in the fitness category where, as The New York Times puts it, the company has no pedigree.īut what does this new device look like? What are its features and its capabilities, and what can its wide assortment of sensors accomplish? How will Microsoft leverage its newness on the fitness scene and its experience with cloud computing to give users a new way to track their health and fitness? And what does Microsoft’s vision of its own health ecosystem have to say about the wider landscape of how consumers will learn about and track their own health and fitness? The data that the platform collects from the Microsoft Band and from the other devices, apps, and services that users integrate with it will need to provide useful insights in order to prove valuable to users long-term. While Microsoft’s device is yet unproven - heart rate tracking, for instance, is an area where wrist-based devices have struggled with accuracy - the company perhaps has even more to prove with the Health platform that accompanies the device. A GPS-enabled watch by FitBit, called the Surge, will cost $250 when it becomes available next year. The Microsoft Band is already available online and in Microsoft retail stores. The Apple Watch, by contrast, will start at $349, require an iPhone for GPS tracking, and won’t be available until next year. More than bells and whistles, some of these features could make valuable use cases for specific groups of users like runners, who could use the GPS radio to track their routes and distance without the need to both wear the band and carry a paired smartphone. That is to say, the Microsoft Band looks to include anyone without an iPhone, those without the ability or desire to pay the high price for the Apple Watch, or those loath to adopt a smartwatch at multiple times the price but fractions of the battery life of a more focused fitness tracker.įor those outside the Apple ecosystem - or even those inside it who aren’t yet convinced of the Apple Watch’s utility - the Microsoft Band offers technology in a $199 wearable device that has typically been available only in more expensive packages. Though on many counts the Microsoft Band can be compared to the Apple Watch - each company’s health ecosystem now includes a cloud platform, an app that can integrate third-party data, and a wearable device that generates data of its own - Microsoft’s offerings seem targeted at the consumers that Apple’s devices exclude. Perhaps its most notable rival is the Apple Watch. It’s impossible to avoid a comparison of the black rubber wearable to the other devices with which it will compete for market share. Fitness-focused wearables, especially, are a way to participate without the regulatory headaches of creating true medical devices or services. Microsoft Health will analyze the data collected not only by the wrist-worn fitness tracker’s onboard sensors, but by the other devices and apps that consumers use on a daily basis to get a better picture of their health and activity levels.Īs The New York Times reports, Microsoft is the latest to join a “stampede” of tech companies that want into the business of enabling users to collect and track their personal health and fitness data. Microsoft has taken its first step into the market for wearables with the Microsoft Band and its accompanying Microsoft Health cloud service.
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