Microsoft unveiled its first Smart Wearable fitness product, the Microsoft Band. It also introduced a health platform Microsoft Health.
Microsoft will start selling the band by today through the companys online stores, for $199. It will work on all major mobile ecosystem; Android, iOS, and WindowsPhone.
The gadget isn’t a smartwatch and isn’t intended to replace your watch. It’s a Bluetooth fitness band packed full of sensors: optical heart rate sensing, 3-axis accelerometers with a gyroscope to track movement, GPS to track your runs even if you leave your phone at home, skin temperature, galvanic skin response presumably to measure sweating, ambient light and UV light, and a microphone so it can be used with Cortana on Windows Phone.
The 1.4 inch touch screen with its 320106 resolution can deliver alerts, and there’s a vibration motor too. Twin 100mAh batteries give it 48 hours of what Microsoft calls “normal use” though GPS can shorten this. The charge time is 1.5 hours, using a magnetically attached USB charger. There are three different sizes, so it should fit on most wrists. On top of its health monitoring, the Band will also be able to show notifications, such as texts and incoming calls. There will also be some limited app partnerships.
Microsoft Health is a series of smartphone apps (for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone) and a cloud service to go with them. The apps will do the normal things that these apps dotracking how far you walk each day, telling you how much you slept, that kind of thingbut Microsoft also aims to use the data to provide “insights” such as how much recovery time you need after a workout, and which exercises in your workouts burn most calories.
