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kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Seems like the Fitbit Charge HR is actually starting to make its way out to various retailers.

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kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Three Olives posted:

So some Targets have Fitbit Charge HRs in stock right now, Fitbit released limited stock of the Surge and Charge HR early. I picked one up today. I really liked the Jawbone UP3 but continuous HR monitoring is huge and it looks like the Charge HR is the only thing in the near future that has it even though I am not terrible happy about being locked into the Fitbit ecosystem so much I already have a Fitbit Aria so eh.

Some Sports Authority stores also supposedly have it, but I've checked both there and my local Target twice this week with no dice. The Target electronics people were under the impression they still weren't going to see it until January.

I have to imagine there was some engineering or production disruption that kept the Charge HR from shipping until now. Surely you don't gather around a boardroom table and say "folks, our fall 2013 flagship product was kind of a clusterfuck and we had to buy them all back, so let's top that by shipping our 2014 model a week before Christmas and not telling anyone."

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Well, the plain old Charge basically seems to be the Force, except with a screwed together enclosure instead of one that's glued. Fitbit eventually concluded it was the glue in the Force that was causing the rashes. It's so much the same device that Charge-havers with older sync software have the software saying they've got a Force.

So they can reuse the engineering from last years model, and get something in the market at a little lower price point for people who want a display but don't want to drop $150 on the HR model.

That said I can't think of a reason to buy the vanilla Charge, even if you don't want HR tracking. The clasp on Fitbit's bands is way too much of a hair trigger and it has this tendency to snap off way too easily. The HR has a buckle like a watch, instead of a snap clasp, so it's not going to snap off when you snag it on a sleeve.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

So the MS Band and the Jawbone UP3 both have galvanic skin response sensors. What I can't tell is, are those used for stress measurements (being that GSR is influenced by stress/anxiety)?

I guess the UP3 is still vaporware at this point, but can any MS Band-havers weigh in?

I'm trying to be better about managing stress day-to-day and something that can help quantify it would be pretty killer for me.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Fiki posted:

I believe the MS Band site also mentioned the stress data would be something forthcoming. It would be along the lines of "your calendar shows a meeting with Douchebag Director which raised your stress level and made you have a terrible night of sleep during which you woke up 12 times." Or at least that's the vision they've out out for the "insights" coming to the platform.

Huh, that's kind of exactly what would be helpful.

Shame I went to an MS store today, tried the band, and found it to be pretty uncomfortable to wear. I just was not down with the whole thing being rigid, it felt like I was wearing a handcuff.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

I've seen the Surge in various Target stores, same ones where the Charge HR is always sold out.

It probably is as supply-constrained as the Charge HR, but the $250 price is likely keeping it from moving as fast.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

The Fitbit Charge HR and Surge are now buyable on Fitbit's online store site, if you were looking for one.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Three Olives posted:

the only thing I can think of is I had my hands on the handle bars on the really steep incline so maybe it didn't register a lot of that?

Every Fitbit wristband I've owned (Force, Flex) has been like that. I'll often take my kid out in a stroller for a walk; my usual route is about 4.5 miles, but if I've got the Fitbit on my wrist while pushing the stroller it registers maybe 1.5. I usually throw it in my pocket to get the full amount recorded but that's obvs not an option if you want the HR monitoring.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

JayKay posted:

Has anyone here gone through the recall process for the Fitbit Force? I held out on returning mine and just signed up for the refund kit since mine is starting to fall apart. I was curious what the turnaround time was for it.

My wife sent hers back this spring and it took 4-6 weeks to get the check. If you ever had a Force I think they also emailed you a 15% off coupon for their store that's good until the spring.

I got the rash before they recalled it, and after I emailed them, they overnighted me a check along with a SASE to send back the band. That was quite nicer.

Given how there are tons of people reporting their Forces are falling apart, and that they traced the rash back to the glue, I really wonder if there was some horrible variability in the amount of glue that went into each one. Maybe some folks, like me, got bands that had a poo poo-ton of glue and it was oozing out and causing rashes. Meanwhile others, like you and an officemate of mine, didn't get enough glue, and the things came right apart.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Seriously, don't get the non-HR Charge. The clasp on it is way too easy to snag on a sleeve or bump on an object, and it will pop right open if you do. The $20 is money well spent in terms of peace of mind that you didn't lose the sucker somewhere, even if you never care about HR monitoring.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Three Olives posted:

(Always assume that upgrade is never coming).
Sorta like the Fitbit Force and call notifications, "coming February 2014."

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Three Olives posted:

REI is a non-profit co-op, it's a weirdo for a company the size that it is.

Go to their annual garage sale and you probably could score a cheap Fitbit someone returned at day 364.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

The only place I ever saw any reference to those in the wild was in some Sheraton hotel lobby lounges, where they did a whole cross-branding thing with Microsoft.

They had a few PCs set up bar-style for you to read email and print boarding passes, plus some couches with Surface coffee tables between them.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

That chunk of bezel between the watch face and the band lugs still seems to make the watch "taller" and kind of weird looking.

If you look at this Rolex for example, it just seems to square off the circular area of the watch face. There's minimal additional space between the face and the band, beyond what is required to have a squared-off point for the band to meet the watch face.



LG's circular watches all add an additional 1/8" or so between the face and band lugs, and that looks kind of funny to me.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

And that thin band on it only serves to accentuate that, although I suppose you could replace it.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Len posted:

Is Motorola still doing RMAs for the Moto 360? The cracks on the back have gotten bigger.

They're still selling it, why wouldn't they be offering warranty service?

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Jawbone's also updated their site for new preorders, too, saying only a 6-7 week lead time instead of the 10-12 it was showing even a couple days ago.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

IuniusBrutus posted:

So, I bought a Charge HR and REALLY liked it...except for one problem: the pedometer is way too sensitive. I spend a significant amount of my day driving in vehicles with horrible suspension, and I found that it would record the various bumps and jostles as steps - a lot of them, enough that the data became totally useless.

Anyone else experience this?

Yeah, especially on the lovely pothole laden roads you get in the springtime like now.

There is a "driving" activity you can log on the website that voids out steps for a given time period.

Also if you have an Android phone I believe there are a few apps on the store that use Android's automatic driving detection feature to automatically write the driving activity into your Fitbit daily log.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Thermopyle posted:

This would be neat, but I can't seem to find any. DriveBit requires you to just manually mark when you're driving...

Huh, I must've been hallucinating, I thought there was one out there like that. Maybe I'll write one.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001


It's the same emoji recognition that's in this Android keyboard that Google added last week. It's surprisingly good at recognition. Draw a cat and get a cat! Draw a pile of poo poo and get a smiling turd!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.handwriting.ime&hl=en

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Yeah, when I had one I found that it was essentially a $150 wrist-worn random number generator. I returned it after a week.

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kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

I'm sure they're focused on quantity over quality there with those 1000 apps.

Developing for Tizen looks like a world of pain so I don't know why anyone would touch that.

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