Fit, top, are shown for photographs in Seoul, South Korea, June 5, 2014.
LG Electronics Inc. has entered the fledging market for wearable
gadgets with a wristband that tracks workouts and calories burned.
Smart capabilities have become the latest marketing pitch to sell more
wristwatches,
TVs, eyeglasses, refrigerators, cars and even
toothbrushes.
But have we figured out why they need to be smart?
I asked myself that as I wore LG's Lifeband Touch day and night for a week.
The new computerized wristband tracks workouts and calories burned and
syncs with the LG Fitness app on an
iPhone, iPad or Android device.
It
can also control music on a phone and alerts incoming calls and emails,
at least for Android users.
The Lifeband marks the entry of
LG Electronics Inc. into the fledgling
market of wearable gadgets and follows smartwatches from Samsung
Electronics Co., Sony Corp. and others.
LG started selling the Lifeband
in the U.S. last month for $150. It will be available in parts of Asia
and Europe in coming weeks.
THE SCREEN
As a fitness tracker, the Lifeband is meant to be used a lot outdoors.
But its finger-length touch screen is hard to see in direct sunlight.
I
was unable to adjust the brightness, and I needed to find shade to make
out the characters.
For just $50 more, you can get
Samsung's Gear Fit with a curved screen
capable of displaying clear and vibrant colors and which is readable in
direct sunlight.
The LG's screen offers only black and white.
— ODD FIT
The Lifeband doesn't have a strap that can be fastened and adjusted to
the size of the wearer's wrist. Rather, it has a bendable plastic band,
with a gap that widens to let the wrist slip in.
The band then locks
itself in place once on the wrist.
Although not having a strap to buckle on and off makes the Lifeband easy
to wear and remove, it will dangle if the band is too big.
The Lifeband
comes in three sizes, and if your wrist is narrower, you might have to
pull the wristband toward your forearm. By contrast, you can adjust the
Gear's strap.
I often had to take off the gadget while writing or typing on a computer
because it was too thick and heavy.
I described it to friends as a
digital handcuff because it squeezed my arm and kept moving between my
wrist and my forearm.
— FITNESS TRACKING
You click the device's timer before beginning a workout, such as a run.
Afterward, the phone or
tablet app shows the route along with the
distance, calories consumed and speed.
The Lifeband also counts the number of steps walked throughout the day.
It can also measure heart rate with a $180 companion earphone.
— FITNESS COACHING
The Lifeband vibrated as I got closer to the goal I set of one hour of
walking each day. At a quarter of the way in, it vibrated and displayed:
"25 percent achieved."
It also vibrates at random moments and tells you
to "Stretch stretch" or "Move move."
That was more distracting than motivating. It's one thing to have a
personal trainer at a gym tell you what to do. It's another to have a
wristband that doesn't understand how my day was going.
It wanted me to
stretch when I was busy typing on a
keyboard. It wanted me to move when I
was having a coffee with a friend. Instead, I simply ignored the
device.
I would have been more likely to exercise had the wristband been mindful
of my daily routines. My only option was to turn this feature off.
— NOTIFICATIONS
The Lifeband alerts you to incoming calls, but it cannot receive or make
calls.
I got a vibration for a call I would have missed with my iPhone
in silent mode.
To answer it, however, I still scratched my head
wondering where I had left the
phone.
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