The dream, perhaps, of any IT specialist is to automate life and put monitoring on everything. There is still a long way off, and there are already a clock that allows you to record a whole range of bio-indicators and send them to the “cloud” for processing and analysis, and I happened to purchase them recently.

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The B1 Basis Band gadget, one of the nominees of the CES-2012 exhibition, is the first portable bio-recorder that monitors health with the help of sensors measuring human heart rhythm, skin moisture, movement, temperature. They monitor the time spent on sleep, count the number of calories burned. Data via USB and bluetooth are transferred to a computer or mobile phone and recorded in an online profile. In the future we will call this bioregistration clock for simplicity. Moreover, it is also really a watch.
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B1 Basis band continues the line of Fitbit, Jawbone, Nike Fuelband, complementing the usual with completely new features that have not been in any portable devices yet. Is it worth buying money spent?



After ordering on the MyBasis.com website , the watch arrived pretty quickly, in this box:





About two days from the time of the order to the shipper in the States, and about two weeks for delivery to Russia by express mail. The total cost is $ 199 for the watch itself and $ 73 for shipping. For comparison, the Jawbone Up in Russia costs 5-7 thousand with a significantly weaker functionality, that is, the Basis B1 band is significantly more expensive.

To start working hours require activation via the Internet. Until then, an indication is displayed on the LCD to go to mybasis.com/go. The activation program put the driver on the laptop, and activated the clock.



When you connect the watch to a USB port or via bluetooth to an android phone, the gadget resets the log of changes in body temperature, pulse, skin moisture, and pedometer indicators to its “cloud”. The clock itself is quite “stupid”, like the applications on Windows / Mac / Android: all the “smart” functionality is available in the personal account on the site. It is possible to extract a lot of knowledge from the collected information, it would be inconvenient to constantly update the software, and there will be more capacities in the “cloud”.

Included with the clock is a very simple booklet and cradle.



By the way, it's funny that the watch has no time setting function. Nowhere. Neither the program nor the clock itself. Just because they don’t know how much time they can’t use, their use is useless without the Internet, and they synchronize time with the server when they access the network. When registering, the time zone is indicated - this is enough.

Cradle

To charge the clock is such an original cradle. You can wear it on your watch without removing it from your hands.





The cradle is put on the watch from above and snaps gently, and the watch can be not removed from the hands. It is not very tight so that in case of a jerk it is easy to unfasten oneself - in this case the risk of damaging the cradle or pulling the laptop off the table is reduced.

Design

The design of the watch is, of course, controversial. It is very concise and slightly old-fashioned. This has some charm. But I would not say that the watches are too big, and certainly they are not heavy. The weight of the watch is a little over 40 grams.

Software for Android / iOS is extremely pleasant, as is the design of your personal account. It is clearly seen that the interface was worked out carefully.

Clock itself

Strap

The strap is made of soft-touch plastic. The kit includes a strap of a single color. At the moment when I bought the watch, only models with black straps were available for order. You can buy straps in addition, with the author's design. Latch strap on the watch does not look very reliable, but I have not spontaneously unfastened (people on the network write that it happens).

Screen

Information on the clock is displayed in inverse form on a one-inch transflective LCD screen. Like other LCDs, the sun goes blind, the backlight is very economical, read - weak.

By the way, this is not written anywhere, but when you raise your hand to see how much time, in most cases, the clock understands this gesture and turns on the backlight for a couple of seconds.

On the front side we see a 1-inch LCD screen, four touch buttons on the edges and one mechanical on the right side. Touch buttons are responsible for 1) backlight 2) switching to the date-day of the week 3) scrolling up 4) scrolling down. Through scrolling, HEART RATE (pulse), STEPS (pedometer), CALORIES (calories) are switched. The temperature of the body and the humidity of the skin from the watch screen cannot be viewed only in the personal account. The side button opens the bluetooth settings menu and the “SYNC NOW” item. Synchronization via bluetooth is carried out with an Android / iOS phone.

On the screen in the clock mode, the actual time, the sign of connecting to bluetooth, the battery charge and the progress bar are displayed.

Turn over the clock

On the reverse side of the clock are biosensors. In the very center there are two green LEDs that constantly shine in the hand, and between them a sensor that analyzes reflection. This is enough to read the pulse. Sensors on the edges are designed to collect information about the temperature and humidity of the skin.





By the way, the presence of pulse sensors in the clock is one of the distinctive "chips" of this gadget. This is nowhere else. Other fitness watches that can measure the pulse require you to wear special straps on your chest that hold the sensors against the heart. This makes sense during training, but not during the day. Watch B1 Basis Band is different in that it collects this information during the day constantly, until the owner removes them from his hands.

Battery

It looks like the average battery life is several days with bluetooth enabled. Convenience charging makes it perfectly acceptable. After the warning, LOW BATTERY is about half a day to find charging.

Pedometer

For the pedometer, a three-axis gyro is built into the clock, which is why the accuracy is rather high.

Soft

As I wrote, the whole "mathematics" is in the "cloud". That is, the accumulated data of the clock is sent to the server, and then they are visualized there in the form of interactive diagrams, grouped, analyzed, the system tries to group the activity according to characteristic data from the sensors.

Sleep tracking

For example, if you walk for half an hour, and then sit down at a computer, the clock (more precisely, the server system) understands when the period of the walk began and ended. If you fall asleep with them, then the watch understands that it is not just a person lying on the bed, but asleep - there is a characteristic decrease in the pulse, moisture of the skin, movements become more rare, etc. If the dream is uneven and the owner of the clock wakes up several times at night, then they are “whipped” and are shown in the morning in the reports. The duration of sleep is recorded with an accuracy of minutes, and the average pulse during sleep is also shown. On the basis of this and other information collected, the indicator of sleep quality is calculated on a scale from 0 to 100. It remains only to understand why I need to know all this :-)

Online service

As I already said, applications under Windows / Mac / iOS / Android transfer data from the clock (via bluetooth or USB) to the manufacturer’s servers, where they are calculated, analysis, report preparation, etc. are performed.

The biggest advantage is that data is in the cloud. They are not afraid of reinstalling or changing the operating system. Even, as in my case, it’s not scary that under Ubuntu the synchronization software with the service is not released, it’s enough that the watch understands my phone. You can look at the charts from anywhere - from home, from work, from your phone on the road. It is very convenient.

The collected data is very nice visualized. They can be viewed at different scales, which makes it possible to assess the trends of yesterday in relation to past periods and take them into account when planning the day for the next. Any such feedback is very useful for self-discipline.



The system automatically groups by activity. For example, he understands when sleep began, when it ended, when the walk began, when it ended. Everything in exact numbers and chronological order is displayed in the personal account.



Also, data can be presented as heatmaps - the darker the area, the higher the values ​​of the corresponding indicator (in the photo below - the pulse):



A very interesting idea with gamification of a healthy lifestyle. For example, you can choose one of the cards, where a certain goal is registered, when fulfilling which the card is considered “passed”. An example of a goal is to form the habit of running every day before lunch. Or take a day at least 10,000 steps. Or fall asleep no later than a certain time.



The main use of gamification is still ahead, the company is now taking only the first steps. But the idea itself is just great.

The system can analyze recurring events and some of the “cards” are related to compliance. For example, fall asleep or wake up at the same time, or wear a watch regularly or practice regularly, etc.

Mobile applications

Mobile applications allow you to push data from your watch via bluetooth and 3G / Wifi to the cloud. By default, synchronization takes place every 30 minutes, you can configure a different interval, or start it manually at any time. After the server receives the updated data, all graphs and reports immediately take them into account.

What is not yet, but I would love to

There is a lot of talk about smart alarm clocks that can wake up at about the appointed time, which use the method of actigraphy - determining the sleep phase using an accelerometer. On Habré there was a review of similar experience . Personally, I have big doubts that the method works, but after buying the watch several people already asked about this function.

Maybe in five years the manufacturer will be able to add another measure of blood pressure to the number of measurable indicators, and if you really get angry, then an ECG and EEG.

Results: pros and cons

What well

• Convenient and accurate online pedometer. Allows you to evaluate progress.
• It is great that it keeps track of the pulse - and no additional accessories are needed.
• Conveniently, there is Bluetooth
• Excellent cradle design

What is wrong

• The strap is not very securely fastened.
• The pulse meter is of little use when training. If you need to train and only pulse - look towards Mio Alpha .
• It is not entirely clear how to use the temperature and humidity of the skin. They are not used anywhere, they are simply accumulated and displayed.

How to buy

And buy so far (the end of July 2013) is difficult. The manufacturer does not cope with the volumes yet and issues these watches to the market in small batches. You can get in line now, it's free, on myBasis.com .

Aliyev Rauf | http://RaufAliev.ru | Facebook | LinkedIn | r.aliev@gmail.com