Moov on up?

Reading an article in my brother in laws Stuff magazine I came across a new type of fitness wearable called the Moov. This was being described as the next generation of fitness tracker using the type of motion capture technology usually found in a device such as a Wii remote (very good 3d space tracking).

The price seemed quite competitive when compared to the industry leaders in the pedometer space – I had been considering Fitbit, Withings or Jawbone but based on the article and the flashy video on the Moov website I took the plunge and ordered two, one for me and one for my wife.

We have had the Moov’s for a few weeks now and slowly they are having an impact on our health.

Initially I was in the dog house with my wife who has been used to tracking her steps using the free Withings application on her phone (we also use the Withings wifi scales for weight tracking).

The Moov’s lack of any step counter does seem like a fairly large step backwards in capability. Instead of counting steps you get an indication of the “active time” throughout your day. As you can see I was active for 40 minutes during this day, the red bars showing general active time and the green bars showing active time associated with one of the built in programmes.

The training programs are where the Moov really started to make a difference. Whilst limited in options the ones that are available really do show off why the Moov can be considered next gen. Currently there are 8 different activities you can choose
(this is on Android, I understand the iOS application may have slightly more). Each of these is programmed to look for the specific movements associated with the exercise.

Moov and going for a run

I started off with the Running Efficiency activity, this started me off with a few two minute running intervals. The Moov was around my ankle so all the feedback was specific to my running style. Despite a few Bluetooth niggles I managed to complete a 20 minute run with Moov monitoring and giving feedback on my stride length and my impact. The feedback was trying to improve my running style and it was working, I was taking shorter strides and trying to reduce my impact on each step. For someone who has never had any coaching (and no intention of getting any) but had been running for years this was quite a revelation. The Moov app does take feedback from the Phone so all my GPS locations were logged which when aggregated with the data from the Moov gives a nice rich feedback summary showing where I have been, how fast, my impact, stride etc… Overall if it was not for the Bluetooth niggles a very good experience.

Moov and getting active

This time I tried the 7 Minute+ workout which was a combination of star jumps, push ups, plank, sit-ups and lunges. Schoolboy error time – I wore the Moov on my leg rather than my wrist this lead for a very frustrating 7 minutes, one note for the dev team – it would be handy if you detected this and told the user. Once switched on to my wrist everything worked perfectly and each rep was monitored and logged by the Moov.

To sum up

I am a bit fussy with recording stats to see how I perform over time, I loved runkeeper for this and have used it for every run for years. It is really good to finally have another gadget that can capture a more rounded exercise plan.

Once the weather improves I will be making use of the outdoor cycling activity – which brings me to a downside. To get any meaningful stats out of the Moov you need to use one of the activity programs, if they don’t have a program for your activity your a bit stuck. I would love to see an indoor cycling activity for my exercise bike and if I am at the gym, activities for cross trainer and rower.

I would give the hardware a very good rating, its neat, compact and does what the advert says it should. Also the 6 month battery (if this turns out to be correct) is a major plus. This has often been a major failing when looking at IoT (Internet of Things) connected devices.

Where I find the user experience lacking is the software, the good news is that this should improve over time. But as they say – only time will tell…