Microsoft’s second-generation Microsoft Band is a wearable fitness tracker with a new curved display, a Gorilla Glass 3 scratch-resistant screen, and a more flexible design, making it more comfortable to wear.
It also has all the features of the original Microsoft Band, plus a barometer for real-time height detection.
The new Microsoft Band costs $249, and it’s available for pre-order today, and it ships October 30th.
It supports GPS tracking, smart notifications of incoming alerts from your phone, sleep tracking, calorie tracking, and more.
The Microsoft Health app for smartphones helps you dig into data from your workouts, sleep, or other activities. The apps are available for Windows, iOS, or Android phones. The Windows version is also a universal app that can run on tablets and desktops.
There’s even support for VO2 Max tracking, allowing you to see your maximum volume of oxygen that you can support, thanks to estimates based on measurements from the heart rate monitor and other sensors.
Microsoft also includes coaching information for golfing and other activities.
It certainly would be more convenient to get the yardage on golf from your wrist than having to fish around in your pocket for your phone every time. But for $249, which is more than my phone cost, I guess I’ll have to keep fishing.
Too much money. It might be quite nice but there are a lot of sport bands on the market that are more affordable. They might not do everything this does but the real question is do they have the core functionality people who use them really want/need.