IvIarkgraham
Premium Member
Registered: 27th Mar 04
Location: Ellesmere Port, Cheshire
User status: Offline
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doing loads of overtime these next 2 or 3 weeks
I'll pay off my holiday and if I have enough left I will get one of these
I would say I had small wrists but ive measured them with a vernier and its just over 40mm so a medium would fit me best
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kz
Member
Registered: 9th Aug 02
Location: Southend, Essex Drives: Mini Cooper S
User status: Offline
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Interesting how one car forum I use laughs in the face of this thing and won't give it a chance... whereas you guys on here seem to see potential in it. Quite often like that!
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evilrob
Premium Member
Registered: 16th Mar 12
Location: Your mum's house
User status: Offline
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5 days to go... Getting excited now!
Shapeways still haven't built my stand yet though :/
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kz
Member
Registered: 9th Aug 02
Location: Southend, Essex Drives: Mini Cooper S
User status: Offline
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How you doing on the RunKeeper? I'm just over halfway!
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evilrob
Premium Member
Registered: 16th Mar 12
Location: Your mum's house
User status: Offline
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Oops... forgot about the RunKeeper challenge!
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evilrob
Premium Member
Registered: 16th Mar 12
Location: Your mum's house
User status: Offline
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In other news... my band has shipped! 
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evilrob
Premium Member
Registered: 16th Mar 12
Location: Your mum's house
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As has my stand and base. Everything should be turning up tomorrow!
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kz
Member
Registered: 9th Aug 02
Location: Southend, Essex Drives: Mini Cooper S
User status: Offline
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Sweet. I'm probably going to miss my delivery tomorrow  (also got an email that it's been sent out) I wonder where UPS deliveries go back to! Could be in for a road trip lol.
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evilrob
Premium Member
Registered: 16th Mar 12
Location: Your mum's house
User status: Offline
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I've sat in waiting all day for this parcel to turn up; go to check on the tracking number - UPS reckon they tried to deliver already.
They fucking well didn't!! Bunch of fucking cunts.
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kz
Member
Registered: 9th Aug 02
Location: Southend, Essex Drives: Mini Cooper S
User status: Offline
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Sorry to hear that Rob, I got mine today even though I thought I'd miss the delivery!
Positives: I kept reading about it being ugly, bulky and uncomfortable. To be honest, it's none of these things; I'm really relieved tbh! I guess it's just from Microsoft haters? There's enough of them around. Anyway, it seems really quite sleek and although I've only had it on my wrist for half an hour it's really comfortable.
Negatives: It doesn't work, lol. Installation has gone as follows...
Attempt to pair... nothing. Rebooted phone, now pairs
Band needs an update, crashes @ 25% and comes up with a network error
Find out you can't turn the Band off, unless you're in the software. So randomly guess (correctly) how to do a full reboot on it (hold down both buttons for a length of time)
Now won't pair again, so delete from Bluetooth list and try again... it works
Update attempted again and it completes
Asks for you to enter a name for your Band, do so
Says 'Almost finished' on Band, however comes up with a network error on the phone
Have tried resetting/rebooting both, disconnecting/reconnecting Bluetooth etc. and all I ever get at any stage now is the network error. Cannot even get anything else up on the app, it's effectively died
Just contacted Microsoft over Twitter and am awaiting a response
Oh, one other negative which seems really weird (although won't effect you Rob as you have the stand) is that when you place it on the table with the charger plugged in, everything's upside down! Really strange design choice there.
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kz
Member
Registered: 9th Aug 02
Location: Southend, Essex Drives: Mini Cooper S
User status: Offline
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Ha! You don't get me that easily. Just deleted the app and reinstalled it... boom, we're in. And it seems after the initial setup up stage the writing is now the correct way round, weird.
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evilrob
Premium Member
Registered: 16th Mar 12
Location: Your mum's house
User status: Offline
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OK - I drove down to the local UPS depot, got a bit shouty. Long story short - got my packages!
Stand: good
Stand base: doesn't fucking fit - avoid
Band: paired and good to go!
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kz
Member
Registered: 9th Aug 02
Location: Southend, Essex Drives: Mini Cooper S
User status: Offline
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Microsoft + Microsoft obviously goes better than Microsoft + Apple 
Currently pon de charge. Are you going to use the screen protector? I'm not sure, I usually hate those things.
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evilrob
Premium Member
Registered: 16th Mar 12
Location: Your mum's house
User status: Offline
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I've put the screen protector on already. Hate it. Will probably come off again in a week.
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evilrob
Premium Member
Registered: 16th Mar 12
Location: Your mum's house
User status: Offline
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My band is also on charge; seems stuck at 80% :/
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evilrob
Premium Member
Registered: 16th Mar 12
Location: Your mum's house
User status: Offline
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Charge % seemed to sort itself out. Left it a while longer, started showing 100%.
Maybe it doesn't update in real time or something.
Used it to track my sleep last night. Had a right bollocks nights' sleep apparently!
I've dictated a text message reply, asked Cortana a bunch of stuff. Seems pretty cool so far.
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kz
Member
Registered: 9th Aug 02
Location: Southend, Essex Drives: Mini Cooper S
User status: Offline
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I know I'm a sad bastard but I wrote this review for another (technology) forum I use, thought it might be of some use here!
So after a very long wait (6 months from US to UK) yesterday I received my Microsoft Band; here are my initial impressions. By the way, I've not previously owned any kind of smartwatch or fitness band before
16:30 – I’m home from work! Unpackaged my delivery and had a good old look around my new hardware. I must say I’m delighted by the size, design and weight of the thing. I had read many times it was ugly and imposing, but really it’s quite sleek. I put it on and straight away felt it was also much more comfortable than I had read about… quite the relief. Microsoft haters do make me laugh sometimes
17 0 – I’m upstairs and plugging it in for a charge, whilst reading through the manual and app to get this paired up and into the OS. However, this wasn’t as easy as it could have been; the process went as follows…
• Attempted to pair... nothing. Rebooted phone, then paired
• Band needed an update, crashed @ 25% and came up with a network error
• Found out you can't turn the Band off unless you're already in the software. So randomly guess (correctly) how to do a full reboot on it (hold down both buttons for a length of time)
• Then wouldn’t pair again, so deleted it from Bluetooth list and tried again... it worked
• Update attempted again and this time it completed
• Asked for you to enter a name for the Band, did so
• Said 'Almost finished' on Band, however came up with a network error on the phone
• Tried resetting/rebooting both, disconnecting/reconnecting Bluetooth etc. and all I ever got at any stage was the network error. Couldn’t even get anything else up on the app, it effectively died
• Deleted app and reinstalled, finally everything worked and I was in!
180 – After getting everything up and running I thought I’d put my free ZAGG InvisibleShield on. Usually I’m not a screen protector kind of guy but as I decided to wear the Band on the inside of my wrist (outside is just impossible for real use) I thought I’d give it a go. Slightly more to one end than the other but ultimately it’s looking good
19:30 – I’m off to meet my girlfriend and a chance to give the step counter a go. Worked well but I think the calorie counter is somewhat off the mark! A tad too optimistic… certainly doesn’t match up with RunKeeper
210 – Ashleigh starts to take an interest in the Band and asks how much it was lol, too rich for her though as she’s not really into her gadgets as much. She has suffered from an irregular heartbeat in the past so we thought it’d be interesting to compare my heartbeat to hers. Indeed, it was slightly more jumpy, ranging from around 50-70… what this tells us I don’t know but I’ll look into it. One thing that was slightly disappointing though was that even the small Band on the smallest possible setting is still way too big for her, so that put the nail in the coffin as to whether she got one or not!
220 – I’m not popular in general lol but throughout watching a bit of television I get a couple of tweets and a text message come through… now my phones on the coffee table slightly out of reach from my relaxed position but boom, there are the messages right on my wrist! It suddenly feels really cool and useful. Pressing the action button scrolls through the messages in easy to read font size and as they’re not things I needed to reply to straight away I just glanced, read, and carried on the television. Love it
23:15 – Notice a cat hair underneath my screen protector! Tried getting it out but there was no chance… so I had to rip the thing off, decision made lol
23:45 – Bed time. Now, I’m not usually one for having things on my person when sleeping (I’m a rubbish sleeper) but I thought hell, I’ll give the sleep recording thing a go. It’s not the most comfortable thing to wear in bed but I relaxed the tightness and it felt okay. One other thing is I don’t like to be disturbed at night; I turn everything I own on silent! To make sure the Band didn’t buzz throughout the night I had to go into the app and manually turn each and every app notification off, which I’ll then have to turn back on again in the morning. This is pretty frustrating and a one-for-all switch would really be handy here, plus you have to remember to hit ‘save’ otherwise nothing takes effect, not something I’m used to doing on the phone
06:30 – Wakey wakey. Press the band and it says something like, “05:45 proper sleep” and I try to figure out how to get more information about this. Pressed the action button and it started the sleep program again! Nooo… it just overwrote last night’s data. Gone, even on the phone all data was wiped. That’s very frustrating and I don’t see the point in only having one days data available as you can’t then compare from one night to another?
09:30 – I’ve been at work for a while now with this thing on my wrist. It’s not ideal, as the screen makes my wrist stick out slightly from how I’m used to typing. At the moment it’s annoying, but I’m carrying on regardless seeing if I can get used to this
10:15 – Get called out to my first job, just across the road. Looked at my current steps and counted 200 until I got to my destination… looked at the current steps again and it had increased by 200, so I’m happy that the counter is very accurate! Also, I’ve tried this with hands in and out of pocket, both giving great results
12:30 – Sitting here on my lunch break playing games on my phone and an email comes through… no need to switch out of the game; just read the message on my Band, very helpful! I will note though that either in reading mode or just normal mode (where the message is tiny) you won't get the whole message if it's a long one. Also, you can't delete anything from your Band; I'm hoping there's a limit which will be reached and new messages will replace old ones?
12:45 – I always go for a walk around the outside of the buildings where I work at the end of my lunch break. I can confirm the screen is almost impossible to read in watch mode in the direct sunlight. You can increase the brightness for using the Band, but nothing increases the brightness in watch mode (presumably to save battery)
I’ve still got a lot to do and learn with my Microsoft Band. So far though, I’ve had a lot of fun with just mild irritations in between… I definitely don’t think it’s a gimmick but I wonder if I’ll still be infatuated with it after having it on my wrist for several week/months; time will tell I guess! Next up I’ll be looking at the work out stuff like guided workouts or possibly getting a Starbucks card associated with it; I wonder what’s healthier lol
Just to finish up, I’ve been wearing it today for 7 hours straight and it’s still absolutely comfortable, not a problem there at all, and the battery indicator hasn’t moved down at all since this morning!
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kz
Member
Registered: 9th Aug 02
Location: Southend, Essex Drives: Mini Cooper S
User status: Offline
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I figured out how to get to my previous sleep patterns, it's all in 'Activity History' 
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evilrob
Premium Member
Registered: 16th Mar 12
Location: Your mum's house
User status: Offline
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How are you getting on with your Band, kz?
I'm still loving mine. Been for several runs with it, track my sleep every night, set several reminders for myself using Cortana throughout the day. Haven't tried the built in workouts - that's next on my to do list.
Have so far resisted the urge to be "that cunt" who pays for his Starbucks using it!
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evilrob
Premium Member
Registered: 16th Mar 12
Location: Your mum's house
User status: Offline
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Even in the two weeks I've had the thing, the Microsoft health platform has had a few updates giving greater insight into the data collected by the device. I'm encouraged by the rollout of new features etc.
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kz
Member
Registered: 9th Aug 02
Location: Southend, Essex Drives: Mini Cooper S
User status: Offline
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Yeah good man. It's absolutely scratched to shit now really annoyed me at first but meh, it is what it is.
Had a run through of some Guided Workouts just to see what they were like really; not bad, but I've got my own way of doing things so it's hard to change over... wish they let you just measure peak heart rate etc. for your own workout.
Using the alarm a lot, it's good to have something discreet that only you know is going off! Might as well post this list of improvements I think they could make as I've already posted this on another forum...
Gorilla Glass screen (mine's scratched to hell after just a couple of weeks)
Management of emails/texts, i.e. being able to delete them from your Band, and phone if required
Battery percentage shown on indicator
Multiple alarms, and being able to save them
Reminder notifications from phone
Full emails/texts shown
Smaller version available (smallest Band on smallest setting still too big for my girlfriend)
Wi-Fi so you can receive notifications when your phone is out of Bluetooth range
Wider screen and vertical orientation for some apps (such as just showing the time)
Native Microsoft apps integration such as OneNote & Skype
Also you might find this useful, an entire list of every app available on each platform...
http://winsupersite.com/microsoft-band/microsoft-band-apps-platform
This is good news too especially for us iOS users!
http://www.neowin.net/news/fully-featured-microsoft-band-sdk-is-now-available-for-all-platforms
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evilrob
Premium Member
Registered: 16th Mar 12
Location: Your mum's house
User status: Offline
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Microsoft Bands (all sizes) £118 on Amazon until 3.10pm:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00UOUFMK4?ascsubtag=prime-40-trd-art-1-21&tag=georiot-trd-21
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kz
Member
Registered: 9th Aug 02
Location: Southend, Essex Drives: Mini Cooper S
User status: Offline
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Just came here to post that 
Rob did you hear about this? http://lumiaconversations.microsoft.com/2015/07/09/microsoft-band-and-microsoft-health-introduces-web-tiles-and-microsoft-health-cloud-apis/
Already had a go at making my own app... got somewhere, but I didn't really know what I was doing lol. Will be interesting to see what people can come up with!
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