Microsoft Band 2 review

How do you differentiate your wearable from the Android Wear and Apple Watch competition? Microsoft tried to do it with a focus on health for the Band, a fitness wearable that also did a lot of what Google and Apple’s smartwatches could do. It certainly wasn’t perfect, but integrated GPS and a comprehensive companion app meant it had real appeal for tracking exercise routines. When the company announced a successor, I was hopeful it would improve on the original while retaining the features that made it so intriguing in the first place.

Design

First impressions are positive. The original Band was never the comfiest wearable – in fact, the underslung second battery and rigid flat display made it so ungainly that I only wore it when cycling to and from the office; at all other times I took it off, as it got in the way when typing and struggled to fit under a shirt cuff. Microsoft has listened to its critics, and the sequel is much improved.

The flat touchscreen is gone, replaced with a curved OLED panel that better fits the contours of your wrist. It’s protected by curved Corning Gorilla Glass, too, which should prevent a lot of the scratches that appeared on the original model. OLED technology should mean better battery life than the LCD tech used in the original, but it’s still bright enough to see clearly in the daylight.

The second battery returns, but it’s now built into the clasp rather than the rubber strap. This means the strap is much more flexible, so it’s more comfortable all round. The clasp mechanism hasn’t changed much either, but it is larger than before to make room for the second battery, UV sensor and charging pins. With two separate parts it was always going to be thicker than other wearables, but it’s just slim enough as to not get in the way.

There are still two physical buttons on the side, but now everything is finished in silver metal rather than plastic. It certainly feels like a more premium product, which is crucial if Microsoft wants it to compete with the Apple Watch or any Android Wear device.

Features

The original band was one of the most feature-packed wearables around, sensors included optical heart rate, ambient light, UV, skin temperature and galvanic skin response, plus a 3-axis accelerometer and GPS, among others. The Band 2 improves on this count with a Barometer for tracking elevation. However, the holes required for the Barometer and integrated microphone to function means the Band isn’t waterproof – just splash resistant. This will be a real shame for swimmers, as they won’t be able to use it to track their favourite form of exercise.

The microphone is only really useful for Windows Phone users, as you can’t use Cortana voice control when you’re paired to an iPhone or Android handset. It doesn’t work with Siri or Google Now, so it’s kind of a useless addition for iOS and Android owners. The first major firmware update for the Band 2 also added music controls, a feature that users had been crying out for – this works across platforms, not just Windows Phone.

Notifications are a big part of any wearable, and the Band 2 is no different. When paired via Bluetooth, the haptic motor vibrates and the screen illuminates every time you get an email, text message or call. You can also enable other notifications, including Facebook alerts, Twitter notifications, and any other apps you want to send messages straight to your wrist.

Pressing the Action button will display each word onscreen in quick succession, letting you read more of the headline, but mails are still truncated and there’s no connection between phone and band in terms of syncing; dismiss all notifications on your wrist and they will still be unread on your handset, regardless of operating system. It also ignores your phone’s quiet hours or Do Not Disturb modes; the Band itself has its own Do Not Disturb mode, but it’s annoying it doesn’t recognise this automatically.

The interface is mostly unchanged, with a series of simple icons representing messages, emails, calls, exercise, weather, alarms, sleep tracking and more, depending on what you’ve enabled through the companion app. It responds quickly to swipes and taps, but if you were hoping for a brand new look to go with the new hardware you’ll be left disappointed.

Battery life

If you don’t use GPS, the Band 2 should last for up to 48 hours between charges. On some days this was a conservative figure, but on others I was nearing 40% by the time I’d made it home. However, with GPS enabled, I was cutting it close after cycling to and from the office. That being said, it only takes around 90 minutes to fully charge, so a quick blast once you get home will give you enough juice to get through a night of sleep tracking. Doing the same in the morning while you get ready for work will get you through the whole day. It’s an improvement over the original, where I either had to bring the proprietary charger in to work, or only enable GPS for one leg of my cycle commute in order to last the whole day on a single charge.

Exercise tracking

Unsurprisingly for a wearable focused on fitness, the Band 2 is adept at all kinds of exercise. The most common use will likely be either running or cycling, at which it both excels. The integrated GPS produces a route map without relying on your phone, saving its battery, although the time it takes to lock in your location varies greatly; sometimes I was waiting five minutes before it got a lock.

You get the option to enable GPS before starting an activity, but even with it disabled you’ll still get important metrics such as activity duration, calories burned, heart rate, recovery time (how long you should wait before attempting more exercise) and even a fitness benefit, suggesting whether you’re improving over time. It also estimates your VO2 max while running, which can be a useful metric when pacing yourself in preparation for greater distances. Heart rate tracking is reasonable, but with no option to adjust the polling rate, serious athletes may not appreciate the limited degree of accuracy.

One of the original Band’s unique features was Guided workouts, acting as a personal trainer with customisable workouts that can be downloaded. They return here, now with over 100 different workouts available. Once activated, the first activity in the workout is displayed alongside a timer, with the Band vibrating when you’re done. If you finish before the timer expires, pressing the Action button moves on to the next activity.

Golf might not be as strenuous as a guided workout, but the Band 2 can still help on the links. You can download courses through the companion app and use the Band’s GPS to display information like distance to the hole, drive distance and even act as an automatic score card. It senses your swing and whether you make impact with the ball, so can detect practice swings, but with no golf club members on staff and an inability to drive a ball to save my life, I couldn’t test its accuracy.

As before, the Band 2 is also compatible with a range of third party apps that can be downloaded separately from Microsoft’s own Health app. The selection depends entirely on your smartphone OS, but compatibility with Runkeeper and Strava are universal across Android, iOS and Windows Phone. It also tracks calories burned throughout the day and counts your steps, too, although there’s no option to disable metabolic calorie counting, and the step count seemed rather high compared to the Apple Watch I was wearing on my other wrist.

Companion app

Microsoft’s Health app is almost as important as the Band itself. Almost everything is configured through the app, right from the initial setup, and all your synced data is saved here for quick access and analysis. It unsurprisingly uses a familiar Windows Phone design, filled with coloured blocks and bold text regardless of your smartphone OS, but is easy to navigate and surprisingly in-depth once you dig down into each menu.

It’s a shame that the Band 2 still doesn’t do much with the data Microsoft Health collects. At launch, it wouldn’t prompt you to get up and take a stretch every hour or so, but thankfully Microsoft has now added the feature in an update. Even so, sleep tracking is only useful if there’s any indication of how to improve – Microsoft Health simply says whether you’re lightly or moderately rested.

This is especially annoying when you consider how much effort Microsoft has gone to in expanding its Health web hub; there are literally hundreds of ways to display and interact with your data, share it with others and get feedback on your performance. It’s one of the best web interfaces around, yet you have to work hard to get useful metrics from the band and app themselves.

Conclusion

The Band 2 is an improvement over the original, then, but not a massive one. Despite tweaking the design of the original, issues such as the bulky strap return, albeit to a lesser extent. The curved screen is a genuine improvement, as is the premium metal finish, and battery life is finally long enough to get you through a working day when you’ve enabled GPS for the morning commute.

It’s primarily a fitness wearable, so while it has rudimentary smartwatch features, they aren’t up to the same standards as either the Apple Watch or Android Wear. However, it wipes the floor with most dedicated fitness bands thanks to comprehensive tracking metrics and a detailed web interface. If it actively explained what the data it gathered represented, it would be ideal, but currently you have to go out of your way to translate your results into a suggested course of action. When Microsoft works out a way to translate the gathered data and explain to less fitness-minded users (like myself) how to improve, it could be on to a real winner, but right now the Band 2 is still something of an also-ran.