In my introductory post for We Wear It, I said that part of our goal for the 99 days is to help people learn about the wide variety of wearable devices that are available, their various capabilities, how they work for different lifestyles, and how all of this health and fitness data fits into the policy picture. In other words, it’s more than just steps.
It’s also more than a rubber band around your wrist. Take a look at the Withings Activité Pop.
Wearable: Withings Activité Pop
Who’s Wearing It: Courtney and Katherine
What It Does: Activity and sleep tracking, and automatic detection of running, swimming, sleeping
You can look around a room and easily spot the people using activity trackers by the thick band around their wrists. Or can you? Take a closer look at the Activité Pop.
The Activité Pop is part of the new wave of wearables that combine function with fashion, for those who want an activity tracker but don’t want to look like they’re wearing one.
This device tracks activity for walking, running, and swimming, and tracks sleep as well. It automatically detects when you’re doing those activities, removing the need to open the app or otherwise “tell” the device to please start tracking you. Or when you’re doing a combination of running and walking—interval training, walk-to-run training, or just picking up the pace to catch the bus—it knows and tracks the activity properly.
The Activité Pop connects directly to the Withings Health Mate app, which can be easily integrated into Apple’s Health app as well. While the activity sub-dial on the watch helps you track progress with a glimpse at your wrist, the app provides a more in-depth timeline of activity.
It also provides insights on sleep patterns and allows you to set an alarm to wake you with a not-so-jarring vibration.
The app also includes a social component, where you can invite friends to a weekly steps challenge. But if friendly competition isn’t your thing, the Health Mate app still provides encouragement through badges to congratulate an active day….
Or commend you on the occasional lazy day (because we all need those once in a while)…
And because it’s NOT meant to look like an activity tracker on your wrist, you can purchase extra bands in different colors to make it a real accessory.
