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.
Like last week’s wearable, doing all of this can also look great. Enter the Misfit Shine.
Wearable: Misfit Shine
Who’s Wearing It: Kimberly, Melissa
What It Does: Activity, calorie, and sleep tracking, socializing results, food tracking
The actual device is a lightweight, battery-powered (no charging!) disk that can be worn a variety of ways: on the wrist in a “watch band,” around the neck as a necklace, or clipped to clothing or shoes.
The Shine differs from other trackers with its active time and goal-setting features. Using a point system, the Shine automatically detects what you’re doing and how hard you’re doing it (or you can log activities like playing tennis or doing yoga), and gives you points.
You set a daily point goal and all activity—walking, running, swimming, dancing, playing basketball—earns you points. In the app, you can see a constantly updated estimate of how much activity you’ll need to complete to meet your daily goal.
A quick tap of the device also shows your progress (and the time!).
Sitting at dinner with a friend and don’t want to enter all of your meal’s ingredients into a calorie counter? The food log part of the app is about photos of what you ate, allowing you to account for it when it’s convenient.
Like other devices, Shine tracks your sleep (either automatically or by manually logging it) and gives you a report on sleep quality (awake, light sleep, restful sleep).
There’s also a social element, where you can see a feed of users and how they’re meeting goals. It’s like your own cheering section!