Track your speed(o).
Activity trackers are great for keeping tabs on all your exercise
routines… except when it comes to the pool. Whereas runners and cyclists are
spoilt for choice when it comes to gadgets that track their progress, swimmers
tend to get left out. Thankfully those clever bods at Misfit have brought out a
special edition of their existing product to benefit those of us who enjoy
aquatic work-outs. We take the plunge with the Misfit Speedo Shine.
If the product’s name sounds familiar, it’s because the Misfit Shine has been out for a while now, and in fact we reviewed it way back in March of 2014 (read our review here). Keen eyed readers may notice that the existing Shine was already waterproof down to 50 metres, so what is so special about the Speedo Shine?
In a nutshell… nothing. That isn’t to say that there haven’t
been any improvements, but the body of the Speedo Shine, both in terms of aesthetics
and dimensions, is identical to the Shine. What has changed here, and what will
be of most interest to swimmers, is that the new version can now accurately track
your pool lap count and the distance you swim.
This update makes perfect sense for a gadget that was
already geared up to be used in water, especially considering the Speedo Shine
is extremely thin (just 3.3mm) and light. When mounted in the included wrist
strap it is barely noticeable and won’t interfere with your arm stroke. This we
discovered when we took it for a splash.
In use, what we found so remarkable was how accurately the
Speedo Shine tracked lengths of the pool. Despite being mounted on the wrist,
and despite us all flapping around in various childish forms of swimming, it
still registered a change in direction rather than just movement. The distance
tracker was also very good – the accuracy of which being easy to check when you’re
swimming, as the length of the pool is fixed.
As well as these new features (which have been added by
Misfit in conjunction with Speedo) the Speedo Shine does everything the
original Shine does. Do check out our review, but the headlines are that it
will track all kinds of work-out and day-to-day activities, as well as
monitoring your sleep. All this data, along with the info from your latest
swim, can then be synced to the Misfit app, available for both Android and iOS.
If you already own a Shine and use it to track your daily
steps and jogs, maybe don’t bother with the Speedo. However, if you’re in the
market for brand new tracker, you really can’t go wrong here, knowing that
whatever activity you get up to, both on dry land and not, you’ll be covered by
a gadget that both looks great and captures all the data accurately.
£44.99
Available from www.amazon.co.uk