And so it begins...
Welcome to The Test
Pit's January Club. Starting right now, we're reviewing gadgets,
clothing, and equipment to help you with the number one New Year's
Resolution: getting fit. If you've previously found it a bit of a
chore to get out there and go for a run, let technology be your
motivator. Getting new fitness stuff is awesome, and we've picked out
a few that caught our eye... starting with the iFit Vue.
The iFit Vue is an
activity tracker designed to either be worn on the wrist or carried
about in your pocket. The unit itself is very small, quite like
iFit's other tracker, the Link, and can popped into one of two
different sized wrist straps that come in the box along with it. It
has been designed to track physical activity, such as running and
walking, and also your sleep, as well as allowing you to input your
calories consumed and also get notifications from your phone about
calls and texts. Nice.
The strap is
comfortable on and fastens pretty securely. The Vue also seems to be
well wedged into the strap, especially considering it loads in from
the underside, so it will hopefully never budge. The LCD display is
bright blue and is navigated by way of a touch-sensitive button to
the right. Simply download the iFit app to your phone (iOS and
Android) and make sure the Vue is fully charge via the included USB
charger.
Syncing is a pretty
easy affair, and nothing should confound those who have used this
kind of kit before. Setting goals and entering your personal data is
done in the app, which is very neat and minimal, before syncing
wirelessly to the Vue to start. After that, the Vue itself will
detect what kind of activity you are partaking in, logging info about
the number of steps walked, or the distance and time ran. This it
does very well, and we were happy to see the number of steps it
logged when we tested it exactly (counting them, out loud, as we
walked) was spot on.
Here's something you'll
luuurve! The iFit Vue will vibrate on your wrist when you are
inactive for a period of time, as if to say WELL MOVE THEN, FATTIE!
Fortunately this can be deactivated, or indeed adjusted to intervals
from one to 59 minutes. We got sick of it, to be honest, but if you
work in an office and lead quite a sedentary lifestyle, a little
reminder to move ever half an hour or so isn't a bad thing.
We really liked the
calls and texts notifications, and you normally don't find that level
of integration with your phone on a device of this price. Again, it
can all be switched off should you wish, but being able to simply
glance at your wrist to see who is calling while you're out running
is great – especially if your phone is tucked into a strap on your
arm.
All in all, we really
like the iFit Vue. There's nothing terribly ground-breaking about it,
but the price is good and the features go above and beyond what you
might expect. iFit have a great app which allow you to track and
monitor pretty much everything you're doing, and the Vue is also
compatible with popular heart rate monitors, should you wish to track
even more. A sound device which is a good start to your New Year
fitness goals.
£59.99
