Misc

UPDATE 4/09/2018 - The hardware failed after 18 months. Interestingly enough, a colleagues watch also failed around the same time. Unfortunately, from a build quality perspective, and like many other consumer wearables, they are simply not built to last. And so ends my Apple Watch journey. ORIGINAL REVIEW I've owned an Apple Watch Series 2 for about 8 months now and given that I have tested and written about a fair few activity trackers in the last 18-24 months, it seemed appropriate to share a few thoughts. Apple Watch Series 2 - I didn't own the Series 1 so can't really compare the two from a personal perspective. However, the Series 2 is both waterproof and has improved battery life over the first version. Health In terms of fitness trackers, it is up there with some of the best when it comes to tracking running, cycling and swimming. When running the watch reports total time, average pace, heart rate and distance travelled. Apple's own acti...

I've worn a Garmin wearable fitness tracker religiously for the last 9 months. The device has now become unreliable, but with so much data collected, I was curious to quantify patterns based on physical activity and sleep (this model measures both). However, while I can view a daily step count using the online service Garmin Connect , I also wanted to download my total step count for each day and run my own separate analysis. But this isn't possible (see below). I own the device, but not the data. Garmin can provide access to an API , but this remains expensive according to this reddit feed. It would actually be cheaper to build my own device and use that instead. Personally, I don't see how preventing customers from accessing their own raw data can continue. I understand why a manufacture would restrict access to the exact algorithm that takes accelerometer data and converts this data into steps, but my request outlined above is entirely reasonable. Man...