Review: Smart Band: Heart Rate Monitor Fitness Activity Tracker

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The Smart Band: Heart Rate Monitor Fitness Activity Tracker by Long Run Technologies is a competitor for the FitBit, Jawbone, and other name brand Fitness Trackers and smart bands. Today’s review is all about The Smart Band: Heart Rate Monitor Fitness Activity Tracker and my thoughts and experiences with the band.

Smart Band: Heart Rate Monitor Fitness Activity Tracker Features

Taken directly from Long Run Technologies’ sales page.

• ✔ THIS #1 RATED ACTIVITY TRACKER IS EQUIPPED WITH A HEART RATE MONITOR ✔ As seen on FOX, NBC, ABC & CBS! Use this revolutionary new device to track not only your heart rate, but steps taken, distance traveled, calories burned and active minutes. You get INSTANT REMINDERS when CALLS or TEXTS are coming in, plus you can activate the Anti Lost feature to get alerted when your Phone becomes too far from the Smart Band. Never risk losing your phone again!
• ✔ IMPROVE SLEEP PATTERNS AND HABITS WITHOUT DISTURBING YOUR PARTNER ✔ Monitor how long and well you sleep, and wake only you (not your partner) with a silent alarm.
• ✔ ZERO EXTRA BULK TO YOUR DAILY ROUTINE! ✔ Slim, comfortable and easy to wear. You will barely feel like you have anything on your wrist at all.
• ✔ ADVANCED BLUETOOTH TECHNOLOGY MAKES YOUR LIFE EASIER ✔ Sync stats wirelessly and automatically to virtually any and every brand/model of Smart Phone. You get to take advantage of Bluetooth 4.0 making connecting and transferring data to your Phone or mobile device a breeze every time.
• ✔ TAKE ADVANTAGE OF HELPFUL REMINDERS TO REACH YOUR GOALS QUICKER!! ✔ Set reminders to alert you when you have been sitting or motionless for too long. Take charge of your body today with our industry leading Smart Wristband! You’ll get Serious versatility that can even transform your phone into a Remote Shooting Camera using the Smart Band to control the shots! ** Requires iOS 7.1 and above or Android 4.4 and above. This Smart Band Does NOT Work With WINDOWS PHONES / TABLETS / IPADS **

Smart Band: Heart Rate Monitor Fitness Activity Tracker The Review – First Impressions

I have been into fitness for several years and even recently gotten my personal trainer certification so I can help others improve their health. At first I really didn’t care about tracking my success but after a year or so I found that as I tried out new training programs and learned more about my health I decided I needed to track my progress with the help of smart phone apps and heart rate monitors.

When smart bands and smart watches started becoming popular and more accurate I decided it was time to get one. As much I like the FitBit Smart Bands and similar products I wasn’t ready to put money on a product I wasn’t sure I would want to use.

I decided I wanted a band that not only counted steps, but it also tracked heart rate throughout the day, tracked sleep, and would sync to my Smartphone. I also wanted notification for calls, text messages, and notifications from the major social media sites.

I started looking on Amazon at some of the entry level models and what I found was a lot of cheap no name brands manufactured over seas. After several hours of looking I came across a band that wasn’t made overseas or at least the company wasn’t overseas. That was the Smart Band: Heart Rate Monitor Fitness Activity Tracker Features by Long Run Technologies.

I looked through the reviews and they seemed suggest that this tracker was better than other no name brands. The complaints and issues were things that I could deal with or send back to Amazon if I didn’t like the product. As of 8/24/2016 those complaints started growing and issues with the bands also grew. I probably wouldn’t buy it based on those reviews if I read them now.

After ordering the product it arrived quickly and in great packaging. The packaging says the smart band is actually called the You Fit 2.0. After opening,  I noticed that the charging cable is ridiculously short. Its so short its annoying.

You can’t replace the cable. The charging port is connected to the wire. At that point I was almost tempted to return it.

Once the item was charged I tried pairing the smart band with an iPhone 4 as a test. It didn’t pair. I then tried with an iPhone 5 and it didn’t pair. Then I tried pairing it with an LG 4G android based phone and it didn’t work. All updated to the latest OS they could handle. I then emailed the Run Long Technologies and their support staff got back to me in a few hours. After few suggestions from them they decided to send me another smart band.

It took them over a week to get me another one and I even think they may have forgotten about them sending me one. They said they would have a tracking number the next day. A week later I hadn’t heard back from them. I emailed them and they once again got back to me quickly. They apologized for the delay and once again they would have a tacking number for me in a few days. A few days later my band showed up and they then emailed my tracking number.

I charged up the band and followed the same process. The iPhone 4 won’t connect to their app. The iPhone 5 will connect but not all the features sync. On my LG 4G it worked great everything worked great. Everything syncs up and the features all work.

Recently it started unbinding or at least discounting from the phone. I would either have to reboot the phone or unbind and rebind. This generally happens after an app update. At least they fixed it where you won’t loose your data if you have to unbind and bind the band again.

For those of you that care about the looks, it looks very similar to the FitBit smart bands only the screen is a little bigger. The quality is good, the rubber is nice and it seems like its well made.

Smart Band: Heart Rate Monitor Fitness Activity Tracker The Review – How to Use the Tracker

Charging the system can be annoying. It doesn’t come with a charging block, just a USB charging cable with charging cradle. Because of how short it is you are limited on where you can charge the tracker. If you bump the cable or the band it stops charging. To charge the device you align the metal points to the metal disks on the back side of the charger. Take a look at the above picture, you can see how it clamps to the tracker.

To navigate through the features on the Smart Band, there is a small rectangle button on the side of the band. Press it once and release quickly and it will open the home screen. Press again to see your heart rate. Continue to quick press to cycle through the features. If a notification comes through, it should display the notification, to keep it open to see the more of the notification quick press it again and again until its finished.

If you quick press it the button until you reach a feature, you can hold the button for two seconds to start monitoring during training. I tried this feature multiple times and saw no real use for this. The app doesn’t record anything while its running.

If you hold it for more than two seconds it will reset and delete your data from the band.

Smart Band: Heart Rate Monitor Fitness Activity Tracker The Review – How Well it Works

Once you bind your smart band you will need to configure the smart band via the app. Then turn on the notification and alerts so you can the keep track of your social media, text messages, phone calls, alarms, phone search, and anti lost cell phone alerts. They work great! But if you unbind or your phone needs to be resynced you have to reset all your settings including your health stats! Why would the app do that? There should be an option to delete all data or use current data.

I ended up turning off Instagram because I kept getting alerts every 30 sections all day long (whenever some liked my post).

The smart band uses VeryFit 2.0 to control the phone and track data. The app is limited and only good at controlling the smart band. Tracking features are limited and so small its hard to read. It only syncs to Google Fit and many of the features the smart band tracks does not sync to Google Fit. Google Fit isn’t that great of product right now and I think in a few years it will be good as MyFitnessPal/MapFitnessPal and other competitors.

This band really needs to have a way to sync to other popular and more useful apps. Many of the band’s competitors will sync directly with the more popular apps.

The anti lost cell phone feature is annoying. It works but if you set the phone down and walk out of the room for any reason it starts ringing. It won’t stop until you come back into range. So every time you want to leave your phone at your desk on purpose you have to turn off this feature.

Smart Band: Heart Rate Monitor Fitness Activity Tracker The Review – The Fitness and Health Tracking Features

As to the fitness and health tracking system, it isn’t accurate. The step counter is pretty close, I found it doesn’t track short walks, just longer ones. It won’t measure the first 20 or 40 so steps and sometimes it removes 20 or 40 steps when I look at it after a short walk and I really don’t know why. Its at least not so sensitive that when you go for a ride in your car it count those as steps. But if you are on a bicycle or a riding mower it will read it as steps and may even treat it as if you are the Flash and can run faster then any human can run.  The first screen capture is of the Very Fit 2.0 app showing my August 20th steps. I worked six hours that day, worked out at the gym, and then went to store afterwards. It only counted almost half the steps as the Pacer app. Some days the two are very close but sometimes you get days like this.

The heart rate monitor is only 2 to 5 beats off when you are at rest (at least for me.) But what concerns me is that even when I am not wearing the band it still says I hold a constant 70 to 80 beats per minute. It should stop reading and go into standby if you aren’t wearing it. How hard is it to add a feature like that? It could be controlled in the app. This first screen capture shot shows when I took off the smart band for the night. For some reason it actually stopped tracking. But that’s the only time it worked. The second shot shows 24 hour monitoring. But I took it off around 12:00 am and put it on again around 10 am when I left the house for the day.

When exercising it almost never goes over 100 beats even when the machines say I’m hitting 140 bits per minute on the stair mill or treadmill. It mostly sits around 80 to 90 beats per minute. This is unacceptable and dangerous for those that depend on accuracy or have health issues. If you have health issues or need accuracy look else ware.

I think if you want the best accuracy for tracking your heart rate you need to look at  heart rate chest bands. The chest bands tend to be more accurate and many of them now use Bluetooth to sync with your phone.

The sleep tracking works but its not the best. The wrist flick feature turns on all the time and its so bright at night it can blind you. If you wear your band loose the green light that measures heart rate shines bright enough that you can see it as well. Both lights are bright enough that when rolling over and your band crosses your line of site it will shine bright enough you can see the light when your eyes are closed.

So on the nights I do use it, I turn off the wrist flick feature and I don’t have an issue with the bright lights.

As for the results, I found that it decides you went to sleep before you even set foot in the bedroom. It seems to wake about the same time most mornings if I get up for a few minutes to deal with the dogs and go right back to bed. It doesn’t register me going back to sleep.

Final Thoughts

This band could be a good product. The band itself is well made but that’s about it. I’m only using it for social media, text message alerts, and phone alerts. I use the step counter as a general idea of how close I am to my goal. For more accurate step counting I use my cell phone using the Pacer app(surprisingly accurate for an app and cell phone.)

I can not recommend this smart band for accurate health tracking. I can recommend it just as a smart band for its social media and cell phone alerts. I plan to wear this band until this one dies or I have the chance to buy one or someone sends me one to review. I will update this article if any new issues comes up.