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About Huawei TalkBand 1
Huawei TalkBand 1: The digital revolution has brought many health gadgets, including a fitness band, to our shores. This fitness band is called the Huawei TalkBand 1 and has Bluetooth and NFC synchronization meaning and a battery life of up to 6 days (900 mAh).
Some fitness followers bring all your smartphone notifications to your wrist, but you can only see them before reaching into your pocket for your phone. Huawei’s TalkBand 1 doubles as a Bluetooth headset, where you take calls with the band while trailing steps, calories, and coldness. At $130, however, you’re paying a premium for this perk, and the TalkBand sacrifices a few other features over competing trackers.
Design of Huawei TalkBand 1
The TalkBand 1 looks like a cross between Fitbit Charge and Microsoft Band. Made of rigid silicone and plastic, the top of the strap holds the part that sticks out to become a Bluetooth headset.
This device has two buttons, one on the band running the entire distance of the screen it controls and one on the side where the shade comes out of the group so you can clip it to your ear.
The TalkBand’s flexible silicone strap is lightly textured at the top and smooth at the bottom, giving it a sporty look and comfortable feel. Unlike the Microsoft Band, which has a similar but much larger build, the B1 was easy to wear all day and night while you slept.
A silver notch with the Huawei logo hooks onto the belt about your wrist at a strap finish. The other termination has a built-in USB mount that allows you to recharge the strap simply by plugging that end of the fastening into any USB port.
The B1 has an IP57 rating, meaning it’s dustproof and can withstand up to one meter of water for up to 30 min.
Display
The TalkBand 1 1.4-inch curved OLED display sits atop the device’s removable innards. Press the button along the strip to cycle through time, steps, calories, and sleep. The time screen also displays small icons for Bluetooth connectivity and battery life.
When you remove the bracelet, you can control the screen with another button on the side, which remains hidden when activated. Unfortunately, the screen isn’t touchscreen like the Garmin Vivosmart’s LCDs, but you can see the most important parts of your daily activity at a glance, even in direct sunlight.
Configuration
Start downloading the TalkBand B1 app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store to set up the bracelet. Then press and grip the side button until a Bluetooth icon appears on the B1’s screen, then go to your device’s settings to pair via Bluetooth 4.1.
Once your smartphone knows and is paired with the bracelet, you can connect your anklet to the app. Next, you will be invited to enter basic information to create your profile, including gender, age, height, and weight.
Bluetooth Calls
When your phone rings, TalkBand B1 vibrates and shows you the caller’s number. You can then remove the Bluetooth headphones and answer the call by pressing the button on the side.
Overall, the quality of the earpiece was solid. I paired the B1 with my iPhone 6 and enjoyed clear calls. I also paired the headphones with a Moto X and had a similar experience; Although there was a slight delay, I also heard callers clearly over the noise of city traffic.
Though the band comes with three different sizes of silicone ear covers, I couldn’t find any with which the earpiece feels secure. It was constantly shaking, and I had a few quick calls where it almost jumped when I was going strict home on a windy day or on the treadmill. I also asked a few other people to try the earpiece, and they found it wonky.
App
The TalkBand B1 app looks unique as it forgoes a simple, bold color scheme that many other fitness trackers use, opting for a nice landscape shot in the background. Two bubbles dominate the home screen: one showing your steps and the other showing your total sleep from the last night. The step bubble shows you how close you are to your daily goal with a pointer around the circle.
The below each bubble are metrics that can be watched at a glance, plus distance; calories burned, sunny sleep time, and deep sleep time. If you scroll down, you’ll see a timeline of the busiest times of the day, breaking down the duration of your walk, with steps, calories, and distance recorded for each of those times.
Tapping on any bubbles takes you to a complete breakdown of your activity or sleep, including graphs presenting your most active times of the day and your best rest at night.
Specific activity tracking is conspicuously absent from the B1; the band only records steps and distance, and there’s no way to arrive at different exercises from a workout. The B1 knew I was more active during my early morning workouts by showing me an inflated step count on my timeline around 6:30 am. Still, I couldn’t enter my elliptical and treadmill workouts into the app.
The B1’s limited tracking capabilities put it on par with devices like the Misfit Flash and Jawbone Up Move, which are significantly cheaper than the B1, costing $50 each. I expected more fitness capabilities in the B1, especially since FitBit Charge and Garmin Vivosmart give you everything the B1 can do, plus additional features like smartphone notifications.
Performance
I found the TalkBand B1 accurately tracks my steps and has a handy sedentary reminder where the band vibrates when you’re inactive. I love that you can modify the B1’s alarm to your liking. For example, you can choose the time interval between each reminder to move and when you want to be encouraged to get up from your chair.
In its latest firmware update, the B1 also received an Event Alert – an ambiguous reminder that you can vibrate the band to notify you of anything you wish. You can set the specific time for the alarm, assign it a day (essentially name it), and set it to repeat on clear days every week. You will know when your wrist vibrates with a reminder, not an inactivity notification because you must discharge the reminders by pressing the display control button to stop.
When we set the alarm to go to a meeting at work at 10 am, the bracelet on my wrist rang, reading “Morning meeting.” The bracelet will vibrate until you cancel the alarm by pressing the display control button.
Because the B1 uses NFC and Bluetooth technology, it will vibrate when you move more than 10 meters away from your smartphone. This will come close for those of us who always leave our smartphones on coffee tables, but it got annoying when I went to the bathroom and left my phone on my desk.
Sleep
Like the Basis Peak, the TalkBand B1 mechanically goes into sleep mode when it notices long-term laziness. It tracks your deep sleep, light sleep, and how long it took to fall numb. I enjoyed the B1’s powerful vibrating alarm and set my alarm clock for 6 am with a 10-minute window. Each morning, the band vibrations were strong enough to wake me up, which no other fitness tracker could do.
The only extra thing I wish the B1 tape had recorded in sleep mode was the number of times I woke up throughout the night; It is a valuable measure to understand why I am more tired one day than the other.
Battery life
Huawei claims the TalkBand B1’s 95mAh battery will give you six days of regular use, with 14 days on standby and 7 hours of straight talk. After two days of everyday use, my B1 was only around 90% battery, but after a few calls, the battery drained significantly to about 30%. While it can’t match the Fitbit Charge’s 10-day battery life, you’ll get about the same usage time as the Garmin Vivosmart (a Week) if you’re not on the phone often. Mobile.
Conclusion
Huawei TalkBand 1 wants many things: a pedometer, sleep monitor, and Bluetooth headphones in one, and unfortunately, it doesn’t excel in any of these features. While the $130 B1 precisely tracks steps, calories, distance, and sleep, it’s not as comprehensive as similar fitness devices in their price range. And since the earphone does not fit well, it is only valid when you are driving in your car or some other place where you are not moving.
The Huawei TalkBand 1 is brilliant, but those who want a fitness tracker and a combination of Bluetooth headphones are better off with two separate gadgets.
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