Microsoft Band
microsoft.com
microsoft.com
The killing feature is the integrated GPS. As mentionned on the website, you can go without your phone. That alone could make it a buy if it supports wireless charging (I don't want to bother with wires in 2014)
Also, it is multiplatform, which is a big plus. I do not want an android watch or an iwatch, but something that will work regardless of the cellphone I chose.
I wonder if there's a devkit to read the data. If some HN is from Microsoft, I'd love some links to the devkit page (simple stuff, like retreiving GPS log, heartrate log, etc)
[0]: http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/29/7118533/microsoft-health-...
But dear god, the XML! They've started making more and more stuff code-configurable though, so that's good.
And it's pretty expensive.
Now, if your competitor is on an open stack and on real computers they will eventually run rings around you because they get more control and lower costs. The initial boost you're experiencing will turn into a straightjacket with a hefty pricetag over the longer term.
Nice blanket statement there. How can you claim it's expensive when you have no idea what or how he uses it?
The most cost effective way as far as I can see is to hire a sysadmin on a freelance basis until you need one full time, own your own hardware (or lease it by the month until you can afford your own hardware) and pay flat rate for bandwidth. Anything else will sooner or later come to haunt you and then you will need to migrate to some new platform. At that point in time you will learn the true value of the words 'lock-in'.
Obviously it depends on what you're actually doing, but for a straightforward SaaS app (a few servers, a db server, a queue and a load balancer in a few datacentres around the world) one good sysadmin/devops guy costs far more than a set of AWS instances that essentially scale themselves.
Having dedicated people necessary for that 'control' is beyond the budget of the majority of startups.
The choice is definitely not between going for a cloud platform versus hiring a bunch of people full time. There are other options.
There is one specific case when I recommend AWS instead of dedicated servers and it's for customers who have widely varying traffic with predictable peaks. In that case having the flexibility afforded by cloud providers to increase the number of instances temporarily to deal with the peak makes sense.
I think there is a case for an open stack, but I think unless you pick a real dog of a platform good people can make it work well. It comes down to a "can I get good people for stack X?" as much as "Does stack X work or cost too much?"
Stackoverflow and Trello are always held up as the shining examples of how the Microsoft stack is able to hold its own. That's great, I even know people that insist on running their web servers on Apple hardware. Whatever floats your boat. But if you're running a competitive business, if you're going to be using a lot of CPUs and if you will eventually (or already) be faced with lean and mean competition then you are probably better off on an open stack.
Try to imagine Google, Amazon, Ebay, DropBox or AirBnB on the Microsoft platform. And note that two of the above are re-selling their linux based platforms to other users at a profit.
Btw stackoverflow uses plenty of CentOS, I guess licensing from RedHat was too expensive?
Microsoft aren't stupid - the costs they charge for Azure are largely competitive, and the benefits it provides are tangible.
Picking what technology will run your business is something that really needs to be done on a case by case basis, based on your knowledge and your business. Certainly I don't think it's desirable to make a permanent choice when you are still a startup.
Of course you'd use CentOS, unless you had need of the specific features that licensing it gave you.
We're definitely in agreement there. The main criterium is: use what you know how to use. So if you're comfortable using the MS stack then go for it, otherwise, probably better to avoid it.
So, would it be fair to say "So if you're comfortable using the Linux stack then go for it, otherwise, probably better to avoid it", or was that your parting jab against MS?
On top of that, SO's search feature is (IMHO) loads better than Reddit's.
Certainly, a silicon valley company of 10-20 employees will likely have costs of over $1000 a day - any software or hardware licensing will pale in comparison to this until the product is big.
Also, we don't have to worry about managing VMs at all so we don't generally think about those sorts of things except for a couple of very niche uses like our chat bot or QA testing VMs.
From another post by you: >Because I have fairly extensive insight into a very large number of companies and can see their license bills as well as their cloud bills if those are applicable.
Since you claim to have a lot of info on this can you give any, even one, real world example of you just said happening?
Otherwise I am going to call BS on it.
Perhaps you're starting something that is going to take down NewEgg.com ? You're clearly missing the forest for trees here. At work we run a large mix of Windows Servers, SQL servers, Linux, Drupal, MySQL, Moodle etc. running fairly traffic heavy and top ranking public health sites and all said our licensing and hosting costs are about 2% of our annual budget.
All I note is that MS thinks YC is important enough to designate a person to sway them to the MS stack and SAAS products, this is a tried and true strategy (get them while they're young) and it will likely cost you dearly in the long term if you aren't able to oversee the long term disadvantages of such a move. If you have a long history of using microsoft products and switching to open operating systems and stack components would mean lost time due to re-training then by all means stick to what you know.
It's funny how in one subthread here people are arguing that hosting and bandwidth are the major expenses for any start-up and now it's hosting and costs are 2%. In the end every situation is different and every situation has a different cost analysis for the workload envisioned. Seeing the guts of many companies has shown me that if you're doing something that requires large numbers of expensive licenses or metered bandwidth / cycles / storage then you're probably going to regret that choice at a later point.
When you take off, you can raise money to pay people to move you over anyway.
I really wished that companies like Microsoft, Google and so on would not have a 'HN guy' (and would not have non-disclosed HN guys either, Felix is at least above board on that), it can make it a lot harder to figure out what is a genuine user experience and what is product placement.
Unless the Microsoft stack is something you already have experience with you're much better off using non-proprietary stack software. Anything coming out of Microsoft will sooner or later cause a bunch of licenses to be sold somewhere down the line or monthly invoices for metered usage to appear so make sure you know exactly what you're getting into. $50K in freebies will have to translate into $50K more profit somewhere along the line.
Small business usually get everything for free (or nobody bothers to check in on their licensing status, at the very least, they run on a massive discount using "developer editions").
Very large businesses have so much bureaucratic overhead, that unless their core business is Software/service (I.E. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Dropbox, etc...) - the cost of software licenses is minor, and anything they can save by going with something "Standard and Supported" is worth the offset.
But, anybody interested in trying to run their small-medium business on something like Oracle Enterprise edition on their 16 Core Server will quickly start taking a second look at Postgress/MariaDB once they see what the annual licensing costs for Oracle are. Partitioning and Optimizer are only worth so much...
To the best of my knowledge, no-one who bought the Zune ended up paying $50k to MS for it.
The regular Bizspark is 100USD/month.
Hint: HN is a message board, YC is a startup accelerator. They are NOT the same. And yes, there are plenty of startups that do quite okay on the MS stack and for many it may not be a good fit. Your post adds nothing new to the discussion.
>It means: try to get companies that otherwise would not go for Microsoft products to give it a try through free product samples, and talking down companies not microsoft.
But luckily we have you to talk down Microsoft.
>$50K in freebies will have to translate into $50K more profit somewhere along the line.
And paying $50K for hosting when you have no money can just shutdown a startup instead of increasing its costs by 1% down the line. Hosting is the biggest cost for a startup most of the time, it can't be "free" like founders time.
Anyway, got any thoughts on the Microsoft Band?
https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=ntakasaki
Every third or so link you posted has 'microsoft' in it.
As for me confusing HN and YC, I'm quite aware of the difference between the two and as far as I know I didn't confuse them in the least. Lots of start-up people frequent HN, YC related founder or not they are better off using what is most cost effective for them. This will rarely translate to 'microsoft'.
Hosting is almost never the biggest cost for a start-up, but it can be the biggest cost for a larger company, which is what most start-up aim to become.
$50K for hosting through 'Azure' or some other cloud company typically translates into a few grand from a dedicated hosting provider, by far the most cost effective hosting solution available to start-ups and successful companies alike.
Thanks for not making this personal.
Felix said he's the MS person for YC. You misrepresented it as HN a couple of times. Please read your post again.
>Every third or so link you posted has 'microsoft' in it.
But we do have you to counterbalance me.
>Hosting is almost never the biggest cost for a start-up, but it can be the biggest cost for a larger company, which is what most start-up aim to become.
What? What is the biggest cost for a startup in the initial phase when founders are not taking salaries? Rent for sleeping? Ramen noodles? Which large company has the biggest cost as hosting? Even 50k/yr is like 1/3rd of a Silicon level salary. It's like you got it completely backwards.
Anyway, all this unrelated to the topic at hand and does not belong here. There were numerous HN threads with this discussion and please write your thoughts as a blog post and you'll have my upvote.
Again, got any thoughts on the Microsoft Band? If not, /thread, I am out.
Also, my notifications have been spotty, but I may reset and start over, because my friend with a band is not having that issue.
Now that I've used wireless charging, I'll never go back. Connecting wires to charge is so 2012. I want my Surface Pro to charge wirelessly. And my Tesla Model S (well, that is, if I had one).
Do you find that wireless charging prevents that? I assume the fevice has to lie flat on the plate somewhere near a power outlet.
There is a lot to be desired from current battery technology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_effect
"True memory effect is specific to sintered-plate nickel-cadmium cells, and is exceedingly difficult to reproduce, especially in lower ampere-hour cells. In one particular test program designed to induce the effect, none was found after more than 700 precisely-controlled charge/discharge cycles"
But no, Google was cool and Palm was old hat, so now they're gone and we are using Java to make apps and charging by laying our phones flat and plugging our tablets into the wall.
But as others have pointed out, when you have wireless charging plates at your home and office, you'll routinely just drop your phone on a plate just as peers will drop theirs on a their desk. You'll find your phone is more often at full charge. I've only fully-drained the battery a handful of times (much use while away from any charging, wires included) and observed it in battery-saver mode another handful.
I would say a wireless-charging device with ample charging plates (say, 3 or 4) gives you a blissful ignorance of battery life. It's analogous to the bliss I had when I drove an electric car—contrary to conventional wisdom I found that electric cars create range bliss rather than range anxiety. Every time you leave your home for the day, the car is at full capacity. You never have to plan a visit to a refilling station. With a wirelessly-charged phone, I scarcely look at my phone's battery indicator; it's just not an issue.
And just to be as clear as possible, you can still connect a traditional micro USB cord to charge these phones if that's all you have handy.
Reasonable for a phone, batshit insane for EV charging, which is why Magne Charge never took off. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magne_Charge) 20% of 6 kW for every car, times millions of cars...
http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/iwatch-i...
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTtB7RX...
The Moto 360 looks better because it's round but the UI is made for a square device.
Whereas this appears to be a reimagination in an authentically digital and modern format. The iWatch is already looking outdated IMO.
Apple's wrist worn product is not called iWatch, and that linked picture is not of an Apple product.
As I find myself saying more and more, I love this new Microsoft. It's insane how much harm a single man can do.
EDIT: No idea why I am getting downvoted - it's a serious question!
In order to be a smart watch it would need to do more "smart" things such as showing notifications, interacting with third-party apps, etc. If you have a Windows Phone you can talk to cortana so it's the closest thing to a smart phone you can get on that OS, but still it's clearly not as powerful as what Android Wear and probably Apple Watch can do.
Neither does MS. I read an interview with one of the product leads on The Verge and he said it is not a smart watch. He envisions you continue wearing your watch on one are and this primarily as a fitness tracker and productivity device on the other.
What do you mean? What is it that they do that this will not do? I think Microsoft should have just marketed it as a watch. To me it seems to have everything I will need in a smartwatch.
AFAIK the only product that does this is Polar's fitness band. And only because you can link their heart rate monitor to it to give you additional fitness information. I could be wrong to think they're the only one combining the two.
I guess this means I won't be switching back to Android for a while now, just to see how my WP8 and this work together.
At $200 this looks like great device with built-in sensors including GPS and UV that also talks to whatever phone you own. I also like the fact that heart rate monitor is always on. Addition of barometer could have been nicer, however.
Other tidbits:
-Screen looks too small to do much of an interaction so I'm guessing type of apps would be mostly notification types.
-I seriously hate all these stock photos and videos. Marketing seems to be out of ideas and creativity yet again. Show the f*ing product, not random faces.
-48 hr battery life
-Cortana works only for Windows Phone
-It's supposedly made for the right hand which is very weird.
-Sleep quality monitoring seems pretty cool
-The whole thing is projected as health device and makes me feel that it's designed for fitness nuts. This is going to severely limit the audience and very bad marketing strategy. Apple's watch is much more human/teens oriented that anyone wearing watches wouldn't mind to wear regardless of its health related features and probably mostly just for fun (send my heartbeat!).
I already keep a charger at my work desk to charge my phone, that's when I would charge it and it would not be a hassle in the least.
I wouldn't buy one, but at least you could have all your devices on you as you sleep!
I'd buy this to replace a Fitbit any day of the week.
Or if you compare it to the just-announced but not yet available Fitbit Surge, which claims 5 days without GPS.
Two days is not much time in this space.
I might be wrong about the weight, but it just looks kind of like a Fitbit which is really light (my wife has one).
It doesn't appear to be hand-specific. Most fitness trackers suggest you should wear on your non-dominant hands, because they give a more accurate step count.
I actually appreciate the fact that its not marketing as an entire smart phone on my wrist. I don't want to browse my photo albums on it or wait 2 seconds for my watch screen to wake up before checking the time. I'm glad its just fitness sensors and simple clock/calender/email/notifications.
I think this is an interesting compromise.
Yeah, designing product to specific target audience didn't work out so well for GoPro I'm sure.
I can't see anyone spending $200 for this if they're not at least somewhat serious about their exercise. Counting steps and taking my heart rate twice a day is just a gimmick to me.
> feel that it's designed for fitness nuts
This product is quite a leap for Microsoft already. The watch market is young and probably led by fitness nuts.
It's probably a good strategy for Microsoft to nail this market first, learn about the marketing and triggers, secure a position and a revenue, then extend to a larger watch market when it is more structured.
Nope, not the feeling I'm getting. Most people around me do not have a smart-watch. I own a pebble which has extremely limited functionality compared to Apple Watch, etc.
The fact that I don't have to watch my phone to get input (read notifications, who's calling, runkeeper data, etc.) + the fact that I can keep my iPhone volume off and still not miss a single call, is a huge plus to me! Having Siri on your wrist could be extremely important for free lancers or generally speaking people who don't have a secretary to call at all times.
Now if they could figure out how to monitor blood sugar easily we would be all set. I am curious if with the built in GPS I could use it to monitor my bicycling? I know it can get my heart rate but I am also curious how well that performs while I sweat because I can get soaked on some rides.
Still, the price is great too. Just color it up
It will be interesting to see which approach consumers prefer. Techies were going nuts of the Moto 360 because it looked like a real watch and to me it seems the most likely for a normal person to wear.
Also, most pictures on the site have people wearing it on their left hand, so it seems perfectly capable of being on either wrist.
Finally, you're calling it a watch, while this is clearly not what Microsoft intended it to be. So it seems their marketing strategy is pretty on point for what they're trying to sell. The words 'watch', 'time', or 'clock' aren't mentioned anywhere on the page. You should be judging the product for what it is, not what you want it to be.
How exactly? It doesn't look very radical to me.
Not as much guts after Samsung already did it:
https://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/wearable-tech/SM-R3500ZKAX...
This isn't 'finally'. This 'new Microsoft' has been doing this for a while.
COM is not only proprietary but also a horrible thing. I don't see it ever being on any Linux list of things to do.
It will never install on Linux.
If you want something as good as Visual Studio on Linux, write it.
Does anything exist on other platforms like Mac OSX and Linux? CORBA was written all over the place GNOME1 / 2 time as I recall but I don't actually know if anything like COM exists anywhere?
Thanks.
In particular, XPCOM allows easy binding with the Spidermonkey JS runtime so you can expose things to scripts.
(Put differently: The argument is nonsense)
Perhaps you were installing an older version?
How many Windows Phone apps does Google have? Zero. What about Apple? Zero. In fact, Google has even refused to allow Windows Phone to access Youtube and Maps on the web. They specifically blocked the user agent for their website.
But no, that one example from Microsoft is totally relevant. Their competitors are much more open.
It sounds like Cortana only works with a Windows Phone though. However, it seems like this is mainly a fitness tracker with light smartwatch features on the side, so I'm not sure if I'd consider this a dealbreaker or anything.
It's important to understand that all companies are big machine-like systems that have only one purpose: Make as much money as possible. Microsoft have been (and Apple is still ... or is the Apple watch usable with Android?) trying to lock vendors in. Totally OK. Those tech companies are no better than Kellog's who is selling sweets to our kids as cereal. As we all love tech so much, we tend to forget :-)
I don't think there's much of an advantage to using a dumb phone. At least with a smartphone you can run apps that encrypt your communications.
By establishing a culture, where people are happy to share their data with the government anyone who isn't will automatically be a suspect. For example people who use TOR are put on a list. I don't know what live you lived, but some of my friends were under police surveillance (some police officer lived as a student for several years before his cover was blown by an acquaintance) because the government thought they had to keep taps on far left student organisations. Considering how much effort they went through to do that, I'm sure they monitor much more benign activity electronically.
That's a perfectly sensible thing to do. I would do the same thing. Any enlightened person would do it.
I am with you, I wouldn't wear one if they paid me. The data they are harvesting is a lot more valuable than the service they are providing.
I am sure health insurance companies are salivating at the opportunity to buy this data. Even if the data is anonymous.
I walked by the Apple Store on the way out and there were people queued up outside to get in, probably about 10-12 deep.
It was a sign of the times, as someone who purchases products from (and develops for) both camps, I am really happy to see the competition. Happy to see MS embrace iOS devices with their new tech and happy to see Apple allow MS apps in the app store. Its not all pats on the backs between Apple and MS, but the competition benefits all us and is great to see. Plus, some cool gear is coming out of it.
- Comfortable. - Looks nice, I like wearing it. Doesn't feel flashy. - Does what it says it will. No buggy surprises. - Scroll performance isn't very good. - UI feels right otherwise. Nothing annoyed me. - Complementary iPhone app is well done. - Doesn't feel flimsy. Feels sturdy without feeling bulky. - Setup is simple.
No complaints so far. If you desire the features it offers I'd say it's definitely worth buying.
I'm impressed.
Went for a run, tracked the run well. I forgot to set the device to record for a run, but it did track my steps, mileage, etc pretty well (compared it to Moves App on iOS).
Getting texts and phone call alerts on it is pretty nice, actually. I have phone off to side charging and this is a good alert system (I'm using iOS as phone).
I wish they had a button press configuration that allowed for a "flashlight" like app to display all white-light on LCD. Would almost feel magical/wizardry when taking the dog out to pee.
Will try sleep (one the main reason I bought) tonight. I use "Sleep Cycle" app on iOS (I sometimes have problems sleeping) so will be interesting to compare Band vs that app's morning results.
After seeing the functionality this thing offers and that it will work with my iPhone instead of requiring a particular phone OS, take my money.
If it really does as much and works half as well as the promo video suggests, MS may have a big winner here.
"... Strikingly, one-third of users discard their devices after six months, according to research by Endeavour Partners, a consultancy. Some industry insiders speculate that the true number may be much higher than that. ...The novelty of being able to track your steps, calories or other metrics is appealing at first, but swiftly wears off. ..."
Full article - http://goo.gl/hR5LxJ
My Garmin is bulky, can't lock a signal in a neighborhood with tall buildings and has software reminiscent of an Atari. And it was more expensive than this.
I'm very excited about this. (Though, disclaimer, I work for Microsoft.)
Battery life still is an issue and will remain so for the next while. Daily charging means it isn't really 24 hours and it also puts a hurdle on for use. My ipad is often dead in a backpack someplace because it's not as essential (to me) as my phone or laptop. Daily charging is like a daily price and a value hurdle this band needs to jump.
I think that once a person reaches puberty they should be forced to give up watches with cartoon characters or LCD screens.
I suppose a Quartz is acceptable on the weekends.
I want a fitness tracker, but I don't want the display. I want it to be lightweight and comfortable to wear, ideally wrapping around my wrist. Sweat-proof. Pedometer, accelerometer, and have decent sleep tracking. A killer feature for me for me would be measuring jumps, as in rope jumps.
Does something resembling this exist somewhere?
I own and use Argus (on the Iphone), FitBit and a Garmin Forerunner and in that order. The way I "teach" Argus is to first create a sample set of data and add it as an "new" exercise. In your case, I would count the number of jumps you do in a minute, obtain the calories burned online, and feed both into Argus. With Garmin afaik you cannot do that. FitBit has a funky "Steps climbed". I don't know what to make of the number it shows.
If somebody from these companies is reading... this is a killer feature! Lots of people jump and would throw money at you if you can integrate it into a fitness app.
I work for Fitbit in site engineering; I don't speak for Fitbit -- this is my opinion, not necessarily my employer's.
The big benefit I see to the MS product is that it is available before the Surge, and is a little cheaper.
Yes, the RROD was a huge debacle and too many lost money on broken Xboxes. That doesn't change the fact that people bought 70 million of the things, and generally seemed to love them.
A whole cottage industry of aftermarket console cooling apparatus was spawned due to the first Xbox's history, and it didn't help whatsoever in staying the problems that the second one had.
It was a business success regardless, but that's not the topic at hand.
So, Surface won't be replacing Windows/Office any time soon, but nearly a billion in revenue for what a lot of people try to frame as a failed product is not too shabby.
I wouldn't say it's a key profit area for them yet, and we also can't call it a success yet (as they haven't reported the total retail purchases).
[1] http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/10/24/a-win-for-microsofts-...
If you had actually used one as a real phone, I doubt you would be saying that the "hardware" isn't good. The core components are as good as the competition. The amount of sensors available to developers is ludicrous. Not only that, if the build (phone body) forms part of what you would call "hardware" - it truly lives up to the Nokia reputation.
While MS has built a reputation for solid build quality on its peripherals, they are not immune to the race to the bottom. If you liked your old MS Intellimouse, for instance, it would be wise to check the date of manufacture before buying another.
This affects more than just Microsoft. Other brands have changed ownership, or changed manufacturing facilities, but kept the same trademarks. Or items with the same advertised model number could now be manufactured in multiple facilities, to the same nominal minimum standard, but widely varying actual performance. I'll leave it to you to do your own research, but LCD display panels and SD cards are a particularly obvious example of this.
If Microsoft wants me to trust its hardware like I once did, it doesn't need to actually open a new manufacturing facility in Washington under the burning eye of its QC employees, but it would at least have to be embarrassingly open about it manufacturing process. I simply don't trust anyone to build quality for the mass market any more.
I'm not saying companies don't build quality anymore, but you can't just trust a brand. You have to do your research on each new model, every time.
Of course trust is easily lost, but they haven't disappointed me yet.
It seems to me that Microsoft has found the two areas where wearables really excel -- quantified self and notifications -- and focused on these features above all else. It's not high fashion, although the band form factor is hard to be offended by, especially if you have the screen facing down. It doesn't take photos, but why would you take photos with your watch?
This is not unlike the iPod, which focused on storage space and an extremely simple interface above all else.
I don't know how big of an issue that is with limited content, but it drives me nuts when a touch device isn't oriented the way I want (in bed primarily). They could give the user options to lock the orientation one way or another or detect how the user is wearing it somehow, but my money would be Microsoft to figure that out much faster than Samsung.
As a Pebble owner, and potential Apple Watch buyer, this seems to have the best of all smart-watch worlds technology-wise. Cross-platform is huge. Battery-life, reliable software, comfort and style (in order of importance) will make or break this.
Optical heart rate sensor
3-axis accelerometer/gyro
GPS
Ambient light sensor
Skin temperature sensor
UV sensor
Microphone
Haptic vibration motor
The 2 day battery life is the one turn off for me. Otherwise this is actually quite nice for $199 cross platform fitness wearable
Must say, looks very very alluring.
Edit:- Sizing:- http://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-band/en-us/sizing
From the accessories it looks like it can be wirelessly charged, and has BLE:- http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/buy/productI...
Edit2:- Does not look like wireless charging. It is "Connector: Magnetically coupled connector to USB"
I'd really like to know. No matter what the answer is, it's going to be fascinating. Even if it's Windows but they've decided not to broadcast that.
Obviously not an official MS response!
We are using a single threaded lightweight runtime based around call backs. We are completely non-blocking on all IO (including all sensors), and our CPU spends the majority of its time in a very low power mode. Every microsecond of CPU time is accounted for and justified!
I cannot wait until people look at our battery size in mAh.
Sounds like Javascript to me, or maybe something like Erlang. I wonder if we'll be able to install apps on the device or just build external apps for cell phones. What about hooking it up to your desktop/laptop for notifications and stuff? I'm thinking there could be some cool features there.
I don't think this is enough info, even for an educated guess. What they're describing (single threaded/callbacks) could even be C/libevent, no?
Edit: Also,
> Every microsecond of CPU time is accounted for and justified!
...for me, this rules out any kind of VM contained language
No comment on anything else mentioned:)
Congratulations for this btw. I'm not an MS fan, but I hope this works for you guys!
Our software was completely written from the ground up. We started with an empty main.c file. :)
A number of us lead software engineers are on hacker news and we all love the latest programming languages. We got a bunch of really super cool stuff in here, but all in straight C and running in very little memory space. We're dying to start an engineering blog, we believe some of the lessons we learned about applying modern software engineering techniques to an embedded device are very valuable. (Fun fact! Embedded Engineers have been avoiding dynamic allocation well before it was cool!)
We're hoping to get proper continuations in sometime soon. :) Our main problem is saving/restoring the stack without losing too much performance! (Cycles equal battery life, I cannot justify pushing for a move to continuations if the battery life hit is noticeable to the user!)
I hope you get your dev blog approved :)
Megabytes? That'd have been nice! :)
Thanks :)
I would guess C or C++ too.
add: and if they left JTAG/SWD pads exposed, then you could consider it “arduino on steroids” with some builtin sensors and GCC toolchain available ;)
And I'd really like altimeter for this kind of device.
Don't your arguments (and app recommendations) point against a UV measure as being useful? If you want to know whether or not to put on sunscreen now, for a day out, knowing the current UV strength is no use since the conditions will be different later. That's where weather prediction comes in and makes your one little watchband UV datapoint useless. Looking up at the sky and observing weather conditions will always be better than that, and better weather prediction will beat looking up at the sky.
UV forecast graphs take some of the guesswork out of location and time, but I find that it hard to judge how much cloud cover is needed to drop from a high to a low index range. Sunscreen is great but it's not much fun to have to be covered in goop every day. Getting burnt when it's cloudy isn't much fun either. Knowing your exposure would limit the amount of cream.
UV levels can also be counter-intuitive, where the type/amount of cloud plays into how much is blocked, or where a partly cloudy sky actually increases UV levels. Or where, using my dumb experience as an example, you forget to consider that the spring sun in Florida is more powerful than the summer sun in the north.
For example, for Joe the jogger who wants to use it a purely health gadget companion, he may not want the microphone, UV sensor and ambient light sensor on, but for Jane the office worker who wants to take her steps around the office and have some office notification, the GPS and gyro is turned off. These two use cases could have vastly different battery life.
- See 'you need a store to find out the right size' (reasonable)
- Click on 'Find store'
- Notice 'Only available in the US'
- Close tab. Fail.
Did you check that? It's entirely possible that I miss some hidden 'enable international shipping' incantation here, but I doubt that at this point. The checkout form doesn't seem to include any of that and the very MS store front page lists the band as 'US only', just as I stated above.
Why? I .. fail to come up with an answer for that. I was prepared to hand over $200 right away, now I'm disgruntled and couldn't care less about another thing that might be available here in 3 month from now, maybe.
- the product
- the 'forwarding' service (that I need to trust first..)
- the shipping to my actual location
- import taxes, VAT etc.
and smile? This product is intentionally not available to most of the world, jumping through hoops on my side seems weird. Like camping in front of random stores, waiting for some device coming out in 3 days from now or other similar random acts of insanity.
I'd have bought it (and sure, payed more than $200 for it due to taxes etc), but I'm not prepared to circumvent arbitrary regional limitations by throwing my time and money around.
I guess Canada is too far away to get shiny new things.
(I don't actually speak for Fitbit; I'm in site engineering)
It looks like it ties to Microsoft HealthVault. That is not available in Canada. It appears (from the outside) that MS sold the "rights" to HealthVault to Telus, whom did absolute nothing with it. Does anyone know, is that the right read of the situation? Can MS ever offer HealthVault to Canada or will we have to hope that Telus will?
Also, to the people below. As far as I can see, even a service to forward the hardware from the US to Canada, this probably will not work. If you register your live account in Canada (which you probably would, so you can put a CC on it) then you will not be able to active HealthVault on your live account - it will send you to a Telus page.
You've just saved me a trip. Thanks!
+ It does feel heavy at first, but I got used to it pretty quickly.
+ I plugged it in to charge and it seemed to be stuck at 80%. This may be because of the port I was using so I can't lay blame on Band.
+ The charging mechanism is solid and feels great.
+ I keep wanting to swipe the screen to turn it on (you need to press the "home" button).
+ I went for a 1.5 mi run. It took *4 minutes* to lock in GPS. This is in a fairly populated area, but the I was kind of in the woods. My iPhone has zero issues locking into GPS.
+ It mirrors all my notifications from my iPhone which I love.
+ After running, I went straight to Starbucks and tried to pay with the band but failed because the screen does not respond to sweaty fingers. This is partly my fault.
+ Haven't detected any UV yet.
+ HR locking is quick.Edit: I've had it plugged into my MBP to charge for about 35 minutes and it still said 80%. After turning it completely off and back on fixed this (now says 100%).
Edit2: I really wish I could play music via bluetooth with this.
(Quoting Wikipedia: »in order to obtain an accurate satellite location from this transmitted message the receiver must demodulate the message from each satellite it includes in its solution for 18 to 30 seconds. In order to collect all the transmitted almanacs the receiver must demodulate the message for 732 to 750 seconds or 12 1/2 minutes.«)
I was really hoping for that when reading through everything it could do. I know it can't do everything but most of the power at that point would be on the headphones right? I'd be surprised if that doesn't show up at some point.
In some ways, the Microsoft watch is actually much more capable than the Apple Watch (Hello, untethered GPS!) - but nobody is going to put it on the front page of vogue.
Furthermore, 2 day battery life is a very welcome addition. I wouldn't mind putting one of these on my wrist.
That's impressive. But why does it take 60 minutes to charge the last 20%?
http://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-band/en-us/support/hardwa...
However, this is better than many of the smart watches to me, why have a large circular face?
Plus the price point of $199 isn't bad at all.
I haven't delved into wearables yet. I mostly have used my iPhone 5s (now 6) for the motion tracking, but it certainly doesn't catch everything (let alone doesn't catch vitals) since I don't carry it everywhere.
My biggest complaint with the Fitbit is the lack of any battery meter on the device itself. Unless you sync frequently, you wouldn't know when your battery is running low.
You can bet that is with everything off. Looks like its going to be a 1 day device with GPS/Heart Rate and moderate usage.
A smartphone can go 48 hours if you turn off all the radios too. The 48-hour claim seems mostly meaningless to me.
My Lumia 1520 goes for longer than 48 hours, with all the radios ON.
Also, I don't know that anyone looks back at the time they got a Facebook message while holding their newborn ("the small moments you never forget").
I'm not sure of the problems to these alleged solutions, but I suppose time will tell.
With machine learning & cloud pieces in place, MS health could potentially be HUGE !
Health care data is all over the place, & if msft can become a central repository for all/a significant portion of fitness/health data, it will be really valuable.
from [1], "There's just one problem. "Most of these things are individual islands," Mehdi says — there are a million options, but they're all siloed to a single platform, app, or gadget. "You'll use device X or Y, some stuff is in the cloud, but we think that there's kind of a next step that's coming, which is the ability to unify all that data and democratize it, and then add some real value on top. And that's where we see the ability to kind of get to that next level.""
0. http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2014/10/29/introducing-micro...
1. http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/29/7118533/microsoft-health-...
Edit: works with iphone and android. http://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-band/en-us/support/hardwa...
I run and cycle. I and many people I know do cycle ~ 12 hours in a day, while training. Right now the choice among road bikers I know, is the Garmin 810 which lasts that long with continuous use.
Interesting that MSR also helped developing activity recognition algorithms for the device.
First impressions:
* the UI is a bit laggy
* voice commands work only with windows phones
* it's pretty awkward to use, one has to twist his hand to be able to use the touch display
* step measurement has a high lag, an it seems to be inaccurate
I like the design of the watch though, but I wouldn't say it fits perfectly for me.
Also, people keep saying it is so small, it certainly doesn't look like it to me, especially on the sides it looks relatively thick.
I'm going to be out in Redmond soon, hope to see some in the wild.
I thought this at first but after thinking about it I think it's really intuitive! When you use a watch you have to turn your arm in a non-natural way but when you turn your palm up it's actually easier because of the way the mussels are laid out. Also that's how you always look at your phone.
I wouldn't mind trying one out.
HN probably has a thousand joking references to calculator watches of the 90s, how goofy they looked and how they marked you as chronically uncool. There's something to that. Sensibilities have changed and there is an expectation that gadgets will evolve and unlock all sorts of cool magic. People are so open to this stuff today.
My reading of these bands/watches/wearables is that they're still exploring. They're not getting enough data passively and they aren't really working to the point where they're a permanent addition our lives. Basically, not good enough yet. Maybe they need 10X better battery life. Maybe they need better sensors or somesuch. Maybe it's a killer app they need. I just see around me people buying one, playing with it for weeks or months and then not using it anymore.
Either way, device makers are being tossed a soft ball by consumers. They're willing to buy and try them and help explore. I hope this means they'll get someplace useful. But, people are ultimately fickle and these need to start delivering fast. I hope this isn't a misfire, too early to really achieve something.
I.e., visibly bigger than the wrists of those models and hanging loose, which is uncomfortable, and a rather long (much longer than most watches) flat segment in a spot where any comfortable wristband should be with a curved inside.
OK, seeing isn't touching, we'll have to wait for the wearer reviews for that.
I'd love to use one of these devices, but I abhor the idea of my very personal movement/biometric data to be in the hands of a third party. If this data could be contained to my own server, I'd be all over it.
That doesn't make me optimistic about using the GPS for very long.
[1] http://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-band/en-us/support/hardwa...
So I think this is a huge step in the right direction. So much so that it'd be a nearly guaranteed buy if I were more assured that it'll be fully functional with an Android phone. The lack of Cortana support for non-Windows phones, though, is not reassuring. I can live without that, but will I still be able to get notifications with an Android phone? If I wanted only a fitness tracker, there are other options out there.
It'd also be awfully nice if it supported wireless charging. I'd really like to see the sort of charging dock for this that the Moto 360 has (transforming it into a snazzy desk clock). I think this could look even better on such a stand, since it wouldn't have the watch strap hanging off the sides.
Bravo for committing to cross-platform support also, thanks for putting user value above locking people in (in hopes they'll buy other MS things)
From the article: "Cortana: If you’re using Windows Phone 8.1, you can take notes and set reminders with your voice using Cortana personal assistant."
Are you saying that you want Cortana even if you're using Android or iOS? I don't think that's going to be possible.
I like this sort of thing but I can also understand why some people might feel a bit uneasy about so much data gathering.
Also "can be mined" is putting it mildly. Apple, Microsoft and google are all NSA partners. If the data's there, the incentive is to utilise it....
If that's true, this is pretty awesome. Funny I had to read the small print to even find this feature of the band.
Sucks that Apple Watch + Android Watch are not cross platform.
My only concern would be scratching the display.
The smart watches out there are big and flashy, like most watches for men. I am a heterosexual male, but I find the large watch faces to be immodest. I certainly do want to show off with a watch, but in a more subtle way. And I am not a really big person so the large watch faces don't fit my anatomy that well.
So I actually want my smart watch to look like a smart band and act like a real smart phone (to the degree that is possible).
This kind of device might get a good reception among, say, men in their 50s. But presbyopia[1] presents some challenges that younger engineers & designers might not think about. If a guy has reading glasses, but (as is likely) doesn't wear them while exercising, then a Band with small characters is pretty much a non-starter for him, even though it looks perfectly readable to a 30-year-old.
This.
Is cool.
And $199?
Just ordered three of them. Happy to see Microsoft put out something like this and, to some extent one-up Apple. While the i-everything world is interesting, not sure I want to shackle myself to a single company like that.
Swimming? Is it waterproof? Any swimming apps?
On a watch form factor this is kind of strange. These are the kinds of things that make me wonder what designers might be thinking sometimes or perhaps question the design process itself. Do they wash their hands? Do they cook? Have they ever had to walk a few blocks in pouring rain? Or bike? Do they go fishing? Swimming? Surely the question had to come up. Who said "no" and why?
I still bought them. I want to support this and see where it goes.
Is the Apple watch waterproof?
While it is water resistant and can be submerged up to 10 meters, Flex is not designed to track swimming activities. If you want to better reflect your swimming activity and calories burned, we recommend logging the activity on the Activities page of your dashboard.
There are similar "About" pages for the other Fitbit trackers that you can get to easily from the page above. Most say something like this: Your Charge is water-resistant. It is rain and splash proof and can stand up to the sweatiest workout. Remove before showering or swimming.
It seems likely that it is a pretty straightforward case of making trade offs. It's got a touchscreen and a whole bunch of other stuff packed in there, even if you can do the work to keep the weight the same it's going to push your ship date.
There are GPS sport watches that are very waterproof at about the same weight (roughly 60 grams), but they have pretty different feature profiles (generally no touchscreen, no microphone, no bluetooth) and are 4th and 5th generation devices.
I see a counter trend where technology becomes invisible, fades into background and still works for us instead of being in out faces all the time.
Smartphones, smart glasses, smart watches everything that wants a piece of our attention is going away soon.
I want to learn the routes around my neighborhood and not need a map in my eyeglasses. I want to talk( or not talk) to friends in real life not text message them. I just want to come home an play my piano not read a twitter battle on my phone. I want fall asleep talking to my partner/dreaming about future, not obsesses about my deep sleep rem cycles. I want wake up when I am done sleeping not by a smart alarm keeping track of my sleep cycles. I just want to eat eggs and toast for breakfast not powdered rice from a plastic bag.
I don't want any of this smart* shit. Please make it stop.
Unfortunately a lot of conceptually challenged people don't understand anything about social norms, peer pressure etc, and think that using or not using this technology is just "individual choice" ("noone is forcing you", etc). Then again some think that you can get out of a depression just by trying to think more positive...
With that said, one of the main things I wish I could have during my workouts is something to track what I do without me having to manually input it. So, if it can count the number of reps I do, sweet. If it can count how many steps I took within my 3 mile treadmill run, awesome. If i can see my heartbeat at a glance, great! Because treadmills fucking suck at that.
HOWEVER, and one of the reasons why I'm not considering the band, I don't want tweets, or messages, or updates, or any of that shit even more in my face. I don't want another touchscreen vying for attention. The new Fitbits do that but (luckily) not with WIndows Phones. I have one, and I see this as a FEATURE rather than a detriment. Why the fuck do I need to see stupid notifications while I'm trying to run?
I want to look at my watch and see "hey, you've walked 30,000 steps today", not "you know, you can check all this crap on here!".
It's the concept, and it's also that mental reminder that you MAY have notifications. I hope that makes sense!
Case in point, what if I told you not only can you turn off the notifications completely (which we established earlier), and that no notification icons show up on the main screen (which is obvious from the video/screen shots - we're not talking about old-school LCD stencils, after all), but that you can further manage the tiles so even if you can't control yourself from actively swiping around you won't see anything?
Because now that I have the device on my wrist and the app on my phone, that's exactly what you can do.
I have very little skin in this game (it annoys me slightly to see rants w/o any basis necessarily in reality, but life's too short for arguing on the Internet), but maybe it can be better to be more reserved about a product critique until having seen how it actually works?
I'd love to hear more about what you like about it and how it is. My main concern was basically not having yet another phone-like device that will annoy the crap out of me. And the Band is begging for it.
The benefits over regular check-ins with a doctor are consistent daily feedback. Combined with tools like MyFitnessPal (which is mentioned on Microsoft's page) it simplifies the overall process of weight management.
I have Garmin devices, but I expect the process is similar to what Microsoft hopes to offer. The fitness tracking device keeps track of movement. My GPS watch and heart rate monitor estimate running and cycling effort. That all goes into Garmin's online system, and produces a relatively consistent and realistic estimate of calorie burn. That data is shared with MyFitnessPal, where I track my food intake. When I open MyFitnessPal's app I can see how things are going for the day, and adjust my behavior according to how active I have been.
It sound complex, but it's mostly automatic. And 45 pounds later I'm a believer in the potential of these tools.
It really is easier than anyone could have imagined to get people to part with data. Smart phones provide a genuine quality of life improvement, but unless you are a professional athlete is the privacy cost really worth the gain of seeing your heart rate at the gym?
It seems for Hacker News it is a resounding yes...
Granted, I never have any of their blended offerings which they're known for.
Absolutely fantastic.
However, it looks like the accompanying Windows Phone Microsoft Health app is not available if you're outside of the US. (not sure if this also applies to the Android and iPhone apps as well)
Workaround anyone?
I finally got the Amiigo a couple months ago - I didn't see SpO2 stats detailed. It was actually pretty underwhelming - the Amiigo doesn't have the promised API/SDK either. The MS Band's sensor suite is better (GSR, skin temp), it's just too bad it's not waterproof.
I'm a bit thrilled to see it live in action !
It is fun to see wearable becoming more and more present with big tech firm too.
I wonder how many that was.
I'd say they have a hit.
EDIT: clarification
No chance you'll detect a QT interval change with this.
> Puls will require its own SIM card and mobile connection, but can completely replace a phone...
http://www.dezeen.com/2014/10/20/will-i-am-zaha-hadid-puls-s...
I do like the GPS feature though, that's fucking killer
Timer & Alarm Time your laps around the track or set an alarm to wake you silently.
Anyone know if it'll be able to measure exertion via sweat?
- How do you charge the thing?
- Is the sleep tracking automatic or do you have to press a button to start it?
- There's a magnetic connector (like mac boks) that hooks up to USB. It doesn't come with a wall connector, just USB, which is a bit weird.
- It does indeed look like you need to press a button to start tracking sleep.
Other fitness trackers have automatic sleep tracking, even it's only heuristic based. For example misfit just has the formula of 'if not moving much for a large chunk of time in between these user configurable hours, mark that as sleep time'. That is a huge improvement.
The basis band seems to have a more advanced automatic sleep tracking algo. You guys would be probably interested looking into it.
I guess they use a compass when it's available, like for trying to display a map oriented to compass north, but I don't think it is dependable as algorithmic input.
Something mounted in a vehicle can directly factor the compass data into directions though (just saying that to emphasize that I'm talking about handheld stuff above).
This money grabbing gadgetarianism is getting silly.
Decent GPS trackers are hard to find and recommend.
More likely someone at Microsoft hit the wrong button, or failed to set something to private, or whatever. This even happened to Apple with some iPad Air 2 documentation not so long ago, so obviously this stuff happens.
Microsoft wants to sell you a gadget while Apple wants to sell you a watch.
That is, I've not worn a watch for years, mostly because a) I've never needed time to be any more convenient than checking my phone, and b) watches tend to be more about style than function, and I care almost zero about the former and almost everything about the latter.
Now that the "watch" is becoming functional, it really is more of a gadget, and that's the only thing drawing me back to considering having something attached to my wrist again.
Of course, I also realize there is a group that does care more about style, and maybe these people aren't the target for the more "gadgety" type smartwatches.
One of the reasons I think the Apple Watch Edition is a joke is that it's trying to target both groups (the other reason being the ridiculous name). And I don't think there is that large of an audience that is willing to spend that much for style + functionality -- if they want to spend that much, they likely care more about style, and will stick to a traditional watch.
So if gadget = functionality, then I say "Finally. Sign me up."
Amusing that you call the majority of the population a "group". People buy clothes, shoes, cars etc based on style not specs. And you only have to look at the LV, Prada etc of the world to know they are willing to spend huge amounts of money on it.
Gadget on your wrist ? Nice. But it's a niche market.
I don't mean this.
I mean that Microsoft's band looks decent... for a gadget. Apple's watch looks decent for a watch.
(Side note: I'm not an MS fanboy or Apple basher -- I have owned and loved iPhones since 3GS. I actually think MS has done a terrible job w/ gadgets, and that this is the first one I'm honestly interested in.)
The moto 360 is already out, it's completely awesome, I use it every day, and as far as I can tell is already ahead of the apple watch in terms of functionality.
Apple are seriously gods at marketing. Wow.
So of course people are going to compare it to the iWatch.
"These chicks don't even know the name of my band...my band...my band..."