Sony Lifelog and SWR10 Smart Band

One of the hardest things to do when you change your lifestyle is keeping track of what you are doing, the usual questions,
how much activity have I done? how many calories have I burned? am I eating too much? am I eating enough? how did I sleep last night?
Sony has come up with a solution with its Lifelog app and smart band.
The band cost £39.00 which was a half price offer when I got my Z2, this is a lot less than bands from Samsung and other fitness monitoring bands.

The Band.
The smart band consists of a silicon band and a core, its the core that's the clever bit, it is full of sensors and monitors what you are doing 24//7.
The band comes in two sizes so everyone should be able to find one that fits, it also comes in a rainbow of colours for the more fashion conscious amongst you. I use the fluorescent yellow, this is because if  I catch the band whilst mountain biking and drop it, if its yellow I stand a very good chance of finding it again.
The core fits inside the band and operation is simplicity itself, once activated and paired with the phone, either via Bluetooth or NFC the band is active and starts recording, there is one button which switches between day and night mode, there is also the option of auto switch over at set times if you follow a set routine.
There is also a neat little function with the band, it can control other apps, either your music player or camera or many others, I use the music option, a short press of the button and a combination of taps on the band and the music can be played/ stopped, next or previous track selected.
The band also has a vibrate mode which can be set for various notifications. Since using the band I haven't missed a single call.
There is a smart alarm mode, which you set the latest time for an alarm and the band will monitor your sleep pattern and wake you when you are at the lightest sleep within your selected window, leaving you feeling more refreshed than if woken from deep sleep.
The band is also ip58 rated which means it will cope with the rain, swimming, showering or a bath, or a dirty, dusty environment, I work as an engineer at a factory producing furniture which as you can imagine is a hostile environment, lots of dust, heat, and greasy machines, the band copes with it all and when it gets dirty I just wash it under the nearest tap.
Core is charged via the standard micro usb lead, a full charge takes about 20 minutes and lasts 5 days.
I usually charge mine whilst driving the car, this way I don't miss out on any monitoring.

The App.
The Lifelog app takes all the information from the band and makes sense of it all.
When you first use the app an account is set up which has information such as your D.O.B. your height and your weight, this information is used to determine your stride length's and calorie burn.
It's worth measuring you stride length since the automatic mode guessed my stride length at over 3ft.

There are 14 aspects of your day to day life recorded.
These are shown below.

The overall screen show's a summery of the day,
the longer you watch videos the bigger the circle.


Sleep Logging,
once in night mode the app records your sleep cycle and the time spent in deep sleep and light sleep. and any waking time.
Since I do shift work and my body clock is in early mode I tend to wake up around 4-5am and go back to sleep if I don't have to get up.
On nights where I wake up feeling like I have had a bad nights sleep my deep sleep tends to be very short.


Calorie burn.
Everybody has a base rate of calorie burn, this is the energy used by your body just to stay alive.
the additional calories are burned by exercise that you do.
I have noticed that my biggest problem is I don't eat enough, this causes my body to go into starvation mode
 and makes weight loss more difficult.

 the steps are a good indication of the amount of activity you do. you should aim for around 7500 steps a day, Due to my job I spend a lot of time on my feet and easily beat this everyday.










I would recommend the band and app to everyone whether they are dieting, keeping fit or just living day to day.
the insights I have gained from the app have helped all aspects of my journey, I am sleeping better, eating better, exercising more, my wife also has a band and we regularly compare results, turning it into a mini competition as to who can do the most steps or walk the longest.
The alert function make it worth wearing alone, I haven't missed a single call since wearing the band, before I was always calling people back sometimes hours later.

The only draw back of the band is also one of its strengths - I wish the band had a display, even just a watch, on the other hand if it did I would be taking it off whenever it looked like I was going to get my hands dirty.


The Tech Stuff.

Compatible

• SmartBand SWR10 and Lifelog Android app support devices running Android 4.4 and later. Devices must support Bluetooth® 4 Low Energy.

Requirements

• Android 4.4
• Bluetooth® 4.0 Low Energy (BLE)
• Lifelog app
• Smart Connect app
• SmartBand host app

Indicators

• 3 LED

Optional accessories

• Wrist straps in 9 colours (sold separately)

  Colours

  • Black

  Waterproof

  • IP58 rated

  Controls

  • Life Bookmark key
  • Media remote (tap function)

  Connectors

  • Bluetooth® 4.0 Low Energy (BLE)
  • NFC pairing/connecting
  • Micro USB (charging) only, no data transfer