TECH SPECS
Price: US$299 (S$409)
Material: Leather wristband with stainless-steel/aluminium casing and sapphire glass
Water resistance: 50m
Connectivity: Bluetooth
Weight: 55g
RATING
Features 4/5
Design 4/5
Performance 3/5
Value for money 3/5
Battery life 4/5
Overall 3/5
The Wellograph fitness tracker
was one of the gadgets which caught my eye at last year's International
Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. That is because it is one of
the few such devices that look like a proper dress watch.
The review unit had a silver plated satin body with a brown leather bracelet. The watch is also available in black chromium and the white completions of pearl, with the matched leather bracelets.
There is even a pink and gold version which will be available soon from Wellograph's website at www.wellograph.com/store.
The watch body is made of stainless steel. Tough sapphire glass
protects its 1.26-inch display. The anodised aluminium base is curved
to fit the wrist.
Perhaps its bezel could be slimmer and the watch design more
symmetrical (the top bezel is larger than the bottom one), but I am
nitpicking. This is one fine-looking timepiece.
It does not need to be synced with a computer as you can do so using
the Wellograph app, which is available on Android, iOS and Windows Phone devices. It tracks your activities, sleep statistics and heart
rate. But it lacks typical smartwatch features, meaning it does not
display notifications and other data from your smartphone.
Inside the watch is a nine-axis motion sensor. At the back of the
watch is a tri-LED heart-rate monitor. Conveniently, the charging dock
uses a micro-USB cable. A full charge is good for a week. The
non-touchscreen, e-ink display is always on. But it is a tad
reflective, making it hard to read under bright sunlight. Navigating
through the features is easy. There are only two buttons on the right
side of the watch. Pressing the bottom button toggles the Time, Move,
Pulse, Sleep, Run and Settings panels.
I found the activity-tracking function fairly accurate: My
step-count readings differed by only about 5 per cent from my
personally calibrated Nike+ Fuelband fitness tracker and my Apple
iPhone 6 Plus.
But the heart-rate measurements were occasionally erratic.
Thankfully, this function worked well most of the time, and I found its
measurements differing by only about 5 beats per minute from my TomTom
MultiSport Cardio GPS watch.
It tracks sleep in terms of deep and light sleep, and presents the
result as a proportion of each. I felt this was not very useful, as it
does not log my waking times, or tell me exactly when I am having deep
or light sleep.
A stylish fitness tracker let down by some feature and usability foibles.
