Skip to main content

IT HAS FINALLY ARRIVED: THE MATRIX POWERWATCH


You know how I've been saying that your activity tracker should become a permanent extension of your body? Well, this one truly is. I have no idea how this thing is going to work out, but out of the box it has one big advantage over my Fitbit: it charges off my body heat.

That's right, it'll run until I'm dead and then another several years after I'm in the box. It basically takes the differences between your skin temperature and ambient temperature to generate power. That means if I go out for a walk in the freezing January temperatures, it should charge super fast - inside, less so. It's also waterproof to 50m, so I'll never need to take it off.

First impressions: out of the box, the app menu is simple enough to operate. I had it up and syncing with my phone in no time:


It comes in a few different trims - a silver, an all black and then a "Black Ops" one that I think kind of looks like a Casio G-Shock. The silver bezel was the cheapest, so I went with it not knowing how much I'd like it. I probably wish I ordered the all black as the silver looks a little two plasticy, IMHO. But, those were shipping soonest, and I'm happy to have it now since I've already been waiting 5 months. 



It's billed as a smartwatch, but really, it's just a glorified activity tracker that never requires a charge. It syncs via bluetooth through an app on your phone. I'm not sure if it'll sync with MyFitnessPal (I think I read that it wouldn't), but I'll live with using two different dashboards for nutrition and activity if I never have to charge an activity tracker again. I've tried out a real smartwatch, but having to put it back on a charger every night struck me as a colossal pain, so I sold it within a week and stuck with my Fitbit. I've been waiting a long time for something like this to come along.

I'll keep updating this post as I road test it. I'm super excited, if you couldn't tell. I've been waiting months for this baby! In fact, I just checked my order status today, and it didn't show that it had shipped. It's a Kickstarter watch that I was starting to give up hope on, but I'm so happy to finally have it. I'll still be wearing my Fitbit to check the accuracy of my steps and calories burned, and I figure I'll know within a week or two if it'll be a suitable full-time replacement. Woot! Woot!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Second Look at Exercise

I'll be a first time dad in the next week or two, and I'm already dealing with the time crunch and cheapo routine disruptive life events. Being a cheapo means improvising, so sometimes you need to rethink methodologies to adapt to changing circumstances. My 9 month pregnant wife has been joining me on my dog walks in order to get some exercise herself, and she can't go as far as I can for as far along as she is. Also, she has a hankering for dining out more often than we normally do, so it adds a little more guesswork to my calorie estimates when my margins are already running pretty thin. Add in doctors appointments, chores and other prep tasks, and a lot of my extra time for walking is just vanishing. It's only going to get harder once this baby gets here. It's my fault for allowing my weight to run away from me such that I'm in a position now to where I'm trying to lose a lot of weight quickly before the baby arrives. I'm losing weight steadily...
Post a Comment
Read more

Weekly Updates (2/9/2018)

Week one of BUD/S training is going OK. I can do everything but all the sit-ups (and of course the swimming, due to the lack of pool). The best I could bang out with sit-ups were 2 sets of 20, 1 of 15 and 1 of 10. But, at least I haven't experienced any soreness yet. Just the little bit of additional activity has me losing even slightly more weight. I'm holding my weight under the 40 pound loss benchmark on the scale every day now, and I'm feeling really good. I've almost forgotten how much I enjoyed running, which I'm sure has a lot to do with how much less of a strain it is on my body. I'm not going to lie - it was nothing short of exhilarating holding down the weight button on the treadmill for as long as it took to reduce the weight setting from 198 to 157- my weight from the last time I set it. It was definitely a bizarre experience. After the PowerWatch bust, I decided to try out another activity tracker watch. So, I ordered a Garmin Fenix 5X. It's...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Mechanics

Ok, now that you've read through the high level stuff, let's get down to brass tacks: The reality is, you're going to want to make some changes to your daily routine, but how much you do depends on how much you want to lose and how quickly you want to lose it. There's nothing wrong with going at a slower pace, but I would just advise that you adjust your diet enough that you're seeing enough consistent enough gains that you stick with it. Remember, as long as you're still logging food, odds are you're still losing weight. I've already mentioned that you'll need a pedometer or fitness tracker. That needs to become a permanent extension of your body. You don't need to be a gym rat (in fact, you should have already cancelled your gym membership by now), but it's hard to be completely sedentary and still run calorie deficits. Or, put another way, a little bit of activity will give you a lot more wiggle room in your diet every day. A 10,000...
Post a Comment
Read more