Runtastic Orbit, Fitness Band For Running review
If you are looking for a fitness band that is sensible for running, the Runtastic Orbit may well catch your eye. when our review of the Jawbone UP24 and Fitbit Flex, it's clear that whereas they will be known as fitness bands, for serious runners they leave lots to be desired.
For the thousands of amateur runners that tackle 10km runs before breakfast on their weekends, basic step pursuit looks comparatively pointless. World Health Organization cares if you hit 9,000 steps these days if you ran a 0.5 marathon yesterday? That’s wherever the Runtastic band comes in.
As well as doing all the standard basic pursuit gismo, he Orbit acts as a partner for the ever-present Runtastic app. At nearly £100, the it goes head-to-head with megastar competitors from the likes of Withings and Garmin. however ought to runners opt for it over an infatuated watch? and may it compete with the simplest fitness trackers on the market? browse on for our full review.
Runtastic Orbit: style and build
The design of the Orbit could be a little black module that slips into a variety of rubber bands. this can be First Statesign|the planning|the look} de jour for lots of budget bands, and makes customisation simple. the sole issue here is that £100 could be a ton of money, and doesn’t mitigate for lack of style aptitude.
Unlike the Fitbit and Jawbone, the Orbit comes with atiny low liquid crystal {display|LCD|digital display|alphanumeric display} display and a physical button. This button permits you to cycle through info that’s being recorded. By day meaning steps, calories and distance, and once you’re running times, distance and pace area unit displayed instead.
The screen itself is sort of low resolution, and this may create it arduous to browse. The three-dimensional and boring show will create it quite arduous to envision, particularly mid-run.
In a number of the additional spirited colors the Runtastic band seems like a powerful and classy band, however within the plain black band it seems cheap and in spades budget. That isn’t helped by the Runtastic disapproval that’s stuck onto the show, that seems like it’s a sticker that ought to be in the raw off.
The band itself fastens tightly, and it’s comfy to wear. we tend to didn’t notice it throughout the day, and also the rubber strap is comfy on the skin.
The Orbit is totally waterproof, which implies you'll take it swimming with you. Of course, there’s no dedicated swimming mode, however it'll calculate your calories whereas you’re within the pool.
Runtastic Orbit: options
In terms of options the Runtastic Orbit is extraordinarily skilful. It may be used as a daily activity hunter, which is able to record all manner of knowledge from calories burned to steps taken. These area unit conferred within the Runtastic Pine Tree State app, that is synced via Bluetooth.
Like most activity bands the Orbit will track your sleep. sadly, you've got to inform it once you visit bed by double-tapping the most button and so once more once you awaken. If you forget your sleep can go unquantified.
The sleep pursuit itself is really extraordinarily spectacular, with all manner of sleep knowledge captured, as well as deep/light sleep cycles and time spent awake. in contrast to different trackers, the Orbit can rate your sleep potency, that could be a easy calculation of the proportion of your time you were truly slumbering for whereas the band is pursuit. If you’re not sleeping properly – and you hadn’t worked it out yourself – a coffee share can indicate you would like to require action.
When you stir up the Runtastic running app and begin pursuit a run, the band can begin displaying the browse outs of your progress. All the standard running metrics area unit displayed – time, distance, calories, and most significantly pace. only 1 is displayed on the watch at any given time, and you press the button to cycle through the read-outs.
The concerning} this technique is that by mistreatment your GPS enabled phone to try to to the pursuit you get the foremost correct info about your run. Non-GPS running trackers – just like the Withings Pulse and Samsung Gear work – will turn out extraordinarily contrary distances, that is dangerous for coaching plans.
Of course, this suggests you’ll got to wear 2 devices on your run: the band and your smartphone. this suggests that a GPS running watch would be a way higher suited device for several runners. However, if you utilize apps like Spotify to power your run with music, this may seemingly be the case anyway. Of course, several running watches just like the TomTom Runner have integral storage for tunes, that simplifies things greatly.
Runtastic Orbit: App
To use the Runtastic as associate degree activity hunter and a running band, you’ll bewilderingly want 2 totally different apps. The first, unsurprisingly, is that the Runtastic app, that has long been one among the leading run trackers.
The app is a component of a free/paid for model that has irritating ads and a few practicality limitations – which may be mounted by paying a £4.99 upgrade fee.
The pursuit options of the app area unit glorious, recording and archiving your runs, with stats, performance, maps of your activity and also the ability to own folks cheer you on mistreatment social networking.
The only major compliant we've is that the pairing of the band may be fiddly, and usage isn't forever seamless. after we discharged up the Runtastic app and began pursuit a run, the band would typically do nothing. a fast check would reveal it had been properly paired, which might then mean some minutes of activating and deactivating to urge the association. This wasn’t associate degree isolated incident.
The activity pursuit facet of the Orbit is finished through a very totally different app: Runtastic Pine Tree State. This app options a full vogue, that is simple to use and slick – values we’d prefer to see translated onto the marginally dated-looking running app.
The app works sort of a calendar thus you'll cycle although half-track activity day-by-day, staring at your stats. you'll then see additional elaborate graphs and knowledge, all of that area unit clear, simple, associate degreed swank Runtastic’s made heritage as an app maker, instead of a hardware designer.
Runtastic Orbit: Battery life
The Runtastic Orbit charges via USB, which may be connected to your computer or macintosh. attributable to the waterproof style, it needs a special connexion, that magnetically hooks onto 2 contacts at the rear. The magnetic association is annoyingly weak and it perpetually became detached.
In terms of battery life, we tend to achieved regarding four days from the Orbit, including nightly sleep pursuit and a few of runs. It’s a powerful longevity up there with most activity trackers, and definitely no disgrace.
Runtastic Orbit vs running watches
The big question of the Orbit is whether or not it will compete with dedicated running watches and also the activity pursuit elite.
Firstly, as a companion to a smartphone, it can’t vie with the likes of the Garmin Forerunner fifteen. the number of knowledge created and also the live read-outs pale as compared. However, many of us can realize themselves running with a watch and a phone, for music and security. For those folks the Orbit will do a good job of serving to you maintain coaching pace.
In terms of activity pursuit, the Runtastic Orbit will actually vie with the large boys like Jawbone, Withings and anomaly. The sleep pursuit and watching is ace, and also the Runtastic Pine Tree State app is good – it’s simply a shame the band’s style doesn’t match the software system.
Runtastic Orbit, Fitness Band For Running review