LifeTrak Zoom HRV fitness watch final review
I’d covered a little about the Zoom HRV watch back in June. Here’s about a two month follow up wearing it mostly non-stop except for charging.
To recap: fitness monitoring watch with app that tells you your readiness to workout based on HRV and when to push and when not to push,.
The good
The watch hardware functions as would be expected. It’s durable, the band fits well, it’s lightweight. You get used to the button and what the indicators are telling you pretty quickly. The heart rate detection appears to be within a beat per minute of what I’m counting so I’m assuming it’s good there.
I’ve seen some commentary from a while back on the HRV detection being a bit off, or completely off. Appears right to me, I am most likely not the person to testify to this, but their firmware has changed many times since the hellish reviews I initially saw.
Watch holds a charge for days of use for me. It can be worn on the ankle, arm, or wrist depending on your strap and appears to function correctly in all places, although I did not have a chance to check out the biking aspects of this.
You get it sticky and covered in sweat? Hose it off. Maybe use a tissue paper to remove grit from the underside.
Charges pretty quickly.
Pretty much want to love it.
The bad
Update speed
Firmware updates take a very long time. I’ve had two or three. They claim up to 20 minutes but I’m pretty sure I was coming up on 50 one time. They’re so slow that I’m worried you’re risking draining the batteries or getting a phone call and forgetting you need to stay in range of the device to update it.
Account issues
My first account was facebook linked. One day I started getting messages that there was a problem and I was signed into another device and had to reauthenticate. There was no way to fix this. I’ve never been able to log back into it using Facebook.
I ended up creating an account using my email address. I’ve had multiple times where I just want to sync my data and am once again told I’m signed in elsewhere. Happened right before I started writing this. My HTC 10 is the only device I use it on, has the Zoom HRV app installed, is paired with the Zoom. I’m not signed in anywhere and I very much doubt hackers are particularly interested in checking my heart rate.
Each time I’m supposedly signed in elsewhere I find my password doesn’t seem to work. I change it, and suddenly I’m back in. I check Google’s stored password, it’s the same I just changed it to. OK, whatever.
Sleep issues
You’re supposed to sleep with the Zoom HRV in order to have it accurately measure you for HRV and general sleep info. This is great and all until you’re woken up at 2:40am by a watch that’s vibrating like crazy. On the plus side of this I verified the Zoom HRV can take quite an impact and still function. Did I press a button in my sleep? I don’t know. I’ve had it start vibrating a few times it shouldn’t, and not just the inactivity vibration, full on “geeeeetttttt upppppppppp!” nonstop.
The watch is also supposed to vibrate to nudge me awake in the morning. It’s either forgotten that or I’ve become so adept at getting more sleep I’m turning it off on autopilot.
Overall
App needs work, firmware needs work, the hardware appears to be more than durable enough and I am pleased with it.
Unfortunately I don’t know if they’re going to get the issues fixed so at this point I’ll leave it at that I will keep on using this and update if they ever get my annoyances fixed, or if the device gives up on me.
These are now $129.99 on Amazon
