This week I received my new Moov fitness tracker, two in fact because some sports that it supports makes use of multiple trackers (Boxing) but he makers claim they are working on supporting it multiple trackers for all of their supported activities.
I ordered them maybe two months ago before they were released and got them at $50 a piece instead of the $75 they are selling for now. I will probably try the boxing cardio just to check out but my main interest, right now anyway, is running and walking.
The Moov device is billed as a fitness trainer who monitors your movements in 3D space and recommends changes to make you more efficient or safe in form. She (I’ll call her she as the application has a woman’s voice, this may be changeable someday but not at the time of this writing) also tracks your activity as it progresses and announces your split times and distances or other activity specific data you might be interested while you are performing he activity.
When you go to use your Moov, there is a required free smartphone app that you download and pair to the tracker. You then pick an activity (like Running &Walking, Swimming, Cycling, Boxing, Isometric workouts) then you choose a goal for that activity. Running & Walking has “Run farther and easier” which addresses running efficiency, “Improve my pace and distance” for speed endurance, “Walk to Sweat” for brisk walking, “Push to the limit” for sprint intervals, and “Run my own way” to address open run / walk training.
I chose the Run & Walk activity and did a Run my own way workout. For running, the tracker goes around your ankle. The Moov package comes with two bands, a longer one meant for the ankle and a smaller one meant for the wrist. They are very easy to switch between the two.
The Moov also supports a Daily Moov concept where you wear the device all day and night on your wrist and it tracks your steps and sleep patterns as well. That is great but it seems weird that as a runner I would have to keep switching between Daily Moov for most of my day, then onto my ankle for my runs. Maybe it really doesn’t matter but the video on Moov’s site says to wear it on your wrist.
I am using the device just for the training aspect at this point so I only strap it on to my ankle when I’m running and it is sitting on my nightstand the rest of the time for now because my FitBit HR (with display) is already covering that duty and I can just glance at the device instead of navigating through the smartphone app, which while good, makes a poor clock. Maybe an Apple Watch app can change that?
For the run, I decided to go with a free 5 mile run which is what I typically log for a “regular” run distance. From recent memory, my average pace for 5 miles is somewhere in the 9:06 to 10:05 miles per minute. I ended up finishing it in 48 minutes.
I fired up my music, started the Moov activity and got to running. After about two minutes Moov gave me some preliminary metrics like current pace and average impact and maybe mentioned something about cadence. After that she was pretty quiet only announcing audibly at the mile marker with some quick splits info.
Each time an audible announcement played my music volume lowered and the Moov lady’s voice was very cleanly mixed in. It really was very unobtrusive.
I’m not sure exactly what I expected but I was surprised to not get more direction or hints or tips. Maybe my dorm isn’t as bad as I thought (probably not, complete self-taught amateur here.)
Overall I was happy with the implementation. And the feel of the device. Thankfully my iPhone has a pretty decent GPS, I am not so sure the experience would have been as good on my last phone (Samsung Note 4 which definitely had some GPS tracking issues.)
I am looking forward to trying he isometric 7-Minute workouts as well as three speed walking and interval running and cycling this winter, although most will be indoor as I am not a fan of cold.
Below are some screen captures from the application that show the analysis of the run.