Personal health monitoring gizmos are everywhere these days. Basis offers a slightly different twist, in that it's a watch that includes not only a pedometer and calorie counter, but also includes a heart rate monitor, with no chest strap required. I've tested it's accuracy against my tried-and-true Polar (which includes a chest strap) and it seems pretty accurate during normal use. The heart rate functionality doesn't work great during vigorous exercise, which is something the company acknowledges. It also includes a bunch of other cool stuff. It will tell you your skin temperature and skin perspiration, and it will let you plot all this data against itself -- so you can see what happens to your heart rate when you take more steps at various times throughout the day. It also tells you when you went to sleep and how well you slept. The web site where you view all this data is pretty elegant, as well. The not-so-great: -- The watch is a little thick, so if you wear shirts that have button-cuffs it often won't fit underneath them. -- It takes a while to charge via a USB charger that snaps over the watch, so you obviously don't collect any data while it's charging. -- They say there's an iPhone app coming, but that functionality has not been enabled yet. As a result, it only syncs data to the Web site when the USB charger is connected. -- I've gotten used to the way my Fitbit calculates steps. Basis continually tells me I've taken fewer steps in a day. I don't know which one is right, but since the Fitbit is my baseline I can't help feel that Basis is cheating me out of some steps each day. All-in-all, a pretty cool tool that's fun to play around with and collects all sorts of interesting information.

scollens

USA