Rise of the step counter – my Misfit Shine Review

As you might be able to tell, I’m a fan of wearables. Now, stepcounters aren’t new wearables, but in the recent years they’ve seen quite some attention, mainly, because you can now get more data out of them as you can sync them with your devices. You get more insight into your movement over time, track your sleep and more – hence they’ve become activity or fitness trackers.

In the past years I’ve tried a number of different activity trackers, mainly the Nike Fuelband, the first iteration (but second production generation) of the Jawbone Up, the Withings Pulse, the Pebble and Moto 360 Smartwatches and iPhone apps, like Human.
They all have their own feature set, some are worn on the wrist, some in your pocket, some track sleep, some vibrate to keep you active, some sync via bluetooth, some via plug, etc. My favorite ones were the Fuelband and the Up, however the Fuelband only tracks steps, and the Up I had to replace multiple times as it easily broke in regular use. And both are wristworn-only and nowadays have both my wrists occupied most of the time.

So, of course I longed something new, something that I can wear however I like, and something that’s sturdy without a lot of moving parts, that I don’t have to charge every couple of days but still tracks my movement and my sleep and syncs via bluetooth. Something discreet but fashionable if I want it to be, and it should, of course, come in many different colors.