“The Leaf” Health Tracker: Just a Pretty Face? For Now — Yes.

Review of the health and activity monitor sold by Bellabeat

Advertised as “The health tracker for your body and mind” the The Bellabeat Leaf is a beautiful piece of jewelry that gets me a lot of compliments. People have literally stopped me on the street to ask about it. I had been wanting a new device to keep track of my daily steps taken but was not thrilled by all the plastic and rubber options out there. The Leaf blends into work or casual wear, and I like the versatility in wearing it as a necklace (two different ways!), bracelet, collar clip, or waistband clip. That said, functionally it is not yet delivering on what Bellabeat promises.

1) The Leaf counts my steps with varying degrees of accuracy depending on how I wear it.

Wearing the Leaf on my wrist provided a different step count on walking around the block then when I had the Leaf clipped to my collar. To be honest I can accept this because it seems to be generally accurate and I don’t really need precise step-counting. Really I am more looking for comparing my activity from day to day — which the Leaf does an okay job of.

2) The Leaf does not do several things that the advertising strongly suggests it does.

While Bellabeat talks a good game about “understanding your body” and asks for some rather personal info (the timing of my menstrual cycle) the Leaf does not draw any connections between the data it collects. Right now it’s just kinda creepy that it knows when it’s, ahem, “my time.” (If the activity and sleep data was downloadable to a spreadsheet I could make these connections myself, but it’s not, so I can’t). It also doesn’t provide me with any actionable insights. It might note that I had disrupted sleep. Okay. Should I try a firmer mattress? Not exercise as much before sleeping? And, what if I wake up feeling fantastic but it’s telling me I was restless all night? I’d like to be able to enter my perceived quality of sleep so the Leaf can learn more about my individual sleep patterns.

Furthermore, the Leaf does not provide a true measure of how well I sleep — it tells me if I moved a lot, not if I slept well. Side note, it rather annoyingly says contradictory things like “You got a great night’s sleep!” in the heading but then the text below may say something like “Your sleep was very disrupted.”

It does not track my meditation progress. *Bellabeat has told me this is coming in an update — though the website makes it look like it does this already.

And finally, the activity alarm that should go off after a certain amount of time with no activity is buggy. I took a 40-minute walk and 20 minutes later my Leaf was buzzing at me to be more active. *Bellabeat support is looking into this for me as well.

3) Using an app to update and then sync the settings gets annoying.

If I wear my Leaf as a necklace all day long but then in the evening want to wear it as a clip to go running, I have to update the placement in the app and sync or the step count won’t be accurate at all. I understand why this is needed but the app could make it easier. Right now I need to open the app, clip through a few screens, indicate that I’ve changed the placement, navigate back, and then finally sync. Wheew. I could be warmed up on my run by now! A “Change my Leaf Placement and Sync” option on the home screen would help a ton.

4) The low quality leather strap.

The bracelet strap that come with the Leaf Silver is a small step up from a piece of old leather shoelace. That said, Pinterest has some great ideas for other ways to make an attractive (and comfortable) bracelet out of your Leaf.

BONUS: I have a modification I use for sleeping with my Leaf — grab an old 80’s style headband (the ones that are loosely knit and sort of fluffy), slit about an inch open in the inner seam, slip your leaf inside, and figure-8 the band around your wrist. Comfy and secure!

In all, I don’t entirely regret purchasing the Leaf. It’s just that Bellabeat made such great promises and I feel disappointed in the execution. I’m pulling for Bellabeat to fix the bugs, streamline the update/sync process, and improve their logic behind step counting and alarms. And you know, a web interface with additional functionality wouldn’t hurt; or at least the ability to export data to Excel — I could get a lot of use playing around with the information I’m giving them that just sits in a cloud somewhere. For now though, I am enjoying the lovely jewelry.

Have you tried the Bellabeat Leaf? What was your experience like?