The Misfit Ray is changing what it means to wear a fitness tracker

As promised I have received the Ray about a week ago, and I’m ready to tell you all about the good the bad and the ugly.

The good

It’s simple. It’s discreet. It’s exactly what you want from a fitness tracker, and almost what you want from a phone companion.

The vibration motor is subtle enough to nudge you that you have an incoming phone call, but strong enough to be an effective alarm. The LED light is also just as subtle, and just as effective. The fact that the band is customizable is a neat built in trick. I myself have bought a $2 nylon rope from a local store, and used it as the band on the ray (see picture). A really easy install process.

I have not used the ray for six months yet, but the fact that I don’t have to take it off to charge it is a constant struggle with almost all wearable trackers today.

The ray’s interface is dead simple – double tap & triple tap with one led plus vibration for feedback. If you double tap on the ray it shows your your daily fitness progress. If you triple tap it responds to whatever you program it to do. It could take a picture, pause/play your music, IFTTT and many more – you could check the details on the Link App.

The Bad

Even though the double tap to check your fitness progress feature is great, I was surprised to find out that I cannot customize it. It can only display the fitness progress as of right now. Hopefully in a future update you’ll be able to change it, as I would love to utilize the double tap for something a bit more useful.

As with all the wrist worn trackers in the market, especially ones that lack a heart rate sensor, the algorithm that takes your all day arm movements and turns them into number of steps, is inevitably going to be incorrect.

Misfit should take a quick look at fitbit’s app. Fitbits have the same built-in technology, yet give you a much deeper look into things like your sleep, your activity level, and even your inactivity level. This point applies to all Misft’s trackers since they all use the same app.

Speaking of the app, the notifications that are supported are only calls and text messages. I’m sure they can do a better job here. Cc/Pebble.

The Ugly

There’s not much ugly. Honestly, I really don’t have more to say about the device. Overall it’s this beautifully minimalistic cylinder that quietly sits on your wrist, tapping you with important updates from your phone, and telling you how much of an actively lazy person you were today.

I’m sure you have more questions for me. I know I always had questions after reading reviews. No worries, I’ve created an Reddit AMA just for that. See you there.