Mio FUSE Heart Rate, Sleep + Activity Tracker

This product seemed like the perfect device for me. I looked at youtube reviews and they all said that the device had a pretty good heart rate monitor but not that great of app and lacked fancy functions. This seemed fine to me. I wanted something that tracked my calories and told me how hard I was working in the gym. For the most part the heart rate monitor seemed pretty accurate in most cases. I would workout and it would it was consistent with the monitors the gym lets you use. When I was lifting it showed that my heart rate stayed up there which is what I wanted to see. A really great feature, one of the reasons I wanted this watch, was the color coded heart rate zones and the vibration that alerts you when you change zones. All of this seemed to work well with my gym workouts.The heart rate function was poor when doing martial arts. It was very inaccurate. It would say my heart rate was high when I was doing nothing and low when I was doing activities. I mostly bought it for the gym so this wasn't all that important.What got this watched returned and a one star review was the app and little irritating things. As others have mentioned the buttons on the device are hard to activate sometimes. Other times they are easy to use. They only want to work when they want to work. The biggest most frustrating thing ever is that app. I knew the app wasn't that great, but this is ridiculous. It doesn't sync your workouts and only sometimes syncs your daily activities. I got it to sync once, and the detail of the heart rate graph was just terrible. The daily activities only show the basic overall steps and calories and what not for your day, there is no way to compare. And that is when it syncs, most of the time it will partially sync your daily workout, sometimes not at all. Sometime the app doesn't even recognize that your watch is right next to your phone, even if you do everything right.But really this watch is good and the app is so bad it offsets the good. Maybe if they ever fix the issues with the app I might get it again, but it is to frustrating to have right now. I don't recommend purchasing it, because without a decent way to interpret the data, its pretty much useless.

pros-very accurategreat battery lifeworks well in conjunction with any sports tracker appeasy to see with always on display (in workout mode only)cons-inaccurate calorie burnproprietary charger that is annoying to usesomewhere in-between-somewhat uncomfortable for a sports watch but more comfortable than chest strap.Accuracy:I'll start off with the accuracy, since that is the main function I use and cared about before purchasing the Mio Fuse. In that regard, I am completely satisfied. I wore a chest strap along side the Fuse for about a week (5 hours of use) just to compare readings. The Fuse performed great and even outperformed the strap on several occasions. The Fuse's update interval is about twice as fast as my chest strap.Battery life:I set the display to always-on mode during workouts and can still go a full week and usually more before needing a recharge. This is probably the device I have to re-charge the least out of every electronic I own. Thankfully too because the charging dock is a pain to use. It requires you to dock the back of the device onto a very weak magnet, but because the mio always has a bend to it, you have to either elevate the dock, or place it on the corner of a table for the watch to dock with it. The dock is also proprietary so while it uses a USB connector on one end, the part that connects to the watch cannot be replaced. I would have much preferred a basic USB mini or micro slot into the watch itself.Compatibility:I've tested it with Strava, Endomondo, Runtastic, and Sports Tracker and it works with each of them perfectly. While those are the only ones I bothered testing it with, it should work with any app that supports bluetooth heart rate monitors.Calories tracker:I specifically mentioned app compatibility because using an app is a MUST if you want to track anything beyond heart rate. The built in calorie tracker is extremely inaccurate. The pedometer works well but becomes irrelevant on non-step sports such as cycling. So to get the best out of your data, you should pair with a sports tracking app for the gps functionality and use your Fuse to track your heart rate.Zones:Big kudos to Mio on this. I find the zones notification to be extremely useful. You can set it to a simple 3-zone or a more in-depth 5-zone setting and whenever you enter or leave one zone the Fuse will vibrate and a small LED will change colors accordingly. This LED will blink in both always-on mode and when the display is off, so if you want to save some battery you can set the display to turn off and simply go by the vibration and/or blinking LED. All of these settings, including specific heart rates for each zone are configurable and can even be disabled in the configuration app.Comfort:Compared to a chest strap, the Fuse is heaven. Depending on the size and shape of your wrists, you may have to wear it up to 3 inches higher on your arm. My wrists are as small as they get and even somewhat concave in shape I also have somewhat hairy arms so I'm an almost worst-case fit scenario yet I still have very little problem finding and maintaining a solid reading. Like me, you might be able to find a sweet-spot in the notches where it fits comfortably loose near your wrist for daily use and is nice and snug when you push it higher up when you're ready for a workout. Even then, it isn't the most comfortable watch in the world and like others mentioned, it can leave small bumps (I mean bumps or imprints you'd expect from a tight watch or even socks, not anything permanent or severe) after wearing it tight for a while. If you're a regular watch-wearer like myself, it probably won't bother you as much as someone who rarely or never wears a watch. For a comparison, I'd say it's more comfortable than a metal band, but less comfortable than a good quality rubber sports band.Conclusion:I have to give this product a 5 star rating because for what it is and for what I bought it for: A heart rate monitor minus the chest strap, it exceeded my expectations. Period. No, it's other features aren't perfect, but that can easily be made up for with the right app. No, it isn't as comfortable as a baby bunny snuggling your wrist might be, but it isn't "uncomfortable" either, it's somewhere in-between and is a massive improvement over the old chest strap. So yes there is definite room for improvement, but as it is now, it is above the level I ever expected this technology to have ever reached.R.I.P. chest straps. You were uncomfortable as all hells combined but you served us well, now rest. Rest and be forgotten.