14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft’s smart fitness tracker called Band hast just received another important update that should help the device better track your exercises and provide more accurate health information based on the collected data.
The company rolled out support for cycling and introduced a Bike Tile to track your rides in February, but starting tomorrow, Microsoft Band owners who ride a bike can share information about their results on Strava and MapMyRide apps.
By adding support for these two new apps, Microsoft hopes that more users would find the Band helpful when biking, especially because this way they would be able to compare their results and share routes with other users of these two apps.
Better health insights
But in addition to biking improvements, Microsoft Band is now capable of providing better health insights with the help of the Microsoft Health Web Dashboard, which enables users to analyze data collected by the smart wristband.
Thanks to this new update, users can compare their performance with those of other users with the same height and weight, while the Band can collect even more information, such as VO2 Max, which is the amount of oxygen your body uses when performing a certain exercise.
Based on heart activity, Band analyzes and displays such information in the dashboard, making it easier to keep an eye on your performance improvement.
A new version of the Health app is also in the works, Microsoft said, so iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices should soon get it.
The new version, which has already been spotted in the Windows Phone store, would use the phone sensors to count the number of steps you make every day, so in case you don't own a Microsoft Band just yet, you can do that just by using Microsoft Health on your phone.
Needless to say, all these updates make the Microsoft Band a much more appealing product and with Redmond's increased focus on hardware, we can only hope that more such improvements would be released in the coming months.