A Look Back at Microsoft Band (Premium)

Microsoft Band was an intelligent edge device before that was even a thing. But being too early wasn’t the problem this time. Instead, the problem with Microsoft Band is that the software giant was never serious about this product, and that was never going to change. That it failed was inevitable, and only a matter of time.

Brad already wrote an overview of the Band’s short history. Here, I’d like to reflect on the experience of using both generations of Microsoft’s most recent wearable platform—let’s not forget the SPOT watch, folks—and of watching the firm once again briefly lead a new consumer market technologically before just quietly giving up on it as reliability and quality issues emerged and scuttled the successes.

Yes, I was a Microsoft Band user, and a fan, and I recommended this product wholeheartedly to readers. You know. Until everything fell apart. Literally.

By the time I got my hands on the first Microsoft Band in October 2014, I had had years of experience with health and fitness trackers. Microsoft’s entry was big, awkward to use, and complicated to set up, conditions I at the time attributed to its vast array of capabilities. Today, we’ve become quite attuned to the notion of gadgets of all kinds that bristle with sensors of all kinds. But in 2014, this was unusual, and Microsoft Band included capabilities that you just couldn’t get elsewhere.

That said, most people couldn’t even get Microsoft Band to begin with. As you may recall, Microsoft treated this $250 device a bit like an experiment of sorts, especially with the first version. And it was made available only in limited quantities, and only from Microsoft itself. And only in the United States. Of course.

Those intrepid Americans who did purchase Microsoft Band found that it exceeded the capabilities of the less-powerful Fitbit-type trackers that were common then, but also paradoxically missed out on some obvious usability features like an “at a glance” mode. “One of the cool things about Android Wear is that when you lift your wrist to look at it, the screen comes on,” I wrote at the time. “Microsoft Band doesn’t do that.” Instead, Microsoft Band offered a watch mode so that it emulated a watch when you raised your wrist. Assuming you enabled it first, that is.

From a functionality perspective, Microsoft outpaced traditional trackers of the day with constant heart rate monitoring, which again, is now common. It was also backed by the Microsoft Health service, which seemed like a slam dunk: Here was a comprehensive back-end service from a company everyone trusts that could link up with the service used by health care providers and doctors. But the real promise here is that Band/Health would get proactive over time by analyzing the data it tracked, comparing it to your schedule—because, naturally, it linked up with Microsoft’s productivity services like Outlook.com—and then giving you advice. (“Your heart rate seems to get elevated every Monday before your weekly meeting. Maybe you should try meditating.” Or whatever. But that functionality was science fiction, and Band never, ever came close to achieving this promise.

Microsoft Band supported touch, another feature that is more common today in other trackers. So you could select tiles on-screen or swipe the display to navigate. There were also two hardware buttons, Power and Action, which often worked a bit like right-click, displaying secondary items like steps, date, calories burned, heart rate, and more from the default display.

Microsoft Band could track your sleep, functionality that was, in fact, available already on some Fitbit models too. That said, it was a manual affair, meaning you had to actually tell it when you were going to sleep. Another miscue.

Overall, the problems with Microsoft Band—even before the durability issues with its strap became clearer with use over time—were just insurmountable. You couldn’t buy it. It was bulky and awkward, and easy to bump on things. It was complicated and hard to use. The battery life was terrible. And it was pretty expensive for a tracker, though not compared to, say, Apple Watch. Which was much less powerful when it first appeared. Long story short, the Band was a non-starter.

So Microsoft, naturally, made a second version.

Released a year later, Microsoft Band 2 sought to address the problems with Microsoft’s initial effort. And I was really impressed by it. “With Band 2, Microsoft is again firing on all cylinders, delivering the right mix of features and improvements,” I wrote. “This is my favorite wearable, by far, and the one that will grace my wrist going forward.”

Band 2 arrived in the wake of Apple Watch and offered what I thought was a more balanced list of features that Apple later emulated: Fitness, health, and productivity … but mostly fitness and health. It offered improved ergonomics, with a display that curved with the strap of the device, and fit more naturally on your wrist. (That said, it was still a bit big by tracker standards.) The wristband was made of a flexible rubberized material that was far more comfortable than the stiff—and painted—band of the original. And its use of Gorilla Glass 3 made it more durable. We had high hopes.

Like its predecessor, Band 2 was bristling with sensors: Optical heart rate sensor, 3-way accelerometer, gyrometer, GPS, ambient light sensor, skin temperature sensor, UV sensor, capacitive sensor, Galvanic skin response, and microphone. But Band 2 also added a barometer, which was used to measure elevation (as on stairs). And that UV sensor could be left enabled all the time, unlike with Band 1.

But again, Microsoft delivered innovation while missing some obvious features. Band 2 wasn’t waterproof, so you couldn’t wear it swimming. I suspect waterproofing was on the list for the aborted Band 3, but that was a curious omission.

Worse, Band 2 wasn’t proactive even in the simplest ways imaginable. “Band 2 will not prompt you to stand up or exercise, as it should, nor will it prod you to improve on previous activity levels,” I noted, stating the obvious. “Microsoft assures me that this will happen over the next year. We’ll see.”

But I loved Band 2. And I used it for as long as I could, until its strap durability issues made doing so unbearable. (Microsoft quietly replaced my original Band 2 when the strap failed. Then the second one failed too. Oops.)

“Overall, Band 2 is a terrific fitness tracker, and its productivity features offer just the right balance: It’s useful, not superfluous,” I concluded. “I love that it’s cross-platform, that it collects so much data, and that it is less expensive than comparable but more complex devices. No, a wearable isn’t for anyone. But if you’re looking for a superb fitness tracker with additional smartwatch-like features, look no further than Microsoft Band 2. They got this one right.”

Oh, the benefits of hindsight.

By the way, my wife like the Band 2 as well. So much so that I had her write her first (and, to date, only) review on Thurrott.com.

By the following Spring, I had started thinking about how Microsoft might fix its wearable. I suggested removable straps—one feature I really liked from Apple Watch—-improved battery life, lower pricing, a smaller form factor, and a move to the Windows 10/IoT platform. What I didn’t know at the time, of course, was that all of these were impossible, unattainable goals. But no matter: I compared a Fitbit Alta to Microsoft Band 2 that Spring as well, finding that it delivered nearly everything I had asked for and improved on Microsoft’s wearable in meaningful ways. I switched to Fitbit then and have kept at it since, though I moved to a newer Fitbit Charge 3 last year.

By September 2016, regardless, Microsoft Band was dead, following in the footsteps of Zune, Windows Phone, and other failed Microsoft consumer hardware products.

“The theme here is familiar to Microsoft fans, and the fact that this story keeps getting retold is starting to grate,” I wrote at the time. “Microsoft creates an incredible platform and then releases it to the world. A small group of fans falls in love with this solution, proselytizes it to anyone who will listen, and is confused when the poorly-designed competition is more successful their favorite product. And then Microsoft, quietly, steps back. They stop making it, stop improving it, stop supporting it. Well, it’s happening again.”

It’s still sad because Band was so full of possibilities. It had GPS two years before Apple Watch—two years—and brought what would today be called AI capabilities to the wearables market years before any other device. And now it doesn’t matter in the slightest. This is a story that is all-too-familiar to Microsoft’s most ardent fans. And is still very disappointing.

Ah well. This past week’s news about Microsoft Band is much like the news earlier this year about Microsoft ending support for Windows Mobile. It comes years after we already said goodbye, already finished mourning. And it’s like ripping a scab off a wound and having to relive the tragedy all over again. Which, when you think about it, is also a key part of the “Microsoft losing consumer” story. It just never ends.