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 ra...