Hey all ,
Wow this post is a LOT over due… but I was trying to make sure I could do a fairly thorough post/review on the still very new Under Armour Health Box.
I was soooo stoked for this little beauty to arrive… it was like Christmas.
So what does this exciting box include?
Well… there are 3 parts to the Health Box.
The UA Band, the UA Heart Rate monitor, and the UA Scale.
These items can be purchased all in 1 (the Health Box!), or individually.
I’m sure all of you have seen some sort of fitness tracker… many of you probably have one. And they’re all different, all with their own pros and cons of course.
With the UA Healthbox, the point is for all 3 items to work seamlessly together to give you a really in depth, overall picture of your health — your nutrition, sleeping, activity and workout habits. These products are all connected via bluetooth, and also the Record App.
The app is broken down into 4 parts.
Activity (Steps), Fitness (workouts), Nutrition and Sleep.
Activity is measured by the steps you take. So like many fitness trackers, it will monitor your total steps. You can choose what you want your goal to be for each day. It’s set automatically at 7000, but you can go up or down as you wish.
Fitness is your workouts. There are four options – running, biking, weights or jump rope. But in the app, you can customize this so if you do a ‘fitness class’ several times a week, you can make that one of your workouts… or if you play basketball you can change it so you have that as an option for workouts. You can log the workouts manually, but if you use the heart rate monitor, they’ll log themselves! More on this later.
Nutrition is what you eat and drink (obvi). So there are a couple options for this. The UA Record app does link with myfitnesspal, so if you log your food in that app, it will track calories and what you’ve eaten. It will show how many calories you have left for the day etc. If you don’t want to be as detailed tracking all meals and calories, then you have the option to just select light, medium or heavy for your food for the day.
Sleep – self explanatory haha. It’s cool because it will automatically track when you fall asleep/wake up, and it also measures your level of sleep too (if it was restless or deep etc)
So lets break it down. We’ll start with the UA BAND.
This band has a ton of functions. I am not a real tech nerd so I am not going to go into great detail, but I’ll highlight the main features 🙂
Pros:
>> Easy to set up/use
>> Super comfortable to wear
>> Accurate at tracking steps/sleep
>> Links together easily with band/scale/myfitnesspal
>> Super handy to get phone notifications on wrist from gentle vibration
>>
Cons:
>> A little large for someone with small wrists (It’s still really comfy to wear, just almost bangle like because the top part is a little long)
>> Can wear in the shower, but can’t wear swimming (not totally waterproof)
Overall, I absolutely love the band!
I wear it all the time, and I find the info it gives me super useful.
I have it set so I do get phone notifications, but only calls. Right now, there’s no way to separate what notifications you want (ie: texts but not emails etc). So I have it set for phone calls only. This way my battery lasts longer too!
I LOVE the alarm feature … it’s so nice to wake up to a gentle wrist vibration instead of a terrible obnoxious sound.
To go along with that… the sleep tracking seems to work really well! It will show where you’ve slept well and where you were restless.
I also love pairing the band with the heart rate monitor to get super accurate measurements on my heart rate and my workout overall. This is an example of what the Record app looks like after a workout has been logged (paired with the heart rate monitor)
I don’t use the steps a ton to be honest, but it’s very interesting to know. I always would have assumed I’d be taking a ton of steps a day, because in my mind, I’m pretty active. Some days, this is true – I am running around for work and walking a ton. But some days, I’m just in and out of the car not taking all that many steps at all. Yes of course, I work out every day.. but aside from that [some days] I’m not as active (steps wise) as I would have thought!
Another capability the band has is to control your music (From your wrist). Total honesty – I haven’t figured this one out yet!! Not sure if it’s my phone, or operator error (I told ya I wasn’t that techy!) – but I’m working on it and it’s cool that it’s an option, assuming you can figure it out! haha
THE HR MONITOR
This monitor has 1 real function – to measure your heart rate while you’re working out! And that it does, very well!
It pairs very easily with the UA Band, and truly is the most accurate way to track your HR.
(Side note: the band does have HR tracking capabilities without the HR Monitor, but it’s a lot more accurate with the chest strap!)
Sorry I don’t have more pictures of what it looks like when it’s paired. Apparently I’m not the best photographer because the LED lighting wouldn’t let me take a good pic. Once you pair the band with the HR monitor, the band will say ‘Connected’ and you’ll see a little blue light on the side of the band. This little light is your guide through your workout, changing colours as you move through different HR zones. It’s pretty cool!! For eg: when you’re in the green zone, your HR is in the ‘temperate’ zone. You want to try and get between aerobic and anaerobic as much as possible (yellow and orange)! Cool to see just at a glance where you’re at in terms of effort and heart rate.
Now, onto the SCALE.
This thing is GREAT! It can be used by more than 1 person, and when you step on it, it will recognize who you are (based on your weight), say hello (hilarious) and then give you your info.
You DO need to have the Record app downloaded on your phone in order for the scale to sync up with all your other info and keep up to date on the app for you.
When you get on the scale, it syncs with the app so it knows what your goal weight is. So… if I’m at 126lbs right now, and I’ve listen in the Record/Myfitnesspal apps that my goal weight is 120, it will give me my weight of the day, tell me how many LBs I still have to go before I hit my goal weight, and then it will also measure my body fat.
Once I’ve stepped off, it will sync up these numbers on Record and Myfitnesspal. Super cool!!
Overall you guys, I absolutely LOVE this product (The Health Box over all) It’s still a fairly new product… only been on the market for a few months! So with each update, things get better and better.
Apologies on not having a ton of pics in this post… but like I said, the LEDs make it tricky to take good photos!!
Would love to hear from you if you’re thinking about getting a fitness tracker of some sort and are just unsure which one to get! Of course I’m partial to the HealthBox because it’s awesome and it’s a UA product… But I’ve tried fitbits, jawbones, garmins and polar loops… SO I’m pretty well versed in this area! haha
Happy Friday, y’all!
Thanks for reading 🙂
Andrea