The first Basis wearable arriving under the Intel banner

May 27, 2015 11:28 GMT  ·  By

The wearable market has been consistently growing during the past year, and more and companies are showing an interest in becoming part of this ecosystem. Like Intel, who purchased wristband health tracker maker Basis just to fulfill this goal.

Basis makes products similar to the offering coming from Fitbit and Jawbone but has yet to reach the level of popularity of the former companies. Although Basis’ latest product has great potential to become a hit.

I’m talking about the Basis Peak, a combination between a fitness tracker and a sports watch, which landed on the market back in November. Since then, the tracker was updated in December with notification support, thus bringing into the picture some smartwatch-like features.

The Basis Peak is the first product to be rolled out after the Intel acquisition in 2014 and constitutes a major improvement over the imperfect Basis B1, an activity tracker wristband, the startup unveiled back in 2013.

So if you're curious to know how the Basis Peak actually performs in real life as your day-to-day companion, keep reading further.

How the tracker looks and feels

The Basis Peak looks like a watch with a square display. Intel is making it available in black and white, but my test unit was black, very black. That is, until I turned it around and saw the violent red strap on the back of it.

While the Basis Peak feels relatively nice to wear, it doesn’t look particularly attractive. Even if its body is made of steel, from a distance, you could swear you’re dealing with a plasticky device of sorts. To be fair, the bottom of the wearable is made of plastic.

Peak's back is home to the green-LED heart rate sensor that comes in contact with the skin on your wrist. There are also four metal contacts that should measure how much you’re sweating.

I found it annoying at times to adjust the clasp of the wearable, but maybe I wasn’t skilled enough. Moreover, even if throughout the day I seemed to forget about wearing the Basis Peak, at the end of the day, it still felt like I needed to give my wrist some room to breathe, so I ended up taking it off on several occasions (note: the Peak also acts like a sleep tracker).

The 1.25-inch monochrome LCD screen on the wearable is pretty spacious and easily readable. The main display shows the time in big numbers, and to navigate further on, you’ll need to touch the screen, which is protected by Gorilla Glass.

To advance through different functions, users have to swipe either left and right or up and down. The Basis Peak is devoid of buttons, which is a bit counterintuitive at times, as you’ll need to rely solely on touch gestures.

What’s more, the Basis Peak is waterproof to 50 m / 164 ft, so you can keep it on even as you’re taking a shower or taking a quick dip at the pool. Although, the display tends to be less responsive in these circumstances, and heart rate tracking is less than accurate.

What can the tracker do?

Like all fitness tracking wearables, the Basis Peak can count your steps and calories burned. It also has an optical heart reader nestled underneath, which, according to Intel, uses actual science to capture specific metrics about you.

Intel says that the wearable can deliver real-time continuous heart-rate tracking, and so it does, although if you loosen the strap too much, the sensor won’t be able to do its job. So you need to be attentive that your skin makes contact with the sensor.

When you start walking, the wearable is capable of detecting that you’re entering an active “phase” and will record each stage individually. The same applies to running, and while you’re doing your workout, Peak will count steps, calories and heart rate plus time on the display.

However, you won’t find any GPS on board, so pace and distance won’t be recorded. Even so, since the Peak will connect to your Android or iOS smartphone, you can send the heart rate data to the GPS-enabled app.

To get started using the Basis Peak, you will need to create a Basis account, which entails that you enter your basic info, including height, weight and gender. Once you do that, you need to let the band pair and sync via Bluetooth.

Sleep tracking is another strong point of Basis. It monitors three separate sleep levels, including deep, light and REM (rapid-eye movement), and even marks every toss and turn during the night.

More sleeping stats
More sleeping stats
However, I had a hard time sleeping with a band around my wrist all night. Eventually, I pulled it through, but I can’t say I liked it too much.

The resulting information will show up into the application, but resting heart rate is not one of the metrics you’ll see listed.

The Basis Peak also offers a function that most smartwatches today come equipped with - it delivers notifications for phone calls and texts. But that’s pretty much it. Don’t expect to get any notifications from applications like WhatsApp, Facebook or Twitter, even though Basis will probably add support for these apps soon enough.

Anyway, the notifications you do get last for about five minutes before being automatically cleared. This system ensures that you don’t see any major data overload of blockage.

Getting started with the tracker and the smartphone app

The Basis Peak will connect to a smartphone app either for Android (it has to be 4.4.2 or above to work properly) or iOS.

But syncing the Peak proved to be an utter nightmare, at least on Android. My unit only said that it needed charging or that it was charging, even as the battery was completely full. It eventually turned out that the proper firmware wasn't installed on the watch (actually, the Peak arrived devoid of operating firmware altogether).

Anyway, once you finally manage to get through this nuisance and sync the smartphone with the band, you get a look inside the app. The interface looks sleek and modern enough, with the homepage displaying a summary of the day’s activity.

Here is where you’ll be getting acquainted with the concept of “Habits,” which are mini goals you set for yourself. Actually, you can view them as “challenges,” and you wouldn’t be wrong in doing so.

The thing is, you start at level 0 and add a “habit” or two. You begin by wearing the watch 12 hours a day or going to bed at 10.30 p.m for two nights during the week. Do these things right and you gain points and unlock other, more advanced “habits.”

Once you achieve a standard, the app will ramp things up gradually, so instead of going to bed at 10.30 two days a week, you’ll be prompted to do so for three days. These are actually couching elements that are supposed to slowly nudge you towards a healthier life style.

All the information picked up by the activity tracker is relayed to the app, which then displays your daily stats. The thing is, the app is quite slow in picking up the data, and sometimes you feel like there’s a big chunk of it missing. Eventually, the info gets indexed by the app, but for more active users, this might prove to be quite a big nuisance.

How long does the tracker last?

Another selling point of the Basis Peak is the battery life. I used it for more than a week non-stop and I still had 50% or more to go.

The fitness tracker comes with a charging cradle that quickly snaps to the back of the device, which should give you a few hours of use even if it charges for merely a few minutes.


The Good

Generally speaking, the Basis Peak is comfortable to use, waterproof and can last you days on end without an extra battery charge. It also measures heart rate and calories off the clock, without the user having to perform some specific action. The tracker also offers a comprehensive sleep tracking feature.

The Bad

The tracker isn’t very stylish or pleasing to the eye, and I’d have to call it bland at best. At times, the swipe interface isn’t really responsive and there are no notifications for third-party applications. Pairing the device with your Android smartphone is no picnic either, an aspect that is apparently plaguing a lot of users.

Conclusion

All in all, Basis Peak is a pretty decent fitness tracker that performs most of the actions automatically. However, it fails to deliver some functions, and I think that there is a lot of room for improvement. In the design area as well. The Intel Basis Peak currently sells for $189 / €173 on Amazon.

Intel Basis Peak (28 Images)

Intel Basis Peak retail package
Intel Basis Peak showing the timeIntel Basis Peak clasp
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