“Gave Post Office instructions to return to sender. I ordered it for a friend that was in town for Thanksgiving weekend. He's back in Italy and I guess package is heading back to sender.”
“Great features, especially the biometrics reporting and meditation options. I just wish it was waterproof and you had an arm strap verus a wrist strap. I'm a massage therapist and cannot wear my Biostrap while I'm working which throws off my data.”
“Awesome watch, very accurate and I love its sleep tracking features and insights. Fast shipping from the US to NZ with UPS even with covid! Would recommend to all people looking to improve their sleep and recovery”
“I found myself swithering between 2 & 3 stars - I started at 3, but the more I wrote the less acceptable it felt.
First the good bits. It arrived in nice, mostly high quality, packaging. It was relatively easy to get going, though pairing with my tablet took a couple of goes. It took a few days to calibrate, but started showing some stuff stuff immediately. The break down of the recovery score is interesting.
Sadly, that's where the good bits seem to end:
- the time to synchronise data with the app is terrible. In the morning, its 15-20 mins to get my sleep data in. The app isn't a big energy hog, but enough that I don't want to leave it running all day (and I turn stuff off overnight anyway).
- this has knock-on issues. While syncing, other functions are worse than useless. I meditate first thing, but recording basically doesn't work. I get told the app can't find device (ironic given its syncing!) Sometimes that's it. Sometimes is starts recording. If it does, then it often the stop doesn't work as it sticks at 100% sync and I have to close the app losing the recording. Sometimes it records secretly and doesn't tell me it has done so until it finishes. One day I had two overlapping recordings (1.5 & 2hrs - should be ~20mins), another gave me 13hour. Even when it does record, the intermittent data collection isn't very helpful. I have a similar problem if I do evening exercises, where I can't even get an activity list until the sync is done.
- the strap records almost no data during the day. If you read things in detail it hints at that, but still irritating.
- it sometimes doesn't get my sleep timings right. At least I can adjust these in the app (unlike for the meditations), though disturbed how it can think I'm in deep sleep when I'm awake.
- the three separate gadgets is understandable, but still a small pain
- the first night it recorded 3000 steps while I sat watching the tv for 90mins. Support told me I must have moved my arm. That's a step (arm movement) every 2 secs while I was relaxing?!?! This hasn't repeated, but makes me lose confidence.
- the arm heart rate monitor is a bit odd in its measurement. Shortly after the start of some exercise sessions. my heart rate drops to low 40s. It often then surges to ~120 before settling the 80s. Again, doesn't inspire confidence.
- the strap design didn't totally inspire confidence as there's an obvious looking weakness (though maybe it will last better than I think?) The actual failure was different, as the back came off the stud. Full marks to customer support here as they sent replacements immediately.
I bought this as a premium item, something that's more sophisticated than the run of the mill fitbits & watches, but I'm not convinced. The app looks good, but I'm not sure I have complete faith in the measurements. Even when it works, the analysis mostly just confirms how I already feel. But the functionality isn't good enough and, in my experience, too much of it feels like it is still closer to beta than a finished product.”
“Biostrap as a whole is good. The strap itself leaves a lot to be desired. The actual strap part is not very durable and starts to fall off your wrist when it gets worn after a few months. The strap on the heart monitor is a joke. Falls apart in hours.
When/if they get all this worked out...things will be better.
I like the red color. Conversation starter...and they say red makes you faster.”
“I like the fit and appearance of the band and have no issues with the arm band heart monitor. The app layout is nice and battery life is satisfactory.
I enjoy looking at my health metrics, but I'm a little disappointed in the day time data collection, which is sparse to nonexistent for some metrics. I understand the limitation of red light, but I get few HR and HRV readings during the day and no breathing rate and SPO2.
I'm also a little disappointed in the "Insights" feature. Knowing where I stand when compared to the population using Biostrap is nice, but it would be more beneficial to know things that may affect my metrics so I can make changes. Perhaps additional questions could be added to the sleep survey that can be worked into the insights.”
“Was really hoping for biostrap to work but biostrap was not connecting to my phone. Also, I was really hoping biostrap gave me workout strain after the workout”
“I bought the full Biostrap package with the armband, wristband, and ankle tracker. I wanted to use it to get a better reading of the quality of my night's sleep and see the intensity of my workouts. It did that with some caveats.
Pros:
1. The wristband is nice, it does a good job tracking activity and sleep. It seems pretty accurate.
2. The armband does a great job tracking your heart rate in real time. If you use it when running with the app, you can get real time feedback to increase or decrease your intensity.
Cons:
1. The wristband regularly disconnects with the app and requires you to cycle Bluetooth on and off to reconnect it.
2. The app drains your battery a lot unless you limit background usage in your phone's settings like 20%+ a day. However if you limit background usage so you don't have to charge your phone during the day, you have to manually open the app and wait for it to sync your sleep/activity data. Then you have to wait even more for it to process your sleep data. It can be cumbersome.
3. The biometrics function is essentially useless. It only collects "good data" about 1/3 of the time even when I'm wearing the wristband and arm band properly and sitting still.
4. The foot tracker pod is pretty much useless too. If you want to use it to track your steps, you have to remember to turn off step tracking with the ankle pod anytime you're not wearing it. Why, the app won't use your wristband if you're not wearing the ankle pod. Also, it looks kinda like a prison tracker when you wear it and I got some interesting comments about it when just wearing it around.
5. Additional functionality like "improved sleep tracking" and "meditation tracking" are only available if you want to pay an additional monthly charge. Wasn't the tracker enough as is?
6. The fitness tracker takes a daytime reading every 10 minutes however when I look at the data points it seems to only collect 5-15 valid points a day even though I wear the tracker pretty snug. Not really a big concern for me.
7. Overall the app is pretty slow, battery intensive, and kinda buggy. It feels like what you would get if you only wanted to pay for the $30 tracker. It's in dire need of an update to reduce battery consumption and improve connectivity.
8. None of the data is stored locally (as far as I can tell) which means every time you change screens, the app needs to pull data from their servers. Usually that's not an issue, but it does make for a pretty slow experience with this app.
Overall, functional, but my no means glamorous. It feels like a startup that had really good marketing but failed to follow through on the back end. A few simple improvements to the software, and this would be a 5× better option than FitBit. As it stands right now, it's breakeven and maybe even a bit worse.”
“Never arrived after purchasing two day shipping. A week later I cancelled as I got no sense that I was valued as a customer. It’s unfortunate as I’ve been using my biostrap for nearly 3 years and have been happy with it by and large. Definitely exploring other options given the customer service. Committed followup would have been nice beyond simply granting my request for a refund.”
“I bought the biostrap for the purposes of monitoring my sleep. So far it has done an exemplary job of accurately recording my sleep. However, I have had a couple of nights where it has not recorded despite it being charged and on my write securely. I have raised this issue with bootstrap support and they have been great about responding and escalating it to their engineers. Overall, it seems to be a great device, reasonably priced, has a great accompanying app., and does not require a subscription. I also like that the strap is not a watch, as I am attached to my automatic wrist watch & don't want to replace it.”
