The Striiv Touch is a wristband activity tracker that doubles as a smartwatch - which is what the yet-to-be-released Razer Nabu is supposed to do.
Not only does the Striiv Touch aim to track your activity and your sleep, it will also alert you when there is an incoming call or message.
At first glance, the Striiv Touch looks like a black FitBit Flex with its clean minimalist design. But unlike the Flex, it has an Oled ion-hardened glass touchscreen display that measures 2.3cm by 1.4cm.
The Touch is lightweight at only 16g and you would not feel that you are wearing it. But it is difficult to put on, as the clasp takes some effort to be pushed into the holes on the strap.
It is supposed to be splash-resistant, meaning you can wash your hands or take a bath with it but not swim with it.
To use the device, you need to pair it with your smartphone (iOS 7.1 or Android 4.3 or later).
Once they are paired, you can set your goal for steps taken and turn on notifications for incoming calls and text messages.
The Striiv app includes MyLand, a game in which you grow plants and rear animals on an island based on your fitness habits. However, I found you can cheat in this game by simply buying gems - needed for growing your land - with real money.
You can use the Striiv app to see your progress or just swipe the Touch's display to do so. The display will go to sleep within 3sec or so. To wake it, hold the display briefly and it will wake up. By default, it will show the time and date. You swipe from right to left on the display to toggle through steps taken, distance travelled, calories burned, activity movement and apps.
Tap the Apps icon and it will give you more options to check your progress, activate sleep tracking, view past notifications and change settings.
The display is pleasing to look at even under sunlight. But e-mail and text messages are usually truncated. So, unless the message is very short, it cannot be read to the end.
In terms of tracking movement, the Striiv Touch fared almost as well as the Nike+ FuelBand that I wear every day, but it proved unreliable for tracking your sleep.
For a start, you must activate sleep tracking before you go to bed and deactivate it when you wake up. Even then, there were instances when the reading was four hours short.
E-mail, text messages and incoming call notifications come with vibration alerts. But this was quite inconsistent. At times, it would ignore incoming calls or SMS messages.
The advertised battery life is five days, but I found that it lasted only three days when the device was connected to my smartphone for notifications.
- The merger of a fitness tracker and a smartwatch in the Striiv Touch is a great idea. Unfortunately, in real life, its performance is a work in progress.
