Bluetooth Integration

The BodyMedia LINK armband I tested is one that has Bluetooth wireless connectivity and works with my Android smart phone and ASUS transformer. This proved to be a nice feature although, like some Bluetooth devices, it wasn't the best at connecting. One annoyance was I had to re-enter the pairing code when the connection was lost. It wasn’t as seamless as some other Bluetooth devices I have such as my headphones.

The Bluetooth application is divided into three areas: Dashboard, Nutrition and Workouts. The Dashboard provided many of the summary items you’d find on the website such as:

• calories burned
• calories consumed
• minutes of moderate activity
• minutes of vigorous activity
• steps
• sleep duration

You could also see your activity as well as how many units remained for the day.

The Nutrition section showed your calories for each of the 6 meal slots. You could tap a slot such as breakfast to see what you recorded. This application also lets you record food entries by hitting the + sign. I found this feature helpful to record meals while away from home. Like the web counterpart, the program would load a listing of “frequent foods” based on previous selections. You could also search for an item that wasn’t on the list.

Workout Feature

Perhaps, the nicest Bluetooth feature for me was the ability to create workouts. These workouts fell into various categories:

• Quick Start
• Timed
• Steps
• Calorie
• Total Activity
• Vigorous Activity

I used the workout feature several times to compare workouts on the track with the activity feature of the FitBit Ultra. I also found myself using the Quick Start feature to see how many calories I burned doing typical errands like walking downtown to pick up my mail or do grocery shopping. I would also get off my train or bus stop early and see how many extra calories I was burning. On days when the weather wasn't conducive for walking, I would do timed workouts on the stairs.

At the top of the summary screen you have the overall time for the workout. That is then followed by:

• Steps Taken
• Calories Burned
• Total Activity
• Vigorous Activity

One disappointing aspect of the Bluetooth application is the workout history data cannot be exported back to the BodyMedia website like a heart monitor session. Also, the device does not continuously provide real-time dashboard monitoring. Instead, the user must refresh the data when they need it. This is most likely done to conserve battery device on your phone, which makes sense.

Additional BodyMedia Sections

Introduction

Service Components

Goals and Feedback

Community

Final Thoughts