Yoo RX Fitness Band review

I’m a self-proclaimed health and fitness guru and I try and hit the gym every other day and walk/run a few miles outside as well for no other reason than –  I love to feel good! However…working out and burning those calories can be tedious and down right boring at times. Throwing a fitness band  like the Yoo Rx into the mix can give you some added pep and get you excited about staying healthy – I highly recommend them and I’ve used quite a few.

I started using this Yoo Rx fitness/activity band about 1 month ago and I love all the new features as compared with the YooHD that I reviewed earlier this year.  I loved the HD version, but this one adds some really neat features while maintaining all the wonderfulness of the HD. During the beginning of this review, I was on vacation for about 10 days. It fell into the river, I stepped on it, dropped it, left it out in the heat and even wore it into the pool for an entire day.  All of these things I wouldn’t think of doing on purpose as I’m doing a review, but hey, I let it take was life was giving me and it did great!! Note: The manual does say not to immerse it in water or expose to extreme heat (Whoopsseeee!).  This baby was a trooper and I even took all the pics at the end of the review too, so you can see that cosmetically it stood up to the test as well.

What’s in the box

The band came with a USB charger and a handy dandy pencil-type stand that is magnetic so it’s super simple to charge. Normally it would come with a manual, but this product was hot off the press and they didn’t have one printed, so I had one emailed to me.  (Note: You may click to enlarge any small photos throughout this review.)

Set up

Getting started was easy.  I just downloaded the app (available at the Apple App Store, or Google Play for the Android) and followed the instructions within in the app to pair it and to set up  my account, which is all free.  I charged mine right away because I knew I wouldn’t want to take it off once I started using it.  It only takes 2 hours to fully charge and is supposed to last a whopping 14 days.  Mine lasted about 9 days because I have quite a few alarms set and notifications turned on which I’ll explain more about later. Pic below shows the YooXD charging away in my pencil holder on my desk.

Features

The Yoo Rx has a touchscreen (unlike the Yoo HD) that you tap lightly in a little finger-grooved area on it’s face to scroll through all the screens which is handy if you don’t feel like looking at your app to see your progress.

It tracks: steps, distance, calories, active minutes, and sleep.  The pics below apparently indicate that I am a slacker today.  I have only walked 591 steps, burned 22 calories, been active for 13 minutes, traveled .24 miles and I’ve only achieved 5% of my daily goal.  In my defense, I got up this morning and told myself to get this review done BEFORE I work out.  🙂

You can set alarms which is great for adding some extra “fun” to your day.  I sit at my desk all day, so I set a timer for 6 different times throughout the day to motivate me to plank (a core strength exercise that has you in a push-up-like position which you hold for as long as you can) whenever it goes off (vibrates).  Doing sit-ups, or even just walking around for a bit when the alarm vibrates on your wrist can be very beneficial, or you could use it to wake up or as a reminder to take your daily vitamins if your prefer.  When you decide what works for you, you simply set it up in the app and the band will vibrate to notify you, and even display what the reminder is.

The App/Data

The app has some nice updates since I used it last.  In my review of the YOOHD, I noted that the app was a bit juvenile for my taste.  Lucky for me they have since changed it so that the cartoony-type screen with the old “yoo” which is competing with the new “yoo” is not the first thing you see.  You can still navigate to it, but only if you want to.  The pic below is the screen that used to come up first.  It’s cute, and displays how close you are to winning the challenge with the old yoo, and shows how many steps you have.  I have 715 step now, because I have made a few trips to the fridge!

Unfortunately, my months worth of data ended up being deleted when I was setting up to do my final test, which was to wear both the YOOHD and the YOORX to test the data for accuracy.  I didn’t intend to sync the YOOHD to my phone, only power it up and use the on screen step counter, but…it remembered my phone when I turned it on and… to make an already long story shorter…all my data was gone!  So…the data I have is just from the last few days.

This is the home screen you see now when you open the app (see above pic).  You can press the dates to see what you did in the days before.  The pic above shows yesterday’s data.  I was 2618 steps  away from my goal of 10,000, burned 98 calories and went 1.07 miles. On this screen you can also scroll down to view how many minutes you were active, and how many hours of sleep you got.  Unfortunately, it won’t all fit on one screenshot for me to share with you.  There are different challenges that you can pick from and try to complete to help keep you focused on a goal. You just touch the challenge icon to set up and view your progress.

When you press the menu button on the app (upper left three horizontal lines) you see the menu and this is where you can see everything you need in the app. It’s very user friendly.  When you hit the “sleep” link shown above, you are directed to the below page.  As you can see, on this night, I got 5 hours and 36 minutes of sleep.  That was pretty accurate unfortunately.  The goal I set for myself using the app was 7 hours, so I have some work to do here.  If you click on that pic, you will see that only 3 hours and 30 minutes of those hours was “deep sleep” and the rest was considered “light sleep.” This is a great feature because seeing your sleep habits in this way can really make you focus on things you can do to improve not only the amount, but the quality.

A great feature that is new to this model is the notifications. You can set it up through the app to vibrate and display who’s calling, texting, emailing, Facebook messaging and more right on the band!  This I found useful, but I was a little disappointed in that my phone had to pretty much be in my hand or right next to me in order for it to work.  It was great to have when shopping and my phone was in my purse, then I could see who texted/messaged without having to dig in my purse and put down all my treasures only to find out that JoAnn Fabrics is having a sale or that any other trivial text notification came through.  I was hoping that I would be able to leave my phone in a cubby at the gym and it would notify me of any calls or texts, but you can’t even go 10 feet away from it and have it work consistently. The pic below shows all the compatible apps that you can use notifications feature with.

Final Thoughts

I was impressed by this fitness band. I love the premise behind the whole thing and that is -to compete with yourself and only yourself. I read a quote once that said something like this:  “Competing against others makes you bitter, but competing against yourself makes you better.”  I think in this day and age when we all compare ourselves with others on social media, this is a good thing to remember.  I think the notifications (texts, calls, messages) not being reliable was the most troublesome thing for me, yet it had nothing to do with the fitness part of it, and everything to do with staying connected. I will be wearing this band for awhile, so I will update on exactly how close you need to be, or what variables I notice with regard to when the notifications work, and when they don’t.  My family is really getting tired of me saying “text me…okay again, one more time…now Facebook message me…” as I move to different areas of the home!  The band was way more durable than I expected it to be which is great for those adventurous types who just never know what they will get into during the day.  I also thought that style-wise, it was pretty basic.  This particular style and color may be a bit masculine and rugged for some women to wear, but I personally like black because it’s easy to match and doesn’t call attention to itself. However, I’m way more of a fitness guru than a fashion guru!  All in all, I would recommend it for someone who wants to set goals for themselves to become more healthy and fit. You can use some of the features, or all of them…it’s completely up to YOO!

Source:  The sample for this review was provided by YOO. Please visit their site for more information.