Fitness In The Age Of Tech

I’ve always found a reason or other to keep myself away from an effective exercise regime. I just had my hair done and it cost a pretty penny. My headphones are tangled and I have to take to me to sort out that mess. The month is way in. I have to start at the very beginning of the month. I’ve skipped exercise two days already. I’ll just rest for the rest of the week and go back to exercise in earnest starting Monday. Its cold and dreary. I’ll just laze on the sofa and have tea and muffins to warm me up. I’ll go tomorrow.

Except that tomorrow does not come as tomorrow but as three days later.

Through all this though, I’ve always found time to exercise once in a while. Sometimes I get bursts of motivation and exercise for days or weeks on end. Usually after actually feeling how unfit I am. Like when I go up a flight of stairs and I can barely make it two floors up without panting like a horse. Or when I have a new shiny exercise gadget that I can’t wait to try out.

I recently acquired the Infinix X-Band and this little wearable piece of tech promises to send me straight back to the field to work out. Especially since I’ve since discovered that I work out more when I concentrate on home workouts and/or evening walks in open fields as opposed to crowded gyms.

With the X-Band, I’m able to tell just how many steps I’m taking and especially how many calories I’m burning. I cannot tell you how much of a motivation being able to quantify a work out is and with my goals set for a certain number of calories per day, the band works as a much needed accountability partner. This is especially so because one can even share their daily activity goals and achievements with friends on social media. For me though, my main concern is just to know for myself how I’m doing though I hope to join walking/jogging groups online soon.

How does the gadget know or calculate steps and calories? The Infinix X-Band pairs with the X-Band app which you’ll have to download from the App store and configure into your phone. Configuration is a few simple steps that take all of two minutes at most. The app will only ask you to feed in your age, sex, current weight, and height and you’re done.

The app has some settings which you can set to your comfort.

After that you will need to pair your phone and the X-Band wirelessly via blue tooth and all the movements you take as you exercise will be recorded and calories calculated. The beauty of the band is that it can pair with any phone once you’ve downloaded the app, and is not necessarily locked to Infinix phones. It has a comfortable strap and comes in black and brown so users can choose what goes with their style.

For the X-band to work it needs to be charged and it comes with a cable for that. It is fast charging and today for example, I was able to charge upto 50% in just one hour on my laptop. To charge, you’ll need to disconnect the watch itself from the strap because the charging port is at the inner back of the piece.

The Infinix X-Band is not just for fitness. It is a smart watch with a digital display that will show notifications for time, missed calls, date and other uses which we’ll look at later. The band is configured such that you can detach the watch from the strap and use it as a Bluetooth speaker which you can use to pick calls or listen to music.

As you can see above, I have successfully configured my X-Band app, synched with the X-Band and taken a few steps around the building. It works just fine and I can’t wait for end of day to go and take my evening walk!

The Infinix X-Band is available on Jumia for Kshs,6,500/-