37 Degree L18 - fitness tracker and personal doctor for $ 14
Sport And Fitness / / December 19, 2019
Besides Xiaomi Mi Band, On the market you can find lot of different fitness accessories. They are all somehow similar in functionality and are divided into several groups:
- Cheap (and not) pedometers, heart rate monitors for runners.
- Full-featured intelligent companions smartphones.
- Expensive fully functional device for sportsmen.
The first and second are actually similar. And most of all in terms of price and quality of the product from losing Xiaomi.
The latter group is due to the enhanced functionality of wins, but the high price does not allow devices, such as, the Garmin win the market.
So engineers of the Chinese company 37 Degree had the idea to put the functionality of a professional instrument in the budgetary envelope tracker and sell the resulting hybrid for $ 14. What came out of it - see below.
Appearance and equipment
Box tracker is made of black cardboard. Inside the hiding instruction (in it - a reference to the application), charger, wrist strap and tracker itself.
Tracker is much greater than the reference Mi Band, but not because the developers were too lazy. The upper surface is covered with a relief pattern with a small spot from a translucent, slightly stand out. This charge indicator. During recharge the battery reserve it glows red, and then - in blue.
On the bottom surface of the three sensors are arranged. Central - standard window heart rate, already familiar in many other devices. Nearby are two more sensors are needed to measure the pressure.
Below you can see two holes, which are necessary to connect the charger brand.
The charger is applied to the grooves and firmly latched. Then it connects via microUSB cable. Neither cable nor the plug is not supplied, but you can use any, feed 5 and 0.5-1 A. Come up and one of the ports on your computer or tablet.
Bracelet formed of soft plastic, pleasant to the touch. The manufacturer offers a choice of three versions: with black, blue and red bracelets. Width enough for a small female and large enough for a man's wrist.
Clasp represents two metal stud is therefore less reliable than similar, but supplemented loop.
L18 very hard sitting in the bracelet, aided by a deep furrow along the contour of the device. Squeeze tracker impossible, and insert it into a bracelet will turn only one way: from the inside of the strap forward front surface. "Ears" capsule strength and low elongation material interfere with other location methods. Lost 37 Degree L18 may, if suddenly rasstegnotsya bracelet (by the way, for the two weeks of testing it has not happened even once).
application
The official app is available for Android (over 4.0) and iOS (above 7). You can download it or on the official website, or in their respective stores.
At the beginning of the gadget asks for a user's biometric data and offers up to a cloud service company 37 Degree.
Further work can be done automatically and the user's instructions. Modes are not mutually exclusive.
You can not only measure the pulse, blood pressure and so on, but also to get acquainted with the statistics, adjusted your data, make froze something in the manual mode and customize the application for more precise work. Why do it, describe below.
Functionality
Main characteristics of the device are indicated on the back of the box:
- Built-in lithium polymer battery capacity of 157 mAh.
- 5V charging in, that is suitable charger from the smartphone.
- charging current - 100 mA.
- Connect with your smartphone by Bluetooth 4.0.
- Operating system - Android 4.3 and higher or iOS 7 and above.
- Degree of protection - IP54 (complete protection against dust and splash proof).
- Is able to measure the pulse, blood pressure, number of steps and breaths per minute, burnt calories, Mood and fatigue. There is a sleep tracker.
L18 is able to very much. When measuring, you can specify that the current data are valid for a particular type of activity. They are available with a dozen.
Have a special guest band mode for measurement is not made to the general statistics:
Compare readings
Of course, L18 not a medical device. And generally create a wearable device with a pressure measurement is not yet problematic. There are only two on the market: presented in the paper bracelet and a fitness tracker WMe2. Their measurement methods are different, but the accuracy of the... Up, things are not very good at all.
Measurements 37 Degree L18 so produces: first tries to determine the shape of the pulse wave method similar to photoplethysmography, then based on these data are already appreciates pressure.
Photoplethysmography is perhaps the only method for measuring pressure, suitable for handheld devices. Unfortunately, this method is based on measuring the light transmission or light reflection and is not the most accurate. Device irradiates skin with light, detects the difference in the color of adjacent areas and registers the pulse difference in the neighboring vessels. Then these figures are recalculated according to the medical tables. If large deviations weight and height from the standard values can be observed error.
To obtain correct results, you need to press the bent arm to his chest. If you do not, you get something like this:
If the error is too large (greater than 10%) may have to slightly change the parameters in the biometric application method scientific (e.g., set weight, which corresponds to the growth).
Indications pedometer is almost identical to the data Xiaomi Mi Band 1S, so we can consider them pretty accurate. Measurements of the pulse correspond to the real situation, however, if the test is performed on the fixed arm. When running only saves tight fit bracelet.
conclusions
37 Degree L18 - a very interesting and promising device. For $ 14, it offers a full range of fairly accurate measurements. For more detailed statistics using the fitness accessory can be collected only by using professional equipment. However, their cost is 5-10 times more.
Therefore, novice athletes, amateurs and those who are interested in their health, it is worth a closer look to the L18. It should be noted that c Mi Band device is practically not compete because it is not so much a companion for your smartphone, how many personal doctor.