Wellograph Wireless Bluetooth Heart Rate and Activity Monitor Wellness Watch - Silver Satin

Loved it for the first couple of months but then one of the buttons on the side stopped working (unfortunately the one that syncs and enters menus etc.). I thought, 'Fine, I've only had it a couple of months and it has a year warranty!'. Not that fine unfortunately, trying to find a contact for Wellograph was hard enough on their website but after emailing, I got no response so I'm left with a nice looking but useless fitness watch. Stay away if you want a working watch for more than a couple of months!!

I've been using one of these since the beginning of the year (I got mine at The Consumer Electronics Show in January) and it works great. I was able to compare it to everything else out there and it was by far the most elegant and best looking watch (which is important to me) and it does all the things I need it to - for me, mainly counting my steps every day and syncing with my iphone. The heart rate functions and sleep tracking are newer for me and I am getting to know these data points since I have had access to this data as well, but the resting HR is coming down which is great to see! Charging is easy and the watch lasts sometimes longer than a week for me, and that's with me wearing it from waking to sleeping. Nice one Wellograph!

For those who just want a quick review: Pro - Premium design - Pulse tracking/monitoring - Rugged - sapphire screen and water resistant - Works with Android, iPhones and Windows mobile Cons - Expensive - Isn't finished product (at time of review) - Can't export/share data - No mobile notifications - App drains mobile battery when not in use And now for the longer version: Kindly sent to me for review it's refreshing to see an unashamedly expensive tracker come to market when the competition produces cheaper and cheaper plastic activity trackers. Whereas low cost trackers are made from low cost materials, the Wellograph is constructed from premium material including a sapphire screen and a curved aluminium base. To clarify, the Wellness watch isn't a smart watch of the `get text messages on your wrist' variety of smart, its purely an activity tracker. This difference is important as it means the watch doesn't stay connected to your mobile via bluetooth, it just connects to your phone to synchronize data, and as such doesn't provide you with any notifications about incoming calls and messages. That synchronization process also sets the time on the watch. Bizarrely, if you switch the watch off it doesn't take into account that time has passed, so when you turn it on again it says the same time as when you switched it off and doesn't correct itself until you've synchronized it again. The synchronization process has to be manually started and this feels something of a backwards step when so many other trackers sync automatically. With background syncing missing it was surprising to learn that the Wellograph app, on Android, was slurping 13 - 15% of the mobile battery when it wasn't doing anything. Although rectangular in design the watch face is actually a small square, leaving a thick bezel that's extra large at the top. There are two buttons on the right that control the menu features. On the back is the charging point and pulse sensor. It comes with a nice brown leather strap, although several colours are available to pick from. Additional straps are available to purchase, and you're encouraged to do so if you plan on using this in a wet environment, such as swimming. This might prove hard for some to swallow given the high price tag of the watch to start with and given the focus is on measuring activity it would be fair to expect it to come with everything you need to track your aquatic workouts. Setup was very easy, although note that you may find the watch in `watch mode' when it arrives which removes some of the options needed to pair this with your mobile. If that's the case head into the settings menu to turn off watch mode and you'll then see the Bluetooth settings menu which allows you to pair the watch with your mobile. Download the app and you can configure some information (such as age) which is then pushed to the watch when you perform a synchronization. Although tested with the Android app there are apps available for iPhone and Windows mobiles. The app is fairly basic, for example you can't zoom in/out of the graphical information. There is also no way to use the data outside of the app, something that needs to be addressed as soon as possible as it really limits the usefulness of the data collected. For example, importing tracked activity into the Withings ecosystem or one of the many run tracking apps. In use the monochrome screen appeared nice and clear, testing it during the winter months means it's not been tested in direct sunlight, however there was plenty of darkness and the moment it goes dark you won't be able to see it without pressing one of the buttons, it would benefit from the Pebble `flick to light' gesture. Time can be displayed either as a digital clock or a traditional analogue clock. The digital version has the advantage of also displaying a battery indicator, date, and days activity meter along the bottom whereas the analogue version just shows the time and todays date. The watch interface takes a bit of getting use to, but is actually very simple when you get your head round it. The menu system is made up of two parts, a vertical menu and a horizontal menu. The bottom button changes the vertical menu, rotating between: Clock Activity Pulse Session Settings The top button changes the horizontal menu for the option you're on, so for example on the clock setting it would change from a digital watch face to an analogue watch face. As there is no touch functionality you have to scroll through the menus, and while simple to use it could be a bit frustrating navigating the settings menu, one press too far and you have to scroll through all the options to get back to the one you want. In the manual there is an extra screen mentioned: Steps/Pedometer. This wasn't present. Nor when first used was there any sign of the sleep tracking function mentioned on the website, it appears this watch is still in development as towards the end of the testing period a firmware update was pushed out adding in a beta sleep tracker. This feature is still in development and the first time it logged sleep data was during a gaming session on the Xbox One. It's very likely that the only screen you'll want to look at when you first put the watch on is the Pulse screen. This is the watch's differentiator, the reason to pick this over all other trackers: it measures your pulse in real time! It does this via a sensor on the back of the watch and it'll automatically take readings periodically throughout the day without being on 'Pulse' mode so most of the time you can forget about the watch and just leave it to collect data throughout the day. The watch is a nicely designed activity tracker, one that stands out with it's premium finish. However, it's also very expensive and, at the time of review, feels unfinished/a work in progress which is disappointing given the high asking price.

As a keen sportsman I am always interested in tracking my movements and heart rate to get an accurate understanding of my performance and ability. Playing football on a regular basis, alongside frequent visits to the gym, I didn’t want just any old cheap, inaccurate tracking device that gives you false readings and measurements, I have seen that there are so many of these on the market and I am eager to stay away from them and save my money. Yes the Wellowgraph is up there with the premium priced sports trackers, that being said it does a lot more than most other sports trackers in this price bracket. The device itself arrived in a rather premium looking box, along with its upright charging dock and a very handy set of easy to use instructions (you will definitely be needing these). Opting for the black version, it looks extremely sleek and I particularly like the way you can clearly see the fine layer of glass that covers the top of the watch – it gives it a great finish. The strap is made from genuine leather, again being a premium product you would expect this. A lot of other sports bands/trackers use a rubber strap; however this ultimately gives the tracker a cheap look, glad to see Wellowgraph have taken the risk in keeping with their luxurious brand and feel. Onto functionally and there really isn’t a lot this device can’t do. It has time and date, pulse and heart rate monitoring represented either on a daily or weekly basis, as well as distance tracking and sleep tracking (this is a soon to be added feature sometime in the near future, or so I’ve read online). It also has a fitness test in which it will ask you to take part in certain activities and then measure your heart rate based on age, weight and height etc, I’ve tried this feature out a couple of times but personally it’s not the sort of thing I use all that often. I’m a big fan of how the watch will measure your heart rate and pulse, and then convert it into an easy to use graph. To a lot of people this may sound pointless and a bit random, however when used properly it really help to understand at which points of the activity they start to fatigue, and at which points you were most energetic. As far as I can tell the accuracy of the Wellowgraph is also very high. A lot of trackers will get the amount of steps you take completely wrong, but the Wellowgraph presents reasonable data, making it a very reliable device. The free downloadable app allows you to look at your actives either on a daily basis, or by session. This is a cool feature as it means you can track how hard you’ve worked throughout the week through each different activity. This does genuinely help to track your fitness levels and gives you a push to work harder and beat previous records. The free downloadable app that links to Wellowgraph via Bluetooth is a great support platform for the watch. At first I had a few issues connecting the watch to my phone, it took 3 or 4 times for my phone to actually pick it up, but it has never had any issues since the first sync. It’s easy to navigate, smartly designed and shows your data in an easy to understand format. It allows you to look at your activities either day by day or week by week, and formats them into a graph. This helps you to see at which point through your workouts you have pushed yourself the hardest and which points you could have worked harder, much like you can do on the actual watch itself, however in slightly more detail. I think the only thing that’s missing from this watch is a GPS tracker – for the amount of money you pay it would have been great to have a feature that allows you to actually track where you’ve run and give you an exact distance. This would also allow for further accuracy, and could potentially make the watch a little more desirable for those who use it specifically for running. Clearly a lot of time has gone into the development of this deceive to ensure it stays one step ahead of the competitors in terms of quality (looks and feel), and functionality. Apart from these small improvement I’ve mentioned, the Wellowgraph is a great device, it has proven to be very accurate, and despite being up there with its premium price point, I think it lives up to it very well.