Remember the Microsoft Band? The wrist-worn health tracker released in 2014 with a disconcerting thud; our editor in chief himself reviewed the unit and warned that “you’ll grow to hate carrying it as an awful lot as I have.” Just two years later, the tech organization abandoned it in the face of fierce opposition from the makers of similar gadgets. Microsoft persevered to help the Band and comply with-on Band 2 (our EiC’s assessment of that product? It “collapses quickly of the finish line“) via its Health Dashboard apps and offerings, but on Friday, Microsoft introduced it’s ultimately pulling the plug at the platform. This approach that from May 31, 2019, Microsoft will give up an assist for the Health Dashboard, with all related apps set to depart the Microsoft Store, Google Play, and Apple App shop at the same time. While customers might hold the use of their Microsoft Band device, the net-related features will now not be available, the organization showed in a message on its internet site. Band proprietors have until the end of May 2019 to export their fitness facts or switch it to some other service or wearable.
Refund
Notably, Microsoft said it’d offer a refund to satisfied customers who personal the Band. It consists of the ones whose tool continues to be protected below assurance, or all of us considered as a “lively user” of the device. Microsoft defines this as a person “who has worn the Band on their wrist and completed data sync from the Band to the Health Dashboard between December 1, 2018, and March 1, 2019.” If that’s you, then anticipate receiving an e-mail with refund commands — and make sure to install your claim earlier than August 30, 2019. Owners of the authentic Band, which launched in 2014 for $200, will acquire $80, even as proprietors of the Band 2, which offered for $250, gets $a hundred seventy-five.
Microsoft Band
The GPS-enabled Band can remember steps, reveal coronary heart price, map runs, calculate ultraviolet exposure, and provide sleep records, amongst different capabilities. It also can send notifications thru a smartphone by way of a gentle vibration—the device was released in October 2014 with the improved Band 2 following precisely a year later. But within the fall of 2016, Microsoft introduced it had offered out of the tracker and had no plans to make any more. The decision came across the identical time because the Apple Watch released, which had health trackers very much in its points of interest, even as competition, including Fitbit, were already taking part in first-rate sales with their services.
