Philips Health Watch, Connected Activity & Sleep Tracker and Heart Rate Monitor, Bluetooth, Black

I honestly feel as though this is a missed potential. The watch offers no novel functionality, despite the change of marketing to reflect public health. While the connectivity with the scale, thermometer, and blood pressure cuffs is interesting, it doesn't deliver anything to the experience that competitors don't do better.As a medical device, the heart rate sensor is interesting, or it would have been years ago. Unfortunately, the market is saturated with similar devices at the same or lower pricepoint. Healthcare professionals may want a device to keep track of at-risk patients, but the separate thermometers, scales, and blood pressure monitors would surely give a more usable insight into patient health than just heart rate and sleep. Perhaps software updates would provide new sensing to the device, but acceleromoters and IR sensors have their limits. IEEE mentions the possibility of blood sugar measurement, but the handful of successful noninvasive glucose monitors are either generally inaccurate or use alternate technologies, such as laser. The watch could, when combined with the other devices, be used as a hub for other readings, but an existing smartphone would be more effective and flexible for both non-bluetooth devices and, more importantly, general feeling and mood, which can be important depending on conditions a patient may have.As an activity tracker, the lacking gamification doesn't do much to push people toward goals other than step count. It vibrates a bit when you do reach such a step goal, and presumably shares this information with your physician if you've enabled such a thing, but that's it so far. Integration with other applications like strava could be done in the future, to use competition as a motivator to bike, run or swim* (the watch doesn't want to swim; but most other similar devices don't either). Possibly due to the fact that I'm reviewing this pre-release, there's no social aspect to it; you don't challenge your friends to beat your step count, or anything of the sort. Furthermore, I don't believe that you get any cumulative awards to contextualize the changes you've made to your lifestyle, which may cause users to lose the extra motivation needed to consistently improve.To call this device a smartwatch is a stretch, while you can interact with it using the unique and responsive ring on the outside of the face, the device doesn't forward phone notifications to you. The simplicity is likely essential to older patients less in touch, but it limits other users from expanding the watch to its functionality. I could see, perhaps, a software update where the ring is used to enter letters or numbers like a rotary phone for calling or texting, but I'm unsure of how effective such an input scheme would be.The build quality seems nice over the short time I've used it; the design is simple and relatively stylish, at least per my tastes, but nothing special in this regard.Overall, this device acts like an expensive (MSRP is currently set at $250) unfeatured fitness tracker, with a half-baked plan to communicate with physicians. It may fit a niche audience that I am unable to forsee, but I'm not able to recommend this product in either its current form or even with reasonable software patches.

I've only had it for 2 days (I pre-ordered it), however so far it has an excellent combination of features! (For reference, I also own the Microsoft Band 2; Jawbone UP3, Pebble Time Steel & Round; Garmin Forerunner 235 & Vivosmart HR; Asus Vivowatch; Fitbit Blaze & Surge, among others... with my point being that I know what I want in a "health watch".)The bottom line is that the Philips Watch has the same bezel and screen size as the Pebble Time Round, and the Philips Watch has the same fitness tracking feature-set of the Basis Peak, but in a round form factor. (No notifications or other "smart watch" features, though, on the Philips Watch.) As examples of the striking function similarities with the Philips Watch to the Basis Peak: they both auto-recognize walk/run/bike, they both have always-on HR and always-on screen... heck even the sleep tracking (REM/Deep/Light/Awake) graphs look the same. It's probably a good thing that the Philips Watch does not have phone notifications, though... because the Basis Peak was recently recalled because they put too many "smart" features in with updates... that ultimately caused the Peak to overheat.Pros of the Philips Watch:- Stainless steel housing & gorilla glass screen- Highly reflective screen, for good visibility in strong and low light.. along with an auto-backlight for the dark- Subtle good looks, it does not scream fitness tracker at all- Clinically validated heart rate accuracy! (This is the only wrist-based HR device with proven accuracy at a medical device level)- 4 day battery life (2 days so far and 50% used, so that seems about right)... for always-on HR monitoring and always-on screen, that is very good.- Standard offerings of alarm clock, timer, chronograph- Auto-recognition of walk, run or bikeride... both good and bad (see below)- Good universal size for men or women (like I said, use the Pebble Time Round for reference)Cons of the Philips Watch:- No notifications from the phone (no text, call, email, etc.) Yes, it lightly vibrates if you hit a goal or the alarm goes off.- The band is quick-change, yes, but the band width is 21mm. That is an "odd" size, so none of my standard 20mm or 22mm bands fit.- No GPS- Only 2 faces... analog clock or digital clock- It is fairly thick- Auto-recognition of biking is too sensitive... it registers a moving leg with a hand on it (sitting at a desk) as bikingYou would get the Philips Watch if you like the auto-tracking features of the Fitbit (Blaze/Charge/Surge)... but want a round watch... and don't mind the absence of notifications & absence of GPS.

I need help, I installed it on my phone, BQ Aquaris E5 (from Spain), I registered correctly but when I'm pairing the Philips Health Watch with my phone it doesn't work, the watch seems to be paired, I see the check signal at the watch but the phone is still searching for the watch. At bluetooh options (at phone) I can see the watch as paired, but the app is still searching.The watch can't work without pairing to a phone.

This watch is just OK. Not great, but certainly does not suck.Pros:-The look, I love the way it looks.-The fit, it looks a little bulky at first but you really don't notice it much.-The app, syncing it to the app is no problem and it updating it is easy. The app pairs with other devices so all the data is in one placeCons:-Cost, it is pretty expensive for it's capabilities.-No notifications, even the basic fitbits can send you text/call alerts so I really don't know why this cant-Touchy navigation, sometimes the bezel doesn't recognize swipes or taps if they are too fast/slow, which makes it a bit of a pain to get from front screen to steps (tap 3 times to unlock, swipe twice to left)It could use a little bit of work, it would be nice to be able to display steps along with the time on the front display. Overall I wouldn't really recommend unless you love the way it looks, use other Phillips health devices, or aren't really concerned about the cost.

Gave this to my husband and he really liked it. Found it in New York Times article. Got great review there. It's really nice looking as well.