Review: Misfit Shine Fitness Tracker

Today we have another fitness tracker -- the Misfit Shine. It cost $100, but if it doesn’t look that impressive, well...that’s because it’s not.DESIGNOther reviewers have offered the Misfit Shine glowing praise, calling it “stylish and futuristic.” Right. It looks like a Mentos tablet, or some dinky toy watch you’d at the grocery store just to get your kid to stop complaining that you’re not buying Frosted Flakes.Though to Misfit’s credit, you can put the Shine in a few different holsters to change the look, but none is particularly more attractive than the others. The Shine just doesn’t...well, shine. It’s minimalist if anything, which kind of contradicts the whole “Misfit” name.There’s no real interface on the Shine itself -- you tap the face to get a daily progress indication, followed by the time. Everything’s represented by LEDs, which is an interesting idea, but it’s not totally accurate or intuitive. There’s a gigantic empty space in the center, which seems like the obvious place to put more LEDs for a digital clock.You’ll also notice that the Shine doesn’t have a USB port for charging -- that’s because it’s powered by a disc battery -- which necessitates the Shine’s shape. The good news is that the battery is supposed to last a few months, although ours died after a week. But hey, the Shine is sealed, so it’s waterproof.FunctionSo, like all fitness trackers, the Shine is first and foremost a pedometer.Your efforts are ranked on a points scale for some reason. You get points for automatically tracked activities, but it’s never made clear how much more high-intensity exercises are worth -- I got 700 out of a daily 1000 point goal just for running ¾ of a mile. Yet a 15 minute hike only granted 100 or so points. It’s a different approach, but none of the metrics are ever explained.Any real points the Shine might have won with a quirky point systtem went straight down the drain when I explored the app. Yep. This is what you get in the Android version of the Misfit app. Just this. Now to be fair, the iOS version is supposedly so much better, but if Misfit wasn’t ready with an equally robust Android experience, they shouldn’t have released it.If you’re an Android user, skip this altogether, the app is just not ready for primetime. ConclusionMaybe Misfit’s next wearable will be more worthwhile. But as it stands? Unless you’ve got an iPhone, you should pass on this.