[guylhem]

All the sensors + apparently a very lightweight OS + small form factor = I like it.

The killing feature is the integrated GPS. As mentionned on the website, you can go without your phone. That alone could make it a buy if it supports wireless charging (I don't want to bother with wires in 2014)

Also, it is multiplatform, which is a big plus. I do not want an android watch or an iwatch, but something that will work regardless of the cellphone I chose.

I wonder if there's a devkit to read the data. If some HN is from Microsoft, I'd love some links to the devkit page (simple stuff, like retreiving GPS log, heartrate log, etc)

[felixrieseberg]

Hey, I'm an Open Source Engineer with MSFT (and the msft dude for YC) - there isn't anything out yet, but we have always released SDKs for pretty much anything we build.

[swartkrans]

If this thing works with Android I'd definitely consider getting one. I'm considering getting a fitbit or pebble but maybe I'll wait.

[cwyers]

They've announced apps for iOS, Android and Windows Phone, at launch.

[integraton]

Do those apps support HealthKit and Google Fit?

[integraton]

Follow-up: as far as I can tell, it appears that Microsoft has decided to not integrate with HealthKit and Google Fit.

[dmishe]

Even if they do, it seems that you get the best of it by syncing to MS cloud with algos to run over your data.

[cyanbane]

Looks like it supports data relay to MapMyFitness Suite of Apps, which I would think could then relay it to HealthKit if there is not already a direct export from MS's iOS App.

[gaius]

... But not BB, unless it runs in the Android emulation layer.

[boydjd]

Is anyone even making new apps for BB now?

[iancarroll]

When they pay developers to do so, yeah.

[jmsdnns]

What does "the msft dude for YC" mean?

[grimmfang]

Companies like AWS, Google, and MSFT have representatives that consult with YC founders to help them with engineering goals. I suppose to up-sell them on scaling with their platform.

[rjbwork]

Person scaling with Azure here. It's pretty awesome and easy.

But dear god, the XML! They've started making more and more stuff code-configurable though, so that's good.

[jacquesm]

> Person scaling with Azure here. It's pretty awesome and easy.

And it's pretty expensive.

Now, if your competitor is on an open stack and on real computers they will eventually run rings around you because they get more control and lower costs. The initial boost you're experiencing will turn into a straightjacket with a hefty pricetag over the longer term.

[gadders]

Stack Overflow seem to be doing OK: http://highscalability.com/blog/2014/7/21/stackoverflow-upda...

I think there is a case for an open stack, but I think unless you pick a real dog of a platform good people can make it work well. It comes down to a "can I get good people for stack X?" as much as "Does stack X work or cost too much?"

[jaegerpicker]

You do realize that Azure has about as much to do with windows as AWS, right? I use Azure to run a completely open source stack based on node, postgres, and python. I also have a long term windows server in AWS. Azure is every bit as open as any other "cloud" based stack

[skc]

> And it's pretty expensive.

Nice blanket statement there. How can you claim it's expensive when you have no idea what or how he uses it?

[UK-AL]

The biggest problem for a startup is getting out there, and getting transaction and revenue. Not penny pinching over what servers your going to use. You want to use as much pre-made stuff to give you the biggest head start as possible.

When you take off, you can raise money to pay people to move you over anyway.

[onion2k]

Now, if your competitor is on an open stack and on real computers they will eventually run rings around you because they get more control and lower costs.

Obviously it depends on what you're actually doing, but for a straightforward SaaS app (a few servers, a db server, a queue and a load balancer in a few datacentres around the world) one good sysadmin/devops guy costs far more than a set of AWS instances that essentially scale themselves.

Having dedicated people necessary for that 'control' is beyond the budget of the majority of startups.

[wfjackson]

>Now, if your competitor is on an open stack and on real computers they will eventually run rings around you because they get more control and lower costs. The initial boost you're experiencing will turn into a straightjacket with a hefty pricetag over the longer term.

From another post by you: >Because I have fairly extensive insight into a very large number of companies and can see their license bills as well as their cloud bills if those are applicable.

Since you claim to have a lot of info on this can you give any, even one, real world example of you just said happening?

Otherwise I am going to call BS on it.

Perhaps you're starting something that is going to take down NewEgg.com ? You're clearly missing the forest for trees here. At work we run a large mix of Windows Servers, SQL servers, Linux, Drupal, MySQL, Moodle etc. running fairly traffic heavy and top ranking public health sites and all said our licensing and hosting costs are about 2% of our annual budget.

[jacquesm]

It means: try to get companies that otherwise would not go for Microsoft products to give it a try through free product samples, and talking down companies not microsoft.

I really wished that companies like Microsoft, Google and so on would not have a 'HN guy' (and would not have non-disclosed HN guys either, Felix is at least above board on that), it can make it a lot harder to figure out what is a genuine user experience and what is product placement.

Unless the Microsoft stack is something you already have experience with you're much better off using non-proprietary stack software. Anything coming out of Microsoft will sooner or later cause a bunch of licenses to be sold somewhere down the line or monthly invoices for metered usage to appear so make sure you know exactly what you're getting into. $50K in freebies will have to translate into $50K more profit somewhere along the line.

[ntakasaki]

Great job on completely derailing the topic here with unrelated flamebait by confusing HN with YC.

Hint: HN is a message board, YC is a startup accelerator. They are NOT the same. And yes, there are plenty of startups that do quite okay on the MS stack and for many it may not be a good fit. Your post adds nothing new to the discussion.

>It means: try to get companies that otherwise would not go for Microsoft products to give it a try through free product samples, and talking down companies not microsoft.

But luckily we have you to talk down Microsoft.

>$50K in freebies will have to translate into $50K more profit somewhere along the line.

And paying $50K for hosting when you have no money can just shutdown a startup instead of increasing its costs by 1% down the line. Hosting is the biggest cost for a startup most of the time, it can't be "free" like founders time.

Anyway, got any thoughts on the Microsoft Band?

[jacquesm]

Right...

https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=ntakasaki

Every third or so link you posted has 'microsoft' in it.

As for me confusing HN and YC, I'm quite aware of the difference between the two and as far as I know I didn't confuse them in the least. Lots of start-up people frequent HN, YC related founder or not they are better off using what is most cost effective for them. This will rarely translate to 'microsoft'.

Hosting is almost never the biggest cost for a start-up, but it can be the biggest cost for a larger company, which is what most start-up aim to become.

$50K for hosting through 'Azure' or some other cloud company typically translates into a few grand from a dedicated hosting provider, by far the most cost effective hosting solution available to start-ups and successful companies alike.

Thanks for not making this personal.

[ntakasaki]

>As for me confusing HN and YC, I'm quite aware of the difference between the two and as far as I know I didn't confuse them in the least. Lots of start-up people frequent HN

Felix said he's the MS person for YC. You misrepresented it as HN a couple of times. Please read your post again.

>Every third or so link you posted has 'microsoft' in it.

But we do have you to counterbalance me.

>Hosting is almost never the biggest cost for a start-up, but it can be the biggest cost for a larger company, which is what most start-up aim to become.

What? What is the biggest cost for a startup in the initial phase when founders are not taking salaries? Rent for sleeping? Ramen noodles? Which large company has the biggest cost as hosting? Even 50k/yr is like 1/3rd of a Silicon level salary. It's like you got it completely backwards.

Anyway, all this unrelated to the topic at hand and does not belong here. There were numerous HN threads with this discussion and please write your thoughts as a blog post and you'll have my upvote.

Again, got any thoughts on the Microsoft Band? If not, /thread, I am out.

[lhl]

I assume that these days MS is mostly pitching Azure which pretty happily runs Linux VMs. It feels like any YC team (the guy said he's the "the msft dude for YC" not HN) worth their salt will need to learn how to navigate evaluating vendor promises sooner rather than later anyway (not to mention the mentoring/advice they should be getting from YC if they're not so experienced, or the fact that $50K is what, only 25% of a fully-loaded FTE cost anyway?).

[radmuzom]

The "much" better off is an assumption. If I remember correctly, Fogcreek primarily uses a Microsoft stack; so did lot of people who used to hang around in the Business of Software forum run by Joel Spolsky. Most of them had bootstrapped companies rather than use a lot of VC money to buy expensive tools. Most of them did quite well making money with their business. Using open tools is not a criterion for both technical or business success.

[ghshephard]

Joel Spolsky - former Microsoft Product Manager? Yes, it's not particularly surprising that they would use Microsoft Products - their incredible familiarity with the product would offset any downstream licensing costs.

Small business usually get everything for free (or nobody bothers to check in on their licensing status, at the very least, they run on a massive discount using "developer editions").

Very large businesses have so much bureaucratic overhead, that unless their core business is Software/service (I.E. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Dropbox, etc...) - the cost of software licenses is minor, and anything they can save by going with something "Standard and Supported" is worth the offset.

But, anybody interested in trying to run their small-medium business on something like Oracle Enterprise edition on their 16 Core Server will quickly start taking a second look at Postgress/MariaDB once they see what the annual licensing costs for Oracle are. Partitioning and Optimizer are only worth so much...

[jacquesm]

Fogcreek is run by ex microsoft people that had extensive experience with the stack before starting fogcreek, it made excellent sense for them to use what they already knew how to use.

[mattmanser]

You're talking about their business arm as if it were the consumer arm.

To the best of my knowledge, no-one who bought the Zune ended up paying $50k to MS for it.

[jacquesm]

I'm not talking about their consumer arm at all. No idea where the Zune came from, I was talking about their $50K credits for using their cloud platform.

[klausjensen]

I am curious, what is that 50k for Azure hosting program?

The regular Bizspark is 100USD/month.

[dalys]

Any idea about Microsoft Health and when an API might be available? Something we would like to work with at my company probably. :)

[jchristman]

Is there any way to make iOS integration work better? I know that Apple Jails things and limits the BT. I am just hoping that a tweak will allow iPhones to use Siri with the cortana integration, and allow canned responses for SMS.

Also, my notifications have been spotty, but I may reset and start over, because my friend with a band is not having that issue.

[kevingadd]

It's a shame there's no way to communicate feedback to the Band team that I can see on the website! I picked one up and like it so far, but it'll be a real disappointment if I can't ever use the mic for Google Now. Not expecting Cortana-level integration, it would just be silly for the mic to go to waste.

[wildpeaks]

By any chance, do you already know which language(s) the SDK will support?

[CmonDev]

Please give a link to a basic C# tutorial for MS Health.

[jchristman]

I heard "next year"

[simi_]

It's ugly, but if I were in the market for a smartwatch/fitness tracker this might be the only one I'd bother with.

As I find myself saying more and more, I love this new Microsoft. It's insane how much harm a single man can do.

[krzyk]

Ugly? For me it's one of the best designs for a smartwatch (I think Samsung or Sony also have this "band" design), not the big clunky watches that were released this year.

[agumonkey]

And they embraced their difference. It's not a luxury e-watch. Very little to no skeumorphism. And the vertical layout fitting the tiles list... very very nice derivation of the Metro language. Felt right at first sight.

[AtmaScout]

I'm in agreement. I really like the way this looks.

[bduerst]

I agree. It looks like something out of a scifi movie that tries to be trendy, which is a good thing in this case.

[ploureiro]

I actually see this as a great fitness tracker (that is why I might buy it) but I don't see it as a smart watch (and I'm not complaining about that).

In order to be a smart watch it would need to do more "smart" things such as showing notifications, interacting with third-party apps, etc. If you have a Windows Phone you can talk to cortana so it's the closest thing to a smart phone you can get on that OS, but still it's clearly not as powerful as what Android Wear and probably Apple Watch can do.

[k-mcgrady]

>> "but I don't see it as a smart watch"

Neither does MS. I read an interview with one of the product leads on The Verge and he said it is not a smart watch. He envisions you continue wearing your watch on one are and this primarily as a fitness tracker and productivity device on the other.

[nilkn]

The thing is that this seems to have all of the most useful features of nearly all current smartwatches. If it can deliver text, Hangouts, email, and calendar notifications to your wrist as claimed, then that alone accounts for the majority of smartwatch usage. The Cortana integration accounts for nearly the rest, though unfortunately that's only available with a Windows Phone. Here's to hoping that it will be possible to add Google Now support for Android phones.

[TheTaO]

> but still it's clearly not as powerful as what Android Wear and probably Apple Watch can do.

What do you mean? What is it that they do that this will not do? I think Microsoft should have just marketed it as a watch. To me it seems to have everything I will need in a smartwatch.

[sfiles]

I think trying not to fall into the category of "smartwatch" is the point, marketing tactic if you will. The smartwatch is the new wave, and the companies you would expect are jumping on board. By not marketing as a smartwatch they set themselves apart, yet have some of the key functionality people are looking for

[guardian5x]

I think it does show notifications.

[anotherblue]

It does.

[talles]

What do you mean by "It's insane how much harm a single man can do"?

[nbuggia]

I assume he's referring to Steve Ballmer.

[72deluxe]

Haha is that sarcasm? Do you mean harm ==== good, or harm === bad? And harm to who?

EDIT: No idea why I am getting downvoted - it's a serious question!

[notwedtm]

As nbuggia pointed out above, it's likely he's talking about the circus that was Microsoft under Ballmer.

[numo16]

Based on this interview/article on the verge [0], it sounds like there are plans to open up to devs eventually (not surprised, considering microsoft's current trends), sounds like they are just taking this one step at a time.

[0]: http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/29/7118533/microsoft-health-...

[hbharadwaj]

GPS alone re-categorizes this. One small addition - they are also heavily emphasizing the Health Cloud alongside the band as a feature

http://www.microsoft.com/Microsoft-Health/en-us

[glibgil]

I'm waiting until 2016 to not bother with wires. Am I being too patient?

[nilkn]

Several Android and Windows phones support wireless charging or can be modified to do so. (E.g., the Nexus 6 supports it and with the Note line you can just swap out the back panel for a special one). Devices like the Moto 360 also support wireless charging.

[bhauer]

I've been using wireless charging for nearly two years on my Lumia 920. And for the past year, my wife's Lumia Icon has been doing the same. I picked up a couple more charging plates when she switched to Windows Phone.

Now that I've used wireless charging, I'll never go back. Connecting wires to charge is so 2012. I want my Surface Pro to charge wirelessly. And my Tesla Model S (well, that is, if I had one).

[dingaling]

One benefit of old-school wired charging is that I can still use the device in a normal orientation whilst it is charging, so long as the cable is long enough.

Do you find that wireless charging prevents that? I assume the fevice has to lie flat on the plate somewhere near a power outlet.

[freehunter]

Seriously, I hate everyone who bought an Android phone instead of a Palm Pre in 2009-2010, because if they did, we would still have the incredible things they came up with. Not only did they have C++/Javascript/HTML as their programming stack and not only did they provide directions on their site on how to root their devices and boot custom kernels over USB, they had wireless charging built in and had a great wireless charging stand that I used on my HP Touchpad for years until it finally gave out. You can have the tablet standing at any angle you want, working on it (boot into Ubuntu with a wireless keyboard, why not? It's a Palm) while it's wirelessly charging.

But no, Google was cool and Palm was old hat, so now they're gone and we are using Java to make apps and charging by laying our phones flat and plugging our tablets into the wall.

[ibrahima]

I have a Qi charger for my Nexus 5 and I run into this issue sometimes, because eg. I come home and my phone is almost dead but I still want to use it. The solution is pretty easy though, I just unplug the micro USB from my charging pad and plug it directly into my phone if I want to do that. At least when I'm at home I just leave it on the charger most of the time so I don't have to worry about charge.

[bhauer]

I have a couple flat charging plates and on my desk, I use the angled plate [1]. That said, I don't actually use my phone all that much while it's on a charging plate.

But as others have pointed out, when you have wireless charging plates at your home and office, you'll routinely just drop your phone on a plate just as peers will drop theirs on a their desk. You'll find your phone is more often at full charge. I've only fully-drained the battery a handful of times (much use while away from any charging, wires included) and observed it in battery-saver mode another handful.

I would say a wireless-charging device with ample charging plates (say, 3 or 4) gives you a blissful ignorance of battery life. It's analogous to the bliss I had when I drove an electric car—contrary to conventional wisdom I found that electric cars create range bliss rather than range anxiety. Every time you leave your home for the day, the car is at full capacity. You never have to plan a visit to a refilling station. With a wirelessly-charged phone, I scarcely look at my phone's battery indicator; it's just not an issue.

And just to be as clear as possible, you can still connect a traditional micro USB cord to charge these phones if that's all you have handy.

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/accessory/dt-910/

[math0ne]

It does prevent that but it also prevents my device from ever being dead because whenever I'm at my desk I just put it on the charger. With the wired chargers in the past it was a paint to plug and unplug so my phone was always low but with the wireless stuff my device is naturally juicy all the time.

[annnnd]

Have the batteries progressed enough that this kind of charging is no longer a problem? (I am talking about memory effect)

[chiph]

The charger I have props the phone up at an angle. You can interact with it in a limited sense, but of course if you pick it up you'll take it out of range of the charger. So good for things like swiping to see how many messages you have and so forth, but not for making calls, playing games, etc. But if you do, you just set it back down on the charger when you're done -- no need to fool with a cord, or stay within cord-length.

[boyaka]

Although battery swapping has obvious disadvantages such as requiring a power cycle and fumbling with the battery and a battery cover (as well as your external charger), it certainly beats wired/wireless charging in this aspect in that it provides immediate usage, not tethered to a wire or a charging plate.

[notwedtm]

I use the AirDock[0] as a wireless charger. It has a magnet in it that holds the phone at any orientation you desire.

[0]: http://theairdock.com/

[ibrahima]

The one thing I dislike a bit is that the phone seems to heat up a bit more than via normal charging, so if I have to take a call after it's been sitting on the charger it's a bit uncomfortable. Otherwise, it's pretty slick.

[viewer5]

Do wireless chargers spend more electricity to charge your phone? Or the same amount?

[sbierwagen]

Depends on the method, but you can be sure that you're losing at least 10% to inductive/RF losses, and more typically 20%.

Reasonable for a phone, batshit insane for EV charging, which is why Magne Charge never took off. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magne_Charge) 20% of 6 kW for every car, times millions of cars...

[ethana]

When I had a L920, I noticed the charging plate and phone would get really hot, even after the phone is charged to 100%. Through the wire, the heat is minimal like every other phone. So, base on heat dissipation, I would say yes.

[turnip1979]

I have Qi in my phone. Meh ...it isn't as amazing as I thought it would be.

[mrkipling]

It works exactly as I expected it too though. I don't look at it every day and think "wow, this is amazing"; it just works and I don't really think about it at all, which is how it should be. I'm not sure that I would buy a phone without wireless charging now.

[iamshs]

Regarding charging:- "Connector: Magnetically coupled connector to USB" http://goo.gl/mDFKbM

[jarin]

I wonder how they're getting around Apple's MagSafe patent, considering Apple doesn't license it out?

[iamshs]

Surface also uses these magnetic connectors btw. So either there is a patent sharing agreement, so they have somehow circumvented it.

[Joeri]

Apple and microsoft have a permanent patent deal since the 90's. They can use each other's patents for free as long as they don't make direct competitors. Hence why this is a fitness band and not a smartwatch ;)

[NickNameNick]

Microsoft have a patent on power-and-data connectors, which have shown up on devices before (I think ms kin phone had one)

[chaostheory]

I wonder if you can ping the MS Band's GPS similar to Apple's Find My Friends feature? If so this would be an awesome feature. My parents, who are older, don't like carrying phones. This would be really convenient safety wise.

[kalleboo]

It would need a radio transmitter for that. GPS is one-way.

[jchimney]

well invested in the apple ecosystem but this seems very good. I am very intrigued and may well end up with a few of these in my family. If the reality matches the marketing, I'm in. For a fitness accessory the on device GPS is the killer app.

[at-fates-hands]

My only beef with these "fitness bands" is their lack of being able to tell you how accurately you sleep at night. Without a heart rate monitor, there's really no way to be accurate other than to say you were restless versus laying still.

AFAIK the only product that does this is Polar's fitness band. And only because you can link their heart rate monitor to it to give you additional fitness information. I could be wrong to think they're the only one combining the two.

[crwll]

Did you read the linked product page? It specifically boasts sleep tracking and 24-hour heart rate tracking.

[at-fates-hands]

I actually missed it the first two times I read it. So yeah, I want one now. Thanks for pointing it out to me.

I guess this means I won't be switching back to Android for a while now, just to see how my WP8 and this work together.

[CmonDev]

No barometer/altitude sensor though?

[Aissen]

Barometer can be useful to accelerate a GPS fix or to have some sort of weather forecast. But for altitude, once GPS is fixed, you have reliable enough altitude, hence it wouldn't be that useful.

[Istof]

that killing feature is very power hungry which is probably why others didn't include it

[wfjackson]

The iWatch looks clunky and thick from some angles and tries too hard to be a smartphone on your wrist.

http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/iwatch-i...

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTtB7RX...

The Moto 360 looks better because it's round but the UI is made for a square device.

Whereas this appears to be a reimagination in an authentically digital and modern format. The iWatch is already looking outdated IMO.

[sjwright]

> The iWatch looks

Apple's wrist worn product is not called iWatch, and that linked picture is not of an Apple product.