It seems that the world just can't make enough wearable fitness-tracking doohickeys. I've tried products from Fitbit, Jawbone, and Striiv, and now I spent the past couple weeks with another step counter in my pocket: The Withings Pulse.
The Pulse is a $100 tracker that measures steps, elevation, distance, calories burned, heart rate, and sleep quality. It's a small, rounded rectangular, solid-feeling piece of black plastic, with a bright blue LED display. It weighs eight grams.
The Pulse is a straightforward activity tracker.
The Pulse pairs via Bluetooth; it works with the iPhone 3GS and newer, along with Android 2.3.3 and higher. It charges via Micro-USB, though the exceedingly tiny charging cable the Pulse ships with strikes me as kind of nutty. Fully charged, the Pulse should offer two weeks of battery life. I haven't recharged mine in 13 days, and it's still showing about a quarter of battery life remaining.
If you drain the Pulse down to zero, all is not lost: The device offers another 24 hours of tracking with its display shut off. So if you're the kind of person who doesn't refill the tank until the in-dash warning starts dinging, the Pulse's equivalent is that one day of blank tracking.
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