Misfit Ray, always on activity tracker

I wear a traditional watch and a smart watch. I really like the traditional watch as an authentic timepiece, and it was a gift so it's special to me. The smart watch is really a wrist computer to me, not a timepiece. I use a so-called watch face that has a lot of widgets on the screen to make it more practical in combination with my real watch.

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I don't like wearing either to bed as they are too bulky. Also funny enough, taking them off is a nice part of my pre-sleep routine and I like feeling like I disrobe before sleeping, change clothes, etc.

However I really wanted to be able to track my sleep with some kind of gadget. This is part of my Quantified Self quest, so understand my patterns and habits through actual data logging instead of poor memory and feeling.

I happened across a bargain in my local computer shop, a Misfit Ray. It was in clearance because they had a lot of newer gizmos, but I have to say that it's a solid device and would have been well worth full price.

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Here are some of the pros

• Long lasting battery
• Cheap
• Small form factor, light
• Wear all the time, including at night

The batter lasts for about 6 months. It is able to do this largely because it is not in regular communication with the paired phone, and doesn't do much except monitor your movements. I think this is a perfect tradeoff. It takes 3 button batteries.

It's small and light enough to not bother you while you sleep, or during the day. I work on the computer all day and I even find that does not get in the way. I have it on the same wrist as my watch, my left, and it coexists well with it.

The software and tracking

The companion app is really good also. It would probably be functionally useless without this, and all the redeeming physical qualities squandered.

It gives you a good idea of your day time activity, including recognition of steps taken, or doing particular sports including running and swimming. It also tracks your sleep, including restful time, light time and awake time.

You set an activity and sleep goal. The activity goal is measured in a arbitrary unit, I don't know what is it, but reach 1000 of these points is a fairly active day. The sleep goal is just in hours slept.

Here are some of my latest graphs.

Day overview

Today I reached the activity goal, which I'm pretty happy about, and last nights sleep goal of 8 hours. The activity I did today was some interval training for running, and a leisurely hour or so walk with a friend.

Sleep pattern detail

It's interesting to see that there wan't that much actually restful sleep, only about 25%, and that it's distributed throughout the night, with longer stretches of light sleep as the morning comes.

Reaching todays activity goal

You can see those two active periods in the day, and that I just reached the 1000 point mark as I finished the walk.

Month progress

Sleeping

I did pretty well for a few stretches but you see that my sleep habit is very up and down, not regular at all. Some commitments I have with work and family keep me from this, that's what I think, but I could do better on this front. In the last few days I haven't had much sleep except last night, and I'm pretty tired right now.

Note also that that big dip on the 5th of April was actually a night without the device on, I forgot to put it on! The rest is pretty accurate.

Activity

My activity hasn't been very consistently high either over the last 6 weeks, only about 7 days of reaching the activity goal. I had some surgery last month and it set me back in my 5k training, I didn't actually get to do one yet and I'm starting the programme again, third time. But I have set the goal to try to get 4 out of the 7 days of the week reaching the activity target.

Recommendation

I've been using it every day since 29th March, about 6 weeks, and I would definitely recommend it if you are looking for something cheap and non intrusive to get an idea of your daily activity and sleep patterns.

Also, side note, I've tried out some HTML in this post and it works pretty well, nice to know it works. I'm also going to try out @treeplanter on this post as a way to promote it, also as an experiment because I haven't tried anything like that yet.