Fitness trackers or fitness bands are the new hit in the market, there are lots of companies joining the league, there are some India-based companies and then there are some outsiders who are coming here, but what they offers are more or less the same, you will get a band which you have to wear on your wrist and that’s it, it keep track of your activities which you will do on the daily basis and then at the end of the day you can sync your band with the app on your phone to see what you have done throughout the day.
But what does this band has done to make you fit? It is only tracking your activities, that’s it, and once it shows your activities, the ball will be in your court and you have to make plans to increase or decrease your activities. I have used a couple of fitness trackers earlier but after using them for a couple of weeks, I lost interest in them and then they find their place in my drawer.
A fitness tracker should keep you motivated and encourage you to keep yourself fit, and here comes Goqii, an India-based company which has done something different from what others are doing in the market,they are not only selling their fitness tracker but they are also bundling a real coach with it, yeah a real coach not a bot.
Goqii Setup :-
Once you have got your band, download a free app from your app store and install it, once it is install and signup with your email id or with social media, I tried to signup with Google but it fails to fetch my details and I have to manually enter my email ID and signup.
Once you are done with signup process, the app will ask your activation code which you must have got inside the box, enter it and then it will ask you to feed your details like height, weight, date of birth and so on. It works with Android 4.3 or higher, iOS version 7 or higher and Windows Phone 8.1 using BLE aka Bluetooth Low Energy, there is an app for PC and MAC as well.
Goqii Band:-
Like any other fitness tracker, the hero over here is your tracker, and it’s like any other tracker which you will find on the market, it consists of sensors which help in recording your activities. Inside the box you will find two straps, we got orange and a black, I used black one most of the time, there are nice bands available in the market then this but it does its job and these are decent enough to wear.
The core has got an OLED display with ‘+’ sign at the top, and pressing this ‘+’ button activates your display and shows time, date, battery, step count, distance walked, calories burned and your karma points.
At one end of your core, you will find two pins which will be used for charging your core with the supplied proprietary charger. It takes around three hours to get fully charge and once its charge, it last for around two days, which is something not good as there are many trackers which can last around a week on a single charge.
The Goqii band is water and splash resistance and you can easily take a shower with it, yes I did took a shower and it is still alive and working very fine, however, you should not swim with it.
Goqii App :-
While you wear this band on your wrist, you have sync your data with an app which you had already downloaded so that you can see your activities and send them to your coach (we will come to this very shortly). The app has lots of options which some of you might find useful but some of you like me find many options useless and might forget to enter details into it like it asks how many glasses of water you have drank throughout the day.
You have to enter your food intake into the app with a small description and if you want then you can also snap an image, here you don’t have to worry about the calories information about your food, it will be taken care by your coach.
At first, it might bother you as you have to enter each and every food intake details, but once you start using it, you will get use to of it, and as soon as I am done with my food, I enter it in the app, but be careful as once information is added, it can’t be edited, so be careful with typos.
Another unique and interesting thing which you will find here is Karma point which is calculated on the basis of your activities, and these karma points can be donated for any of the social cause featured on the app, I personally think it is a nice incentive as it gives feeling that you are not walking for yourself, but you are doing activity for some social cause as well.
There is a chat window as well where you can chat with your coach and share things and get feedback, all chat will be emailed to you and you will also receive a push notification for it.
Goqii In Use :-
Well I had tested it for a couple of months and I can easily say it is one of the accurate fitness trackers out there, it tracks my steps very well and converts them into the distance, the algorithm used here by Goqii seems to be very good. However, sometimes it does miscalculate my steps even while driving bicycle.
Another thing which I think was missing here is sleep tracker, most of the tracker nowadays comes with sleep tracker which can calculate your sleep automatically, here you have to do it manually, you have to long press ‘+’ to enter into sleep mode, it is something you need to remember, as even after using for couple of months sometimes I forget to enter into sleep mode before sleeping and sometimes I forget to get out of sleep in the morning.
Goqii’s Coach :-
Well here comes what makes this band stand out in the crowd, as soon as you fill up your details on the first start of app, you will be provided a personal coach and same was the case with me, on the next day of joining Goqii, I got a call from my coach and she tried to know more about my lifestyle, my sleeping habit, my eating pattern and much more, after which we discussed my goals which I have to achieve.
All food intake, the activity which I do and other things which I enter into the app are sent to my coach and she analyse them and then guide me what should I do and what not, which food should I take what should I have to avoid. At first, it was little difficult to adopt those suggestions, but slowly I started to adopt them.
What I like here much is that if I miss any of my goals then my coach motivates me and help me to achieve goals, it is something which is very useful and it’s not there in most of the other fitness trackers.
My coach never made any diet plan for me which is good, instead, she suggested me alternative food in place of any food which I have taken and not good for me. Throughout the usage, my coach was in regular touch with me and she keeps track of my activities and food intake than me.
It seems Goqii has got some well-experienced coach onboard who knows a lot about a lifestyle, health and can help people who are busy in their life and can’t concentrate on themselves.
Should You Buy Goqii :-
Goqii is a subscription based service which will cost you around Rs. 6999 for six months or Rs. 11,999 for a year, if you are really concern about your fitness then you should consider this. There is a real coach who will motivate you, keep track on your activities and guides you.
Another thing about Goqii is they organise weekly fitness exercise in which all Goqii members meet and carry out different types of exercises. Yes, once your subscription is over, you can still use Goqii and app without coach service, just like any other fitness tracker out there in the market.
What I like here :-
- Personal coach
- Very accurate
- Water and splash resistance
- karma point concept
What I didn’t likes
- Manual sleep mode
- Battery life is just average
