Actofit fitness tracker review – follow-up

~~~ Update Dec. 26, 2017 ~~~
Actofit have reached out to me to let me know they were not able to address the production issues with their first generation tracker but they are coming out with a gen2 device, The Actofit Rise, in Q1, 2018. They have emailed all their backers to let them know there is a plan for free upgrades to the new device. If you were a backer and have not heard from them you should reach out to them to let them know. It sounds like they will take care of you.

UPDATE Dec. 9, 2017:
After repeatedly reaching out to Actofit, they finally responded and stated,

“Over the past few months, we have tried to fix certain things with our assembly line and production control processes based on feedback we have had from our initial batches. However, our current design does not allow us to maintain quality at higher production volumes. To improvise on these design defects and to enable us to fight the struggle between manufacturing yet delivering a world-class product, we have had to make the hard choice of discontinuing the first variant of the fitness tracker. This was a tough decision and let we assure you, our future products will be more powerful.

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Original post:

My regular readers will recognize that I am a data geek and believe that if you can’t measure it then you can’t manage it.

As such I’ve been looking for a fitness tracker that can do everything I want including:

• Be a good gym tracker in terms of exercise recognition with easy entry of weight lifted
• Waterproof so it can go kayaking and be underwater for short periods of time
• Learn new activities so I can “teach” it the kayaking wing paddle stroke
• Accurately track sleep including resting heart rate (RHR)
• A bonus feature would be for it to also provide heart rate variability (HRV) while sleeping to provide an indication of stress and recovery

The Actofit company sent me their tracker to evaluate in August and I was very hopeful.  I even did an initial review (embedded below.)

Since that review I’ve communicated with the company and they were responsive.  The inaccurate weights that I reported in my initial review was the back-end server assuming incoming data was in kilograms, so even though I chose pounds as my units for weights, their servers assumed my pounds were kilograms and then converted them to pounds.  They fixed that problem quickly.

They also responded and cleared gym sessions that were “stuck” in synchronization mode.

Then my Samsung Galaxy S5 updated to Android 6.0.1 and all communications with the device were lost.  In fairness, that updated also bricked my Amazfit Arc tracker.

Then after I upgraded the the Galaxy S8+ both tracker apps worked fine once again.

I started wearing the Actofit again and was using it as my every day and night fitness tracker and it showed signs of being a very good gym tracker.  I did not get it wet or take it kayaking but was hopeful that once I had put it through its paces on land that it would then perform well on water.

Well, water then became the issue.

As my local weather started getting cooler and drier, I noticed condensation forming inside the unit.

Condensation forming inside the Actofit screen

Then last week I went out to California where it was even drier and the condensation built up to the point where it shorted out the device.  Almost all the LED elements lit up and then it just went dark–for good.

So after approximately 6 weeks the device is dead.

It was obvious to me the device was manufactured in a high humidity environment and once my local weather got cooler and drier the humidity inside the waterproof device condensed to the point where it shorted out the device.

The company has since confirmed they rejected a lot at QC for this very issue. (Why they sent me one of these units for review I’ll never understand.)

I felt I owe my readers a follow-up to my initial review to let you know how it turned out.

If Actofit are willing to send me a new device for review again I’ll be happy to give it another try because it had become the device that stayed on my wrist 24/7.  I was very happy with its sleep analysis, loved the measure of RHR, successfully taught it custom exercises and its exercise recognition was adequate so I was satisfied with its gym tracking capabilities.

But at least for now, it is back to the Amazfit Arc for 24/7 wear and the Atlas Wearables 2 for in the gym.

Why can’t somebody come up with a device that does it all well?