Under Armour HealthBox review

TUNE UP THE BAND

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It’s only part of the healthbox package, but the Band is going to get all the attention – you’ll be wearing it every day, after all.

Forget chunky smartwatches and bling-tastic fitness trackers, because the UA Band is pure subtlety. It sits stealthily on your wrist, counting steps until you call it into action. It’s so comfy I quickly forgot I was wearing it; fortunately it’s waterproof down to 20m, otherwise my morning shower would have cut this review short.

Anyone with chunkier wrists can swap the band out for a longer one; it pops off with a pin or phone SIM tray tool, so isn’t going to fall apart when you’re pumping iron, or whatever else you’re doing to feel the burn.

It’s seriously thin and light, despite being packed with a screen and all manner of sensors. A pedometer counts steps, an accelerometer measures your tossing and turning at night to calculate sleep patterns, and the heart-rate sensor keeps an eye on your resting heart rate. There’s only one button, but press it and the monochrome OLED display blinks into life.

There’s still room for a battery that’ll keep you going for up to five days, too. It’ll charge from empty to full in about half an hour, so there’s really no excuse not to have it on your wrist 24/7.

WEIGH TO GO

The smart scales complete the Healthbox trifecta. It looks more like a Star Trek teleporter pad than something that tells you when you’ve been hitting the snacks too hard – that glossy black finish and white LED display are seriously smart.

Unless you’ve got space in the bathroom to leave it on display, the scale recalibrates every time you move it. That can mean you end up with some wacky results – no, you didn’t just lose three pounds by taking the bins out. It’s hardly ideal if you’re cutting a few grams to meet your boxing weight class, but a bit of deviance either way isn’t a deal-breaker for anyone looking to generally get healthier.

The whole house can get involved, too. The UA Scale stores up to eight profiles, syncing over Wi-Fi and to your phone over Bluetooth; hop on with a phone in your pocket and it’ll show your name, before it shows your weight (in pounds or kilos, whichever floats your boat) and your body fat percentage.

It works out how much of your body is the equivalent of a pork scratching by firing electrical pulses at you and measuring the resistance. Muscle conducts electricity better than fat, so the quicker the current shoots up one leg, across the pelvis and down the other leg, the less body fat you’ve got.

It’ll take about 45 seconds to sync your results to the app, but you don’t have to stand still like a lemon while it does it – once it gives the all clear you can step off and let it do its thing. It’ll power down once it’s finished, and should last about five months on four AA batteries.

WEIGH TO GO

The smart scales complete the Healthbox trifecta. It looks more like a Star Trek teleporter pad than something that tells you when you’ve been hitting the snacks too hard – that glossy black finish and white LED display are seriously smart.

Unless you’ve got space in the bathroom to leave it on display, the scale recalibrates every time you move it. That can mean you end up with some wacky results – no, you didn’t just lose three pounds by taking the bins out. It’s hardly ideal if you’re cutting a few grams to meet your boxing weight class, but a bit of deviance either way isn’t a deal-breaker for anyone looking to generally get healthier.

The whole house can get involved, too. The UA Scale stores up to eight profiles, syncing over Wi-Fi and to your phone over Bluetooth; hop on with a phone in your pocket and it’ll show your name, before it shows your weight (in pounds or kilos, whichever floats your boat) and your body fat percentage.

It works out how much of your body is the equivalent of a pork scratching by firing electrical pulses at you and measuring the resistance. Muscle conducts electricity better than fat, so the quicker the current shoots up one leg, across the pelvis and down the other leg, the less body fat you’ve got.

It’ll take about 45 seconds to sync your results to the app, but you don’t have to stand still like a lemon while it does it – once it gives the all clear you can step off and let it do its thing. It’ll power down once it’s finished, and should last about five months on four AA batteries.

WEIGH TO GO

The smart scales complete the Healthbox trifecta. It looks more like a Star Trek teleporter pad than something that tells you when you’ve been hitting the snacks too hard – that glossy black finish and white LED display are seriously smart.

Unless you’ve got space in the bathroom to leave it on display, the scale recalibrates every time you move it. That can mean you end up with some wacky results – no, you didn’t just lose three pounds by taking the bins out. It’s hardly ideal if you’re cutting a few grams to meet your boxing weight class, but a bit of deviance either way isn’t a deal-breaker for anyone looking to generally get healthier.

The whole house can get involved, too. The UA Scale stores up to eight profiles, syncing over Wi-Fi and to your phone over Bluetooth; hop on with a phone in your pocket and it’ll show your name, before it shows your weight (in pounds or kilos, whichever floats your boat) and your body fat percentage.

It works out how much of your body is the equivalent of a pork scratching by firing electrical pulses at you and measuring the resistance. Muscle conducts electricity better than fat, so the quicker the current shoots up one leg, across the pelvis and down the other leg, the less body fat you’ve got.

It’ll take about 45 seconds to sync your results to the app, but you don’t have to stand still like a lemon while it does it – once it gives the all clear you can step off and let it do its thing. It’ll power down once it’s finished, and should last about five months on four AA batteries.

RECORD BREAKERS

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Healthbox is the fitness tech version of a car; you’ve got the motor, the wheels and the gearbox, but without a driver, it’s going nowhere. UA Record is that driver.

Under Armour’s apps hold the whole package together, tracking all your data in one place. It syncs all your gear, tracks your sleep, counts your daily steps, and records your workouts. It can give you basic nutrition tips too, but you’ll want to download UA’s MyFitnessPal food diary for more accurate food tracking.

It’s pretty cruel to show all that fitness data as four quarters of a circle – I kept getting visions of pizza or pie every time I opened the app. Still, it puts the more important numbers front-and-centre. You can dial down into each section to get more details, or scroll down to see your weight progress and resting heart rate.

The "How do you feel" questionnaire, which lets you rate your day from 1 to 10, doesn’t really do anything right now, but Under Armour is promising that it will eventually help scientists and fitness pros spot patterns that could make all the difference to our health years down the line.

It’ll track friends, let you make or join challenges and create a profile you can share online, in case you want to show off about all those squat thrusts you did before breakfast this morning. But please don’t do that.

The only downside is you have to do all this off your own back – there’s no coaching features or workout programs to follow.

On the plus side, though, you don’t even need the Healthbox to use the app; it’ll play nicely with Fitbit, Garmin, Jawbone, Misfit, Polar and Withings wearables too. And you can also pull in data from other fitness apps such as Apple Health (if you’re on an iPhone), Google Fit (for Android fans), or UA’s own MapMyRun and Endomondo.

Under Armour Healthbox verdict

The big questions I ask about any fitness gadget that comes my way are "Did it actually make a difference?" and “Am I going to keep using it?”

Well, I’ve been using Healthbox religiously for the past four weeks, and I’ve managed to shift a healthy amount of weight. That’s a pretty good indication it’s doing something right. I’m only a third of the way to my goal, so yeah, the UA Band is staying firmly on my wrist and the app is still sat on my smartphone home screen.

As a package, Healthbox nails the basics and goes into detail when you need it. If you’re a regular runner, or a bit of a gym bunny, the HRM chest strap makes all the difference. Under Armour has a great app range too, so you’re covered for pretty much all sports.

On the other hand, it carries a hefty premium over your basic fitness wristband, so it’s not for you if you just want to count steps. Maybe take a look at the Garmin Vivomove in that case.

And indeed, even if you do want to take a more in-depth approach to fitness, you might well be better off buying a separate fitness band, chest strap and smart scales rather than getting them all in one place, because Healthbox isn’t perfect.

The scale can throw up some odd numbers, and the band by itself doesn’t bring a lot of new ideas – you don’t even need one to use the app, as it works with so many other wearables.

But in its defence, the Healthbox makes it all very easy. Everything syncs nicely together and there’s no need to do tons of research into which kit you need – it’s all here for you. All of which leaves you more energy to dedicate to actually doing the exercise bit.