Leaf Urban review

Leaf Urban Rose Gold Edition
I am not getting paid or receiving any kickbacks for this review.  I'm not opposed to the idea, though. Hint, hint.

Several people have asked for feedback on my new Leaf Urban.  Overall, I'm happy with it, but I don't absolutely love it.




Hardware:

  1. The rose-gold urban is beautiful. I get compliments all the time. I noticed I'm wearing more gold jewelry to try and match it, but I wear it with silver stuff, too.
  2. I like its versatility.  Sometimes it's just more convenient to wear as a necklace, bracelet, or clip depending on what I'm wearing.
  3. For example, putting it on as a clip has all the ease of adding something to your key ring. Yes, I've gotten better at this, but I still won't try to clip it to a sweater.  Plus, it advises against wearing it as a clip on bulky clothes.
  4. I like that it's water resistant.  Brushing a kiddos teeth comes with a fair bit of splashing, need I say more?

Software:
  1. The app is user friendly. It has a clean look and gives you enough details without bombarding you with options. You can set goals, such as activity level and sleep and it will let you know your progress.
  2. I thought it kept track of heart rate.  It doesn't.  While it doesn't explicitly say that it would, the commercial of a lady about to go on stage looks like she's getting a vibration from her leaf that she's stressed and needs to do a breathing exercise. I can assure you, my leaf would have been going off like crazy the last few days if this were the case.  
    1. Unfortunately, this was one of the big reasons I wanted the leaf. :-(
    2. Instead, it predicts stress based on data, such as sleep, activity level, cycle, and if you've meditated.
  3. The other major reason I wanted the leaf was to track sleep. Right now I'm up a lot with a hungry baby, so it's always telling me that I had "interrupted sleep" or "disturbed sleep."  Yep, I do.  If it didn't say that, I'd question the software, so this is a good thing, really. I'm impressed with this since it tells me when I was in a light sleep and in a deep sleep.  
  4. I don't use Activities (where you log what you did) often. I really only do this if it says I didn't do much that day according to my steps.  That's when I get defensive. Hells bells I did!  I worked all day then came home and chased kids, did laundry, chased kids, picked up, chased kids, and nursed the baby.  The cool thing is that I can choose from a list of activities that include: Breastfeeding, Cleaning, Cooking, Gardening, and Playing with kids. There's also: Ballet, Diving, Ice Skating, Netball, Shopping, and Wake Boarding for those with a different lifestyle than mine. Wait, does online shopping count?
  5. The leaf yields different results on my step count and active time depending on where I wear it.  For example, if I wear it as a necklace or a clip (recommended) I get slightly less steps than I think I should.  If I wear it as a bracelet, I ran a marathon and I didn't stop to throw water on my face.  Well, not quite, but I doubt I had 17,000 steps on a work day as I'm at my desk a lot.
  6. The alarm is a nice touch, but it took weeks for mine to work properly. I'm not sure if time zone was an issue or if I was just dead asleep and didn't feel it vibrate.  But, it's working now.  You can set multiple to help you with additional alarms like medication reminders.
  7. It also tracks your cycle, but that's not really an issue for me right now.  It's a nice touch though.
  8. The meditation sessions are easy to download, which is saying something b/c I don't have a great phone. You can choose the type of session and the length.  It's quite nice actually.  I'd REALLY like it if I could say I did a meditation session independently and add it, but I can't in this software version.
  9. There's an online dashboard, where you can see stats, but you can't add activities, naps, or meditation sessions.  That's all done through the app.  It would be nice if I could do that online, too. Perhaps in the next version. 
Overall, I recommend it as an activity tracker, but if you just want a pedometer, get something else.


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