Update: Ahead of our Moov HR review and the new app incoming, we've updated our review.
This is a Five Run Review, part of TechRadar’s new Running Man of Tech diary reviews - check back regularly as we update the piece with new findings!
Moov Now is an odd wearable. In a wearable world where screen is king, this unremarkable disc eschews a display yet still contains a huge amount of power.
It’s got nearly all the top elements a fitness tracker should have: months of battery life, step tracking, sleep monitoring, fitness updates, cross training and run coaching.
You can even go swimming with it and get a decent boxing workout too - and the Moov Now is one of the cheapest (and most attractive) on the market.
Coming in at only £50 / $60 / AU$79, this is an exceptionally low-cost way to keep an eye on your overall fitness - and the only downside is you need to use your smartphone to see your statistics, which doesn’t feel like the biggest drawback.
But how does it perform day to day? It’s all very well a brand saying that its product can track steps / exercise reps / running movements, but if it's poorly put together and doesn't do anything efficiently, then what's the point?
I'm going to put it through a five run review, where I'll work out with this strapped on for five days (surprisingly) - trying as many modes as possible and finding out whether it's worth your money, even at this low cost.
Design
The Moov Now design couldn't be simpler. It's a small disc that comes in variety of colors and sits in an attractive latticed black rubber strap.
It's very light and only has a small button on the top, which you'll click when you want to start an exercise or sync your fitness stats to get an up-to-date look.
It sits quietly and lightly on the wrist, and most of the time I never even noticed it. This caused heart-stopping moments a few times when running (as you'll need to wear it on the ankle for any jog monitoring) because it's actually hard to feel it's there.
Apart from the disc itself feeling a bit plasticky (but then again, you'll never touch it because all the tapping can be done through the strap, and only changing from arm to leg holster will require you to touch it) and the battery cover requiring a touch of prising to get off, it's almost impossible to fault the design of this wearable.
Setup
Setting up the Moov Now is a little trickier than wearing it, but it's far from tough. Download Moov's app and you'll be asked to sign up to the platform (so all your data can be synced across devices) either directly or through Facebook.
After that it's just a few vital statistics to get things going and make sure the calorie burn is as accurate as possible, and you're off.
With a dizzying array of things you can do straight away, from interval aerobic sessions to cycling to swimming to cardio boxing, there's a lot on offer here.
However, I found that just strapping it on and going to bed started things off instantly - no need to tell the Moov Now that I was slumbering - and the accuracy was perfect, to the very minute when I awoke.
The first workout
I decided to start my Moov experience slowly, so the '7+ minute circuit training' seemed decent, and I began at the bottom level. I noticed that '7+' is a bit generous, as the higher up the levels you progress, the longer and longer you're working out for.
But it does say '+', so I can't call advertising standards just yet.
I was really impressed with the workout tracking, though. It's superb. I was taken through three progressively harder circuits of star jumps / jumping jacks, press ups, crunches, squats, lunges and planks, and the Moov Now missed just TWO motions from around 125 reps performed (and one of those was me not doing the proper motion when lunging).
I've just come off reviewing the Samsung Gear S3, which promises the same workout tracking... the difference between the two wearables is insane.
The Moov Now is the best I've seen so far - and it even throws in useful form-training nuggets of coaching while working out (such as 'imagine there's an apple under your chin' when doing crunches - a really helpful hint).
There are a couple of quibbles: no Chromecast support so I have to look at my phone screen to see the workouts, and here's the bigger one: the voice isn't recorded, it's text to speech. So that means a robot is reading out every word separately, and it comes out weirdly disjointed.
Given I had to download this workout before starting, why can't Moov have recorded someone speaking it like, well, an actual person?
There's no heart rate monitor either, so the calories-burned metric is a little redundant, but that's minor - you can use a third party monitor if you want, and Moov is offering its own head-mounted option in the new year (although you'll need to love the Olivia Newton John look if that's going to be your workout fashion of choice).
Run, boy
Right - it was run time. I only had to do a short run today, so I decided to go for some cadence training (which Moov calls 'running efficiency') as that's always been a good way to get faster.
I pushed this right up to level 16 straight away to get the maximum out of the test, but others might want to start slower - it can feel (and look) weird to be trying to get 190 steps per minute into a jog. I did get funny stares on my way to work.
However, it's worth it. You're forcing your legs to turn over faster, and that's going to teach the right muscles to get better and more efficient, so you can go further with each stride. Winning.
Again, Moov Now was excellent. You do need your phone strapped to your arm to hear the coaching, but it's straight into easy instructions to warm up (although that DAMN ROBOTIC VOICE was back) and then into the workout - if you fall below the speed required or are hitting the ground too hard, you'll be told through your headphones.
It's a really simple system: you hear a pleasant jingle when you're working out correctly and at the right speed, and the app will keep jingling to let you know you're on track.
There's also a minute-by-minute update on your cadence and, overall, it's all very easy to follow.
The same style of form-training tips from the cross-training workout are on offer as well (such as: 'imagine you're walking on hot ground' 'keep your back straight' 'imagine you're holding an egg in each hand') which make achieving the correct running form much easier too.
At the end of the run you're given all your metrics in one easy to use place - that's great, but some of mine were 'out of ideal range' - for instance, I was hitting the ground too hard with each step.
There's nothing telling me how to fix this, which makes me sad. I'll just have to try harder next time.
The Moov Now’s been on my wrist for two days now, and things are going well.
One thing I've noticed: I’m not a massive fan of the small metal rectangle that holds the band in place, as it feels like it could pop off and get lost quite easily.
That said, it’s still sitting firmly on my wrist (and stayed around my ankle when running yesterday and today) so perhaps that’s less of a worry than it needs to be.
For the second day of training I decided that things needed to be stepped up a little bit - it wasn’t good enough to just dabble in light workouts, I needed to push the limits of the wearable.
The morning session saw me back to circuit training, and having scrolled across to find there are (at least) 31 levels to attack, I decided to skip ahead to level six and see how much extra effort I would need to put in compared to level one.
Where I was doing five reps per exercise at the start, now the Moov apps asked me for 15, so the progression was pretty clear.
It wasn’t in the ‘crazy hard level’ just yet, but I got more of a sweat on over the 13 minutes I was rolling through the three sets of exercises than yesterday.
Top logging
Again, the repetition tracking accuracy was superb on the Moov, and the form hints really helped to keep me in check. It was only in the third set of crunches, the very last exercise, that the tracking accuracy started to fall apart, and that could have been as much to do with my fatigue as anything with the hardware.
I will admit that I’m already getting bored of the same six exercises each day - I would love it if there were more circuit training options, or I could set up my own routine, but neither of those options are available.
If Moov had the same range of exercises as Nike Training Club, for example, then this wearable would be unstoppable.
The afternoon saw me take on the interval training session - a variety of levels are again on offer with different speeds to take on over mile repetitions.
You’ll get a five minute warmup then straight into all-out running, with regular updates on how long to go and more useful tips on how to improve form.
My ego tells me I’m a pretty good runner, but putting each command from Moov into action (‘tighten your abs’ ‘pull your shoulders back’ ‘stop breathing like a broken steam train*’) really did improve my form - the regular nudges are useful.
In fact, it makes me want to cover my body in Moov Now discs and have the app tell me every single limb that’s not doing its proper job. But... that would be weird. RIght? Yeah, it would. Cool.
The intervals were tough, but just about manageable. The app was telling me that it would upgrade me to a higher level if I managed to beat the targets, but then when I’d finished it told me I had to swipe to raise the intensity level.
No thanks. I was already struggling with the 3:57 minutes per kilometer efforts, and I couldn’t stomach the thought of making it harder.
Plus - like most people - my phone was stuck in my armband and taking it out would be a massive effort.
But that’s where the app should have been a bit more forceful and changed the level automatically - when I reviewed my efforts over the 10 kilometer run, I could have probably managed a higher speed.
If the app had automatically upped my pace targets, and the only way to make it easier was to rip the phone from my armband and manually drop the speed down, I’d have worked harder. Yes, I do expect the machines to do everything for me.
The one thing that’s really irritating me about Moov’s system is that DAMN ROBOTIC VOICE. It’s bad enough that it sounds so terrible, but the way the text-to-speech system works on the app means that the words sometimes get garbled.
Every update on how I was doing yielded a cryptic ‘your average speed is three minutes fiftykeepyour shoulders back’... Three minutes fifty what?
OK, it’s not a massive thing. But why can’t she just have a normal voice?
Overall, I’m still impressed with the Moov Now system after two days. The tracking of my daily efforts is decent (although some automatic exercise pickup would be nice - for instance, noting I’m cycling to the train station for 10 minutes per day would be nice on the timeline, but the lack of GPS probably harms that).
The dedicated workouts are detailed and useful, with genuine progression each day. I’d love to see a personalised training plan in here, or some more options beyond the basic circuit workouts on offer, but given I’ve not tried all the options out yet I can’t really criticise the app yet.
To the next day. I feel the need to ‘cardio box’ coming on….
*OK, the last one didn’t happen. Would have helped though.
I’ve just had my rear end handed to me by the Moov Now system, where I've only this second picked myself up off the floor and I’m dripping with sweat all over my keyboard.
I didn’t even mean for this to happen.
I thought I was ready for day three. I warmed up with a few miles on a slow run to work with a chum, and then got straight into the Cardio Boxing app.
But I'm going to reverse the diary today and tell you what just happened. I took on the sprint repeats workout, firing up the program in the app and strapping the Moov Now to my ankle. So far, so good.
The first question I was asked was simple: 'Can you run at top speed for a minute?' 'No problem!' I answered, my ego telling me that I could probably run at top speed for over an hour but I don't because I'm TOO HUMBLE.
The Moov app recommended I start at level 19 - which required me to run for a minute and a half with a range of motion of 108 degrees. I had no idea what the second thing was about, and it sounded like a really, really long time to be sprinting... so decided to start at level one.
Just run for 30 seconds five times? Simple.
I took to the virtual start line and began. The cues during the short sprints were good 'Lift your knees / stride longer / kick your heels more' but I only just managed the workout.
But I mostly completed it, so decided I should push harder, moving up to level six and 42 seconds of pain for the final four efforts.
I don't know whether it was because all I'd eaten this morning was a delicious, delicious home-baked M&M's brownie by TechRadar's own Emma Boyle (seriously, if I could review THAT I'd have to come up with a new star rating) or just that I wasn't good enough - but by the third repetition of the sprint training I was spent.
And the annoying thing was I hadn't even properly completed one interval yet - I was going to need to 'pass' five to complete the level.
By the fourth session, I was quitting before the interval ended. By the fifth, where I pushed myself as hard as I could to try and pass the interval, I was done, stopping a full 10 seconds before the end of the phase.
It was awful - I felt sick and angry and frustrated that I couldn't push any further.
While I really don't want to blame the Moov Now app for my failure (as it was mostly due to early complacency), I do think that the 'range of motion' metric could be better explained.
As far as I can tell, this is stride length monitored by the Now disc strapped on my ankle - but that information is never really fully outlined so it was hard to know what I really did wrong. Was it just form, or fitness?
I have no idea how someone could do this program at level 19, let alone the higher echelons. I'm going back to level one and working my way up.
Boxing stupid
Let's roll back in time to a time when I wasn't lying on the floor wishing I was dead - approximately an hour ago. I tried out the Cardio Boxing feature of the Moov Now - it's meant to be the 'fun' workout on the app.
And it really is. It's like Guitar Hero with your hands flailing around (so... exactly like Guitar Hero in my house) but giving you a jolly good workout.
You jab, punch, cross, hook and uppercut when instructed to by the app - and you get bonus multipliers for completing sets.
While this is the most fun activity in the Moov Now platform, Cardio Boxing does have some massive limitations.
Firstly, you really need to play it on a large screen that's at eye level, which is incredibly hard to do - if you can even find a tablet (and there's no iPad app for Moov) putting it at eye level isn't easy, and there's no Chromecast or AppleTV support.
The punch recognition system is excellent though, with the Moov Now detecting movement in your wrist and knowing vaguely if you're doing an action correctly.
But despite the fact you can do Cardio Boxing with a single Moov Now, you really need two to get the most out of it and punch with both arms at once - and you wouldn't buy another tracker just for this game.
The boxing gameplay itself is fun, but the Moov system flicks you through the levels too quickly.
Soon you're being bombarded with multiple punch styles to hit in quick succession, and you're supposed to be moving your feet in a certain way too.
It's too easy to get lost in the action, and just flicking your wrist at the screen will log a 'successful' punch as you try to keep up.
Form goes out of the window in a desperate attempt to comprehend what your eyes are seeing, and you're less pro-boxer and more 'cat trying to escape a field of bees', such is the limb-flinging.
You do get a good workout, but Moov has put too much emphasis on progressing through and not enough on mastering the punch styles - it needs to be much harsher here and fail incorrect actions to encourage good form.
Still, Cardio Boxing is fun and a great workout (my shoulders ache already, and I know they'll be a mess tomorrow) - it's just too expensive to buy the let's-be-honest-necessary second Moov Now and quickly gets too complicated to follow.
Now I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon trying not to pass out on my keyboard...
Day 4
In answer to your question, yes. Yes, I’m in tremendous amounts of pain from the cardio boxing, despite not actually hitting anything.
The very motion of flapping one’s arms has left me in intense pain whenever trying to extend a limb.
I should have expected that.
It was time to go back into the Moov training to see if I’ve improved at all, jumping up to level eight and extending to 338 reps… and again, I was impressed with the accuracy of the tracking on offer, with very few reps missed until the crunches at the end (I now know that this is me not doing them properly, rather than the Moov Now missing the motion.)
It’s not perfect - there can be some mistaken reps counted or not - but it’s still one of the most accurate systems I’ve used.
However, there’s some bad news today - when I go to check my ‘daily activity’ it’s no longer tracking it effectively.
Moving some garbage back and forth from the car and a long run in the afternoon weren’t noted, so I ended up with minimal stats for the day, giving me just 6 minutes of activity when I’ve been on my feet plenty of times.
Day 5
OK - I’ve cheated this format a little bit. I decided to let the Moov Now disc function as a daily fitness band and see how well it worked: would I use it enough to want to pop it back on my wrist or would it eventually fall away to boredom?
It’s somewhere in the middle. I became addicted to looking at my activity once I realized something that Moov doesn’t tell you: you have to wear the strap the same way up each day.
I’d started wearing it ‘upside down’ at one point, and once corrected it started functioning perfectly, noting every little bit of exercise I did.
I loved syncing and looking at my daily stats, trying to hit that magic ‘two hours active’ badge and keeping an eye on my calorie consumption.
Then I did a 35 mile run for a charity challenge and the wheels started to fall off a little bit. I’d hit the top level badge of activity, so I suddenly felt I’d ‘completed’ the Moov.
I still really liked that I got sleep tracking every night though… except I started to realize the Moov Now is mega generous.
It’ll tell you that you spent a majority of the night in restorative sleep, when other sleep trackers (like that found on the Garmin 735XT) painted a much more disturbed story.
Given I knew that some nights I woke a couple of times and the Moov didn’t notice, I’m going to assume that it’s too generous over how well I’ve slept.
Verdict
The Moov Now is incredible value for the breadth of things that it offers - for the low price you can run, swim, cycle, box and do crossfit with accuracy.
It lacks things like GPS and heart rate monitoring to put it in the same league as other trackers, but it’s really unobtrusive and if you’re looking for a complete view of your fitness it’s presented in a really simple way with Moov.
What’s great?
The Moov Now’s design and range of activities will give any budding fitness fan a chance to sample enough activities to keep them interested, having fun while boosting their fitness.
The price is so low that it’s almost worth buying two so you can properly enjoy cardio boxing, and it’s easy to wear without looking ugly or constantly catching on clothing.
The app is clean and clear too, with easy access to your fitness and sleep stats - both of which are really great and presenting numbers of minutes active and properly slumbering.
Is there anything to look out for?
The Moov Now, while capable of offering terrifically hard workouts that will push even hardcore athletes, isn’t useful for those that are obsessive about their fitness, as a lot of the data is too woolly.
Sleep tracking isn’t the most accurate, and the continued jingling in the ears when running to signify that everything is OK, along with the terribly robotic voice, do grate after a while - and there’s not enough variation to the offered workouts (although that will improve soon).
And both new and experienced fitness fans will mourn the lack of a training plan - there’s no cajoling to improve your fitness by doing certain workouts on certain days, which would help those just starting out stay fresh and make maximum gains.
Verdict
The Moov Now excels at one, very important thing: it’s a fitness tracker that actually tracks the things that make you fitter.
You get guided workouts for major activities that are well thought-out, or just good, broad tracking for daily activities.
Pic: generic pic
Pic: generic pic
A six month battery life is immense, and if your goal is to spend more time in bed each night and move more each day, this little wearable is an affordable and accurate way to do it.
There’s more Moov can do now with it, and fingers are crossed more activities are added and training plans are created too.
The accuracy of the sleep tracking and the fiddly design are the only elements that niggle, but otherwise this is the kind of fitness tracker that all brands should aspire to create.
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