Well, the glasses are still broken, but I have two new toys this week! I've been playing Pokemon GO for a while now, and there's an accessory that goes with it that can help save your battery while playing. It's basically this little pokeball shaped thing on a clip or a bracelet, so when you go walking, you wear it, and it'll buzz at you if there's something of interest near you.
I've been playing Pokemon GO for long enough that it's probably not just going to be a passing interest, particularly because if I use this thing, I'll be able to play much more effectively. (It tracks your walking even when you're driving, which means much faster egg hatching.) At some point I'm going to drag Chris into walking downtown and just keep my tablet tucked safely away. All I'll need to do is press the white button to interact with the stuff around me.
The only downside right now is that I have to wait to use this thing; when Chris and I were down in CT for his grandma's memorial service, we accidentally watched an entire movie using my data connection. Unfortunately, that came to about a whole gigabite of data, which is about half my monthly ration and also about how much I use in a month. Between navigating there and back, and downloading podcasts and my other regular usage, I am now at my data cap. I could technically just continue using data and go right into 3 gigs, but it'd cost me an extra $10 and I'd really rather not.
Anyway, I'll only have to wait 'til tomorrow or the day after, at this point. That's not as bad as when it arrived, which was the middle of last week.
The other new toy is a Fitbit. Chris and I went to a holiday party for his workplace (two months belated by company policy, because Christmas is a super busy time of year for them). They always give away prizes, including, every year, a fancy TV. I have no idea why.
Anyway, Chris won a prize this year, and while the TV had already been claimed, he did lay hands on a low-end Fitbit. I have, in the past, considered getting either a Fitbit or one of the more high quality knockoffs, but have been turned away over and over by the price tag. Even the cheapest ones will run you $50, which is an awful lot of meals for a device you may or may not use after the first month or so. And I wanted features like sleep tracking, heart rate monitoring, etc, which put my potential price up to something like $300. I'm not the type to drop $300 on something I'm not sure I'll be using in a year, so in the end, I didn't buy one.
It is, however, hard to beat the price of "free," so I'm borrowing his prize for a test drive. This particular model is the Flex 2, which is a reference to how many ways you can wear it, I guess. The actual tracker is a little rectangular bit, which can be put into the provided wrist strap, or into an amulet setup, and probably like three more ways because marketing. It does do sleep tracking but does not show me the time or give me my heartrate on demand.
Something it does do, though, which is a reason I'm using it, is it can be programmed to buzz at you to get up and walk around every hour. If that sounds irritating, well, it is. The thing is, I lead a generally sedentary lifestyle, which science is now telling us is basically the worst thing ever. So I can help offset that by getting up when the thing buzzes at me, walking around my apartment for a bit, and maybe doing jumping jacks during my fun time. The idea is to build in little bouts of exercise, rather than having to muster the energy to drive to the gym, or spend an hour outside in the unfriendly elements. Ideally this will be paired with actual 3/week exercise appointments as well, but at present I'm only holding to once a week, with a friend.
So I'm excited about my new toys. Hopefully they'll prod me toward better health and exercise habits.
The only downside right now is that I have to wait to use this thing; when Chris and I were down in CT for his grandma's memorial service, we accidentally watched an entire movie using my data connection. Unfortunately, that came to about a whole gigabite of data, which is about half my monthly ration and also about how much I use in a month. Between navigating there and back, and downloading podcasts and my other regular usage, I am now at my data cap. I could technically just continue using data and go right into 3 gigs, but it'd cost me an extra $10 and I'd really rather not.
Anyway, I'll only have to wait 'til tomorrow or the day after, at this point. That's not as bad as when it arrived, which was the middle of last week.
The other new toy is a Fitbit. Chris and I went to a holiday party for his workplace (two months belated by company policy, because Christmas is a super busy time of year for them). They always give away prizes, including, every year, a fancy TV. I have no idea why.
Anyway, Chris won a prize this year, and while the TV had already been claimed, he did lay hands on a low-end Fitbit. I have, in the past, considered getting either a Fitbit or one of the more high quality knockoffs, but have been turned away over and over by the price tag. Even the cheapest ones will run you $50, which is an awful lot of meals for a device you may or may not use after the first month or so. And I wanted features like sleep tracking, heart rate monitoring, etc, which put my potential price up to something like $300. I'm not the type to drop $300 on something I'm not sure I'll be using in a year, so in the end, I didn't buy one.
It is, however, hard to beat the price of "free," so I'm borrowing his prize for a test drive. This particular model is the Flex 2, which is a reference to how many ways you can wear it, I guess. The actual tracker is a little rectangular bit, which can be put into the provided wrist strap, or into an amulet setup, and probably like three more ways because marketing. It does do sleep tracking but does not show me the time or give me my heartrate on demand.
Something it does do, though, which is a reason I'm using it, is it can be programmed to buzz at you to get up and walk around every hour. If that sounds irritating, well, it is. The thing is, I lead a generally sedentary lifestyle, which science is now telling us is basically the worst thing ever. So I can help offset that by getting up when the thing buzzes at me, walking around my apartment for a bit, and maybe doing jumping jacks during my fun time. The idea is to build in little bouts of exercise, rather than having to muster the energy to drive to the gym, or spend an hour outside in the unfriendly elements. Ideally this will be paired with actual 3/week exercise appointments as well, but at present I'm only holding to once a week, with a friend.
So I'm excited about my new toys. Hopefully they'll prod me toward better health and exercise habits.
Good for you!
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