Living with Misfit Ray

I used to wear a Xiaomi Mi Band on my right wrist. Honestly there’s nothing really wrong with it, but I bought it at launch, my mom wore it for a year, then I wore it for another year, and then the strap snapped and the charger went missing… I figured I’d just buy a replacement part, only to find the official store had discontinued every accessory for it, and the prices on Taobao were somehow higher than a brand-new one cost back then. Forget it, I got my money’s worth, so I gave up.

But wearing something on my right wrist had become a habit, so I thought I’d get something else to wear. What though? Maybe something that actually looks good? That’s how I came across the Misfit Ray.

So let me just quickly go over the pros and cons of this thing versus the Mi Band:

• First, it looks good. That’s subjective, but it beats the Mi Band’s look.
• Then there’s charging. This thing doesn’t need charging — three button cells last three months, and even if it falls short of three months I can live with it. Way fucking better than the Mi Band, where losing the charger means game over.
• The app is also better made than Mi Fit. Mi Fit has started cramming social features and ads in there, while Misfit’s is still bare-bones — not many features, but enough. That’s plenty.
• Step syncing to WeChat and the like still works, and it actually seems more accurate than Xiaomi’s?
• It lacks the heart-rate sensor the Mi Band has, but Xiaomi’s heart rate needs to be measured manually anyway, so it’s basically useless. Whatever.

In the end I’m fairly satisfied, and JD had a sale — compared to the original 700-something, the 200-something sale price feels acceptable.