Healbe GoBe Automatic Calorie Counting Smartwatch

This product is big on the wrist, but really quite cool in what it does. I had read enough press to feel confident about buying it, and it genuinely works on the calorie counting. The really effective part of it is the ongoing tracking and graphing of inbound and outbound calories. I have found it does a nice job of giving an everyday sense of whether I have a positive or negative balance. Granted, it's not 100% spot on in terms of incoming calories, but it definitely gets in the range that I had heard before purchasing (about 85%).The other feature that I love about it is the sleep tracking. It does a better than expected job of giving me detail on my sleep phases and quality of sleep. I was really surprised at how consistently well it tracks this. Because of that, I happily wear it all the time and only take it off to charge it.

I have owned the Healbe GoBe for approximately a month, but I only just got it working 3 days ago. More on that in a minute.The GoBe has opened up a whole new realm of information for me to use when deciding on what to do about my health and the choices I have to make regarding it. Without a doubt, this is one of the best purchase decisions I have made, but I didn't do so without some skepticism. I had to test it to make sure it was legit, to the best of my ability to determine, before I would add this review. Straight up, if you recognize what the GoBe is and what it isn't, your enjoyment level of the device will be much higher... but realize that everyone is different and the value you get out of it will depend on taking the time to understand the instructions and use it properly. Like other people's reviews you will read related to this device, my experiences are anecdotal, so read the following with that understanding.The GoBe device has many very good qualities and a few things they are still working out. The reason there is nearly a month gap from when I got the device to now is that the update process for the device was not fully compatible with my phone. Yes, you will need a bluetooth 4.0 (ble) compatible phone to use the device. As it turns out, the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge (and I presume the S6) have some weird issue with sending updates to the device that are over some size limit. Healbe support worked with me, via email, to iron out the problems I was having with getting the update process to work and they were very patient. In the end, I had to use two different phones to perform the updates because my Galaxy S4 also had problems with updates, but in a different way. Regardless, if your phone has problems performing the update and it is ble compatible, just use a different phone (maybe even from a different company if possible) to perform the update. Afterward, everything was fine when using my S6 Edge.The GoBe is not just an activity tracker, though it seems to do that very well. In my opinion, it is a lifestyle manager. Through the device you can get insight on your daily routines and how you might want to modify them to lead a better and healthier life. Though the GoBe does provide the time, I do not consider it a smart watch. It does have some very intelligent features, but they really require a smart phone to make use of them. It sits in a category of its own because there is nothing quite like it on the market.Some people will tell you that the device cannot possibly work. They will tell you that the science it is based on is phony or that it is a scam. Medical science may not accept the fact that it works just yet, but then medical science is changing its mind on so many things that it's hard to keep up. Not too many years ago, meditation was just people sitting around clearing their minds... Now days, there is hard scientific evidence that shows that meditation alters genetic expression. My point is that if you look at how often medical scientists are claiming something "cannot possibly work" and then how often they are wrong, you will realize that most of the noise is just that, noise. Decide for yourself.Having said all that, I can tell you from personal experience (anecdotally) that this device works as advertised. I spent the last three days counting calories, fat, carbs and protein and comparing them with the results of the GoBe. Its a small sample size, but I have found that the results match much better than the ~20% of possible error indicated by Healbe. Don't let that 20% error scare you.. food labels can be between 5% and 50% off from true calories, depending on the type of food. In addition, everyone's body will consume the food in slightly different ways. This is an important fact, since the GoBe measures the calories consumed by your body, based on how your body reacts, not just the calories you have eaten. That said, I found the number of calories displayed by the GoBe to be within 100 calories of my estimates. I find that hard to fathom if the results are based on pure chance.I have tested the device by eating at different times to see if it would detect when I ate something small or large. In each case, the device accurately detected when I had something to eat and the amount consumed (which was almost always very close to the estimated value). I have discovered that some zero calorie sodas cause my body to react as if I had consumed a few hundred calories of carbs (coke.. I am looking at you)... but others (the Zevia sodas), do not create such a reaction; they seem to have zero calories of impact on the body, like when drinking water. That is an interesting insight when looking to understand what to eat and drink in the day.I found that the stress monitor was accurate to within a few minutes. Before a specific meeting at work, I checked my stress level on the device and measured no stress. During the meeting I was called on to explain a few things to some of my co-workers. I kept careful track of the time and discovered later that those moments when I was dealing with my co-workers had a level of low stress. According to the GoBe, the stress level immediately dropped once I was not engaged in the discussion and for the remaining hour and a half of the meeting, I had no stress again. To me, that is amazing.I have compared the heart rate and blood pressure measurements to other devices I own.. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge can measure your heart rate. Also, my Samsung Gear 2 can measure my heart rate. They both use an optical sensor, where the GoBe measures the pulse wave with a piezo sensor (I believe). Regardless, the GoBe resulted in numbers that were the same or within a few beats per minute of the other devices. Since your heart rate and blood pressure change throughout the day, I am not concerned with a few minor differences in the actual count. You can see that your heart rate differs from measurement to measurement if you care to validate it with other devices. Even on my S6 Edge, two measurements in a row may have (and more often than not do have) different rates indicated. The blood pressure measurement resulted in values that were comparable (and in some cases identical) to values from an Omron Wrist based blood pressure monitor. I know they are not considered perfectly accurate, but then the last time I was at the doctor's office they measured me three times to make sure they got values they "liked", so I am not sure what perfectly accurate means. :-)I tested the Sleep Tracking abilities of the device and found that you must set a Smart Alarm before sleep tracking is enabled. I didn't expect that and don't remember seeing it in the manual.. so just be aware that sleep tracking will not happen if the alarm is not set. I do not know if that is intentional, but it was my experience. Also, if the GoBe thinks it has lost contact with your body, it will shutdown after 5 minutes.. when this happens while doing sleep tracking, no data will be collected after the GoBe shuts off. That can be surprising the first time it happens. I just pushed the device up higher on my arm until it was fairly firmly attached and was able to collect sleep data all night.If you recognize that no device out there is 100% perfect and realize that a 20% variance from calorie labels could be just a bad count of calories on the label itself, a difference in how your body absorbed the food or some source of error in how the measurements are taken and understand that there is more information provided by the GoBe than you might consider at first glance, then your ability to take control of your life and make wise decisions using GoBe will improve. That said, Healbe does not claim that the GoBe is a medical device and that you should not make life altering decisions without consulting a doctor... sounds like good advice in any circumstance.

gobe has been very accurate counting my calories and steps so far. I had to update the firmware right out of the box (no problem there) - definitely seems to be accurate when it's tracking what i eat and my activity, which is why I bought it. Great product!

Some days good, some days bad. Returned it because it wouldn't take a charge after a week. No problems at all with the return.

Received the GOBE, which I had high hopes for but I didn't got to use it yet...First, the iOS app wouldn't connect, saying 'could not find gobe in the database'.After two days, got a response from support asking to uninstall the app, and re-install.. that worked.Unfortunately, now, it connects to the gobe, and it proceeded to update the firmware (normal for these type of devices)However, it got stuck. the message now is 'fail to upload firmware', the device is stuck with an 'update' message, and when I reconnect, it continues displaying the same message over and over and over again...Do they even test this device before shipping?? Too immature, too much of a beat product that may one day work, but is not ready yet.I'll return it and (maybe) buy v2.0 (if they ever get there)

The item did not have accurate readings due to "no contact" and automatically shuts off after only approx. 60 secs. I returned the product...

Didn't like the looks of it and I could never get it charged, didn't seem to fit properly into the charging station.

battery life is horrible. doesn't last thru the day. Also the calorie count intake is way off. I tested it again and again. One example is that I had a protein shake that was 160 calories and it counted that I had 600 calories.

First one did not charge from the box and the second one stopped charging after a couple of months. Do not buy it