Shine Activity Tracker at Best Buy: Motivation to Get Movin’!

I received the Shine Activity Tracker from Best Buy to facilitate my review. The opinions in this post are 100% mine.  You can read my full disclosure policy here.

Shine by Misfit is a new activity tracker carried by Best Buy that  makes it easy to track your activity and set goals to  motivate yourself. I really love the idea of having a regular reminder to keep moving but also have it be in a style that’s sleek and not bulky looking to wear. The Shine can be worn in a few different ways and is modest and not a huge monitor around your wrist, which I like.   Unfortunately for me the Shine only works with Apple products like an iPad or iPhone, and I have neither.  So please note that before buying!  You’ll need an Apple device to use this particular tracker and fortunately for me, tons of my friends have them and one that I know is very active, a good friend named Jen, helped me out with this review.  This is going to work just fine for a lot of people because so many of us have iPhones.  I’m just not one of them (love my S4)!

This is what the actual device looks like .  It’s pretty small, maybe the size of a quarter, and either clips onto your shirt or can be work in a wristband or necklace.  So there are a couple of options depending on what works best for you. We liked the wristband and the fact that it can be easily adjusted to fit a smaller wrist .

Some of the product features

There are directions in the packaging and they’re pretty easy to follow so you can get started quickly.  They start you off with a goal of 1000 points, which is the equivalent of 10,000 steps.  You can adjust that depending on your level of activity. I always think you should set a goal that challenges you to improve but that’s attainable. 10,000 is a little high but Jen is pretty active so let’s see how she did!

On the days when she went out for a run she shattered her goal of 1000 points, but on the days when she didn’t that was a little hard to meet.  So you may want to wear it for a few days and get a feel for what’s normal for you.  You can tap the Shine monitor to check your progress for the day which causes it to flash, but Jen found this a little confusing. Sometimes she had to tap several times to get it to flash.  So, it flashes, but it was a bit vague what the flashes mean. To get more of an explanation of the flashes she had to go online, the directions in the box weren’t quite enough to figure it out. But the good news is that the Shine syncs with your phone or i-device wirelessly so it’s super easy to check your progress at any time on your phone without the taps and flashes.

In the end Jen felt this was a great device for those of us looking to get started find some motivation by setting activity goals.  The device runs on a coin battery that will last about 4 months.  One other big plus is that you can swim with it on!  And exclusive to Best Buy, you can find it in four different colors.  Of course black goes with everything but I kind of like the Topaz!

If you’d like to try to stay more active over the holidays and not let those cookies get the best of you, or if you’re thinking of a New Year’s resolution to be more active, check out the Shine by Misfit to pair with your Apple device.  You can find it at Best Buy!