(UPDATE: I am heading to the Microsoft Store at Fashion Show Mall right now to see if they have one I can play around with, and will update this post with my impressions, if I was able to have any.)

Surprisingly and unexpectedly, last night Microsoft announced its entry into wearable fitness, the Microsoft Band. The belief is they did so because it integrates with both iOS and Android, and leaks from those stores gave away the accessories’ existence.

I myself was surprised when I started seeing the articles, and they came in fast and furious. Within an hour, articles were all over the place. ZDnet referred to it as a ‘game-changer.’Even well-known Microsoft-hating The Verge seemed enamored with it.

The Band is meant to be much more than a fitness tracker. With ten built in sensors it can track everything form your heart rate to sleep cycles to galvanic skin response (perspiration) to steps taken to everything else. It will integrate with a slew of apps, including those available on iOS and Android, and it will gather a massive amount of data about your activities and exertions, your food and your down time, and provide tailored recommendations for exercise, advice for better sleep, and through the new Microsoft Health ecosystem you will be able to monitor all of this yourself. In fact, because the Health platform integrates with almost any health app out there on any platform, most any app can use the Health platform as its back-end to manage all the data that is being gathered. That’s as opposed to all the other health- and fitness-tracking apps that are specific only to a certain platform and require you have the phone; the Band is an independent device that doesn’t require you have a phone with you. The hope at Microsoft is that Health will provide a single, unified and compelling method for monitoring your body and utilizing technology to make your body better. I don’t want to make this too long, so you can read much, much more about the Health platform here and make your own decision.

As for aesthetics, I like it a lot. It looks modern yet minimalist, in the same vein as my other favorite attempt at this, the Razer Nabu. It has a single screen, yet will be able to display multiple data sets, as well as alerts, text messages, emails, current stats, it will feature Cortana functionality and yes, it will even the time. The display is customizable to some extent, and there are simply a massive amount of sensors in the thing that are all quite well hidden from normal view.

At $199, less than offerings from almost any of its competitors, it might have a chance. Response has been positive so far, especially considering everyone was so surprised by the official announcement, so we’ll see. My only hesitation is that this is the first generation of this device, and we all know you should wait until at least generation two when buying digital devices.

Below is the official trailer, and below that is an example of the interface in action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEvjulEJH9w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae4ze2gAMZ4