Gruve Personal Activity Monitor, White/Gray

Gruve Personal Activity Monitor, White/Gray Review

As I promised (in a comment to another reviewer) I am back to review this product. I ordered it April 22 and received it today (29th). I am already impressed with this device over the long fruitless wait I did for the fitbit. I ordered that late January, but they kept pushing back delivery. I gave up when it got pushed to July.

So far, so good. Installation was a snap. I downloaded the software easily, plugged in the gruve and was synced and connected to my registration page right away. I guess it will take up to 12 hours to charge, but meanwhile I read through much of the online literature explaining the concept and the program. Seems much more in depth than the fitbit (which I also have a profile for, but no device).

I have seen complaints from people who lost their gruve. I believe you can purchase loss insurance from the the company. But I tried attaching it to a belt loop and fail to see how you could lose it, unless it just falls apart??

After you set up a profile (can be done quickly by answering a few questions and picking a password), and charge the thing, then it does a one week assessment of your activities before it starts nagging you. Seems simple and straightforward.

MAY 3, 2010 UPDATE: Still early in the review process, but will add a couple comments now that I have worn my Gruve for a few days. I am not sure whether the vibration is activated during the one week initiation process or not. I thought I felt it a couple of times, but if so, it was very light and short. Perhaps those were just 'phantom' vibrations, like cellphone memory. I hope so, because otherwise it is not much of a reminder to be active.
The clip is awkward to attach to cloth material, like a waistband. Very hard to remove as the gray part hooks into the cloth. That is good for security, but since the instructions or FAQs warn about careful removal to avoid breakage, it is a concern. If fits pretty well on my leather belt, but since other reviewers have complained about losing their Gruves, I decided to spring for the loss insurance. The company apparently has little faith in their own design; they offer a free repair if the clip breaks. Of course that doesn't apply if you lose it after it breaks. They claim to be redesigning the clip.

The sync online works ALMOST flawlessly. Yesterday morning I logged in, updated my profile and tried to resync. I was immediately locked out and sync would not work. I rebooted the program, then the computer, then did a program repair. Nothing worked. Late yesterday afternoon it logged and synced again without a problem. Perhaps the site was temporarily down. I don't know. My profile chart works well, however, and seems to accurately correspond to my known activities.

I am anxious to get my first week finished so the color coding system with be active to tell how I am doing instantly. Right now it stays green while it gathers the first week of baseline data.

My only other complaint is LACK OF FORUM. Unlike the fit, there is no forum for users to share information. I am following a twitter thread, but it is mostly repeating ads to sell more Gruves. This review area is the closest thing to a forum I have found so far.

Gruve Personal Activity Monitor, White/Gray Feature

• Personalized to your specific calorie burn rate
• Real time feedback through colored lights
• Sendentary behavior vibration reminds you to move
• Easily syncs with pcs running windows xp, vista and windows 7
• Price includes gruve, 1 year subscription to gruve online and access to the gruve guide

Gruve Personal Activity Monitor, White/Gray Overview

Gruve is an unprecedented, personalized, scientifically proven solution that enables healthy, sustainable weight loss. wear your gruve all day and learn how to increase your daily activity, burn more calories and reach your personal health goals. sync your gruve with gruve online to view your calorie burn and activity intensity. log into gruve online and notice that your daily burn goal has been set based on a number of personal factors, not some generic formula like other programs. losing weight is as simple as reaching your get to greentm goal each day. included with your 1 year gruve subscription is the 12 week gruve guide which provides you with the education, motivation and support you need to make long term, sustainable behavior changes that lead to better health and weight management. testimonials "i knew i needed to do something to lose weight and be more active. gruve taught me just how much time i spent sitting and how to be more active throughout my workday, it was the small changes that made a big difference for me. the gruve motivated me to be more active." "the gruve program is great. it is a great accountability partner and it is definitely holding me to a standard that i would not have set for myself lately." "using the gruve has been an eye opening experience, i was amazed how accurate it was. i found that wearing gruve has helped to significantly lowered my blood pressure and lowered my cholesterol. gruve gave me the extra push that i needed to i changed my life." "i've only had gruve a week and already it is a can't-do-without-it item - and my children love to check and see what color my halo bar is at - certainly motivating to "get to the green" so i'm not running up and down the stairs at bedtime at the behest of my children to "make it turn green, mommy!". you have a great product."

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*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jul 20, 2010 13:25:04