With the increasing popularity of fitness bands, Timex has also forayed into this segment with its own fitness band, the Timex Blink Band. It is a fancy and sleek band with basic fitness band features and some safety features – the Timex Blink band offers sleep monitor, SOS trigger, alarm, steps counter and much more.
For interacting with your Timex Blink band, you get an OLED display with a touch-sensitive button. It is a monochrome display and shows the information as you navigate through it. Launched earlier this month, we got our hands on the Timex Blink band and here is our review.
Physical overview
Starting with the build, the Timex Blink band surely looks sleek and fashionable. Unfortunately, even though it is aimed at fitness enthusiasts, it does not offer water-resistance so you might want to be careful around water.
On the front, there is a monochrome OLED display with a touch key interface. The display remains off to conserve battery and wakes up with a tap on the touch key. Successive taps show steps walked, distance traveled, and calories burnt.
At the back of the band, there is a metallic cover with an opening for a microUSB port. This opening is sealed with a rubber cover, making it sweat resistant and easily accessible too.
You get two straps with the Timex Blink band – a standard strap for using the band with more fancy outfits and a sports strap for casual use. Although the straps are cumbersome to replace as they involve small pins, once you change a band you may not want to switch it again.
Display
The Timex Bling band comes with a 0.91-inch OLED display with a touch key. It is a monochrome display and turns on when you raise your wrist. The band shows time only when activated by raising your wrist. The touch key allows you to navigate through various stats and data shown by the band.
The display is clear while using indoors but it’s not clear under direct sunlight. Also, while viewing with your wrist up, you can see it clearly but the display cuts from the sides if the band is viewed from an angle. The responsiveness of the touch key and display were pretty good, though.
Data displayed on Timex Blink
The data and information displayed by your fitness band is the main reason for using one. The Timex Blink offers the basic data and information about your fitness goals. You can pair the band with your Android or iOS device via Bluetooth and set custom goals.
Fitness data
The Timex Blink comes with a Pedometer that counts the steps you take. You can customize the Pedometer output based on your stride length and pace. In our testing, we found out that the steps counter had a deviation of 20 to 30 steps depending on time.
The band also shows the distance traveled and calories burnt. While the distance is estimated by your phone’s location service, calories are shown based on the steps walked by you. The accuracy is good but it is never exact. There are slight deviations in the distance covered but the data is acceptably accurate.
SOS and Phone search feature
The Timex Blink comes with certain unique and useful features. To start with, the band offers an SOS emergency service. It lets you send SOS message with your location to your preset contacts. However, to utilize it, you need to keep your phone’s location services on while the band is connected to it.
The second unique feature here is that you can ring your phone using your Timex Blink band. For this too, you need to have the phone paired with your band.
Battery and Notifications
The Timex Blink packs a 90mAh Li-ion battery which has lasted us two days of usage with about 30% battery remaining. The band takes around 1.5 hours to charge fully and you can turn it off when not using it to save battery. The charging method is also easy as it takes the same micro USB cable as most smartphones.
The notifications shown by the band are for incoming calls and messages along with some other notifications. You get a continuous vibration for incoming calls and single vibration for other notifications like SMS. The band is connected to your smartphone using Bluetooth so it is energy efficient and does not drain much battery.
Verdict
The Timex Blink Band is a stylish and sleek fitness band. You can wear it with a fancy outfit and it will give a premium watch look. The improvements could be in the straps changing area as the small pins could easily be lost and may be cumbersome to insert.
In terms of data accuracy, the Timex Blink band does well. However, bands around the same price range are offering multiple workout modes, waterproofing, and heart rate sensors. So this band is ideal if you’re satisfied with the basics.