Leaf ActivityTracker

There are a lot of activity/fitness trackers out there. You know what I’m talking about – they are usually something you wear around your wrist that tracks your steps, your sleep, and sometimes your heart rate. Most of them do about the same things and most of them are well, not so cute. They are functional. Whomever designed them wasn’t really thinking about if it was cute, or if people would really want to wear it all the time. I mean does your fitness tracker go with all the outfits you have? I know fitness isn’t all about being cute, but if they want you to wear this thing ALL the time then it needs to be something you’d WANT to wear all the time right? Well I wasn’t sure I would even find a fitness tracker I’d want to wear all the time until I came across the Leaf by BellaBeat on Instagram.

The Leaf is a fitness tracker (more on what it does later) but it is cute. Not just cute, it is down right pretty. It comes in silver, rose gold, and gold and can be worn as a bracelet (my favorite way to wear it), a necklace, or clipped on your clothes like a broach. I decided to go with the silver one because a) I only wear silver jewelry and b) I loved the light wood background. Made of 100% American wood, each LEAF is unique, just like the person wearing it. Its advanced technology is hidden inside a 100% American wooden housing, giving it a soft natural appeal that isn’t found in other wearables.

The LEAF is a sleep, activity and reproductive health monitor that helps you cope with stress through built-in breathing exercises. This smart piece of jewelry works as a tracking system for your health and provides insights and helpful reminders to keep you on track. Monthly cycles (ovulation, period, and contraception intake) are tracked through the app so that you can have greater awareness of your reproductive health. LEAF syncs with the app and all of your data is transferred wirelessly. The LEAF also vibrates to remind the user to either be more active or reduce the intensity of her workouts based on her set preferences. Cool huh?

During your waking hours, which you can actually set, the Leaf tracks your steps. You can set a goal for each day and it lets you know how close you get to it. When I originally got my Leaf the app kept tack of how many steps you took per day, showed you the percentage of that goal you hit, and calculated calories burned. When I showed the device to my doctor she was, well, less than impressed. She thought it was pretty but believes that fitness trackers in general are inaccurate because activity really doesn’t start to efficiently burn calories until you’ve been doing it for more than 10 minutes. Totally true, but at least its tracking how much I’m up and moving and making me more aware of it.

Well imagine my surprise when the app updated this week and started tracking activity based on that! It still tracks how many steps you take each day, but your activity goals are now based on minutes of activity and don’t “count” unless you’ve been active for more than 10 minutes at a time. At first I thought my Leaf wasn’t working correctly because it was showing me at 0% of my goal when i’d spent a good part of the day walking around. Problem was I never quite got to 10 minutes each time I was walking, so it hadn’t been counted towards my goal. But I could still see how many steps I’d taken that day.

The Leaf also monitors your sleep. It shows when you are awake, in light sleep, and deep sleep. I check it every morning and its pretty darn accurate regarding when you are asleep and awake. And I can also tell physically the mornings when I’d been moving around at night.

So what else does it do? The LEAF app is also able to shed light on women’s reproductive health by allowing them to input and track their period, estimate when they are ovulating, and track their use of contraception. You can set reminder alarms for pills or other activities. And you can set it so that if you are still for a certain amount of time during the day it will vibrate and let you know to get up and moving. Its great for those work days where you tend to spend a little bit too much time at your desk. The Leaf gives you a friendly reminder to get off your bootie!

What do I think of the Leaf? I love it. Its pretty, its functional, it does everything I want a fitness tracker to do, and I’ve gotten lots of compliments on it. Most people can’t believe its not just a pretty piece of jewelry. My only issue with it is that it is not water resistant. I’ve worn it during a heavy work out clipped to my sports bra and it was fine, but I worry about wearing it during a run in our Florida heat. I also worry about it when I’m washing my hands and such throughout the day. So far I haven’t had any issues, but its definitely constantly on my mind. Other than that its great!

The Leaf isn’t made in mass quantities, so you if you want to pick one up for a Christmas gift you should get moving on that. You can order them online here and learn more about them on Instagram and Twitter.

*Disclosure: I was given a complimentary Leaf for review purposes. As always, all thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.