Category: Technology

On more occasions in the last few weeks than I’d like to admit, I found myself doing jumping jacks in my kitchen an hour before going to bed.

That’s not when I’d usually prefer to do any exercise, but on those nights, I looked down at my watch only to see I was so close to hitting my Move Goal, yet still far enough away that shuffling around doing my nightly routines wouldn’t get the job done. And there’s no way I’d finish the day without making the elongated blue cat on my watch face vomit up a bunch of ice cream and turn rainbow-colored. Or, in other words, close my movement ring and watch it play a celebratory animation. I guess you could say the Fitbit Ace LTE has been a great motivator.

How the Fitbit Ace LTE works

The Fitbit Ace LTE is Google’s latest kid-focused activity tracker. It offers some smartwatch features, like location-tracking and the ability to call and text parent-approved contacts (who have downloaded the Fitbit Ace companion app). It looks a lot like the company’s adult fitness smartwatches from the Sense and Versa lines compared to the original Fitbit Ace, but more fun.

The digital clock face, for one, is trimmed with a faint ring that’s gradually overtaken by a cartoonish “Noodle” design as the wearer’s activity points rack up throughout the day. That includes the cat I mentioned, a dog, a tentacle, a robot arm and a deeply unsettling anthropomorphic hotdog that surely only kids in a certain pre-tween age range will get a kick out of. By swapping out the Ace LTE’s “Cartridge” band with one of the other styles (sold separately), you can add different Noodles and themes to the watch. There are built-in movement-based games as well, including quirky interpretations of a kart racer, golf and fishing.

Meet the eejie

Then there’s the eejie: a customizable humanoid creature that lives in the device, whose happiness is dependent on the completion of daily health goals.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t that drawn to the eejie at first glance. When it comes to virtual companions, I’m typically more interested in weird little critters that in no way look human. But after designing my own eejie, I couldn’t help but get attached. It turns out there are a bunch of skin colors, eye shapes, hair types and mouths to choose from, so you can make your eejie as human or nonhuman as you want. Creating a character is always fun, and I could see kids getting really into crafting their virtual friends and switching up their outfits as they unlock more clothing and accessories. My eejie is a freaky-cute Nosferatu-like child with purple skin, sporting a huge pink bow.

The watch’s Daily Quests and Arcade are really the main stars, as they’re what actually entice you to move. Every day, there are four new quests to complete, which feels like a comfortable amount of tasks to be achievable without taking over a kid’s life. These include playing a game — the quests will always pick up from the last game you played — and hitting the daily Move Goal, which kids can set in the app. The other two items have less to do with activity. You might be instructed to visit Bit Valley, where the eejies live, and shown a brief tap-to-open fact to learn more about the watch’s health features. These more random tasks also sometimes included small mindfulness exercises, which is a thoughtful touch that I’m sure parents would appreciate.

Called Community Notes, these challenges asked me to do things like write down the sights and smells around me, or turn off the lights in a room that isn’t being used. The watch will sometimes show fun facts to complement your movement goals, like “walk 5,000 steps, the length of 33,333 hot dogs.” It’ll also deliver gentle reminders to complete your quests in the notification section. (Parents have the option to silence these and other notifications during designated “School time” so they don’t become a distraction).

Games on the Fitbit Ace LTE

As I would imagine will also be the case for kids, completing my game quest for the day has been easy. The games are a lot of fun, more so than I was expecting. So far, the Fitbit Ace LTE offers six: Kaiju Golf, Pollo 13, Jelly Jam, Smokey Lake, Galaxy Rangers and Otal’s Secret. And Google said that new games will periodically be added to keep things fresh. Two more — Spirit Garden and a virtual pet game, Sproutlings — are already on the way.

Games require a bit of patience on startup, though, with slow loading times and a few too many dialogue boxes to tap through before you can actually play, especially the first time. Even I was antsy trying to get through this, so I can only imagine how a kid might be squirming. But once you’re in, it’s smooth sailing. There’s a good amount of variety in the small catalog, too, with options for both relaxed and more active play.

Pollo 13, in which you play as a chicken racing through space in an inflatable tub, had me out of my seat, moving around and shouting. On the other hand, Otal’s Secret had me solving puzzles, which I did from the comfort of my couch. At first, I was unsure how such seemingly involved games would work on the watch’s small screen, but everything was well-sized and laid out nicely.

You can only play for limited amounts of time before the game will stop and prompt you to get moving in order to proceed. Only after hitting certain activity milestones will the game be unlocked again. Most of the time, this meant I’d just play in short bursts and return later after I’d naturally racked up more move points over the course of the day. But there were a few moments where I had nothing better to do, so I’d set out to hit those goals right away, taking a brisk walk in the vicinity of my house or, again, launching into some jumping jacks (I’m not very creative).

Pollo 13 on the Fitbit Ace LTE.

After months of using a Fitbit Charge 6 prior to this, I found that the Ace LTE was turning me into a much more active participant in my fitness. I exercise a fair amount in general, and my Charge 6 has basically become a way to passively keep track of my habits. But the visual rewards that came with achieving my goals on the Fitbit Ace LTE felt more like a gratifying pat on the back than the boring notifications on the standard trackers, so I worked to keep earning them. In addition to the silly Noodle animations, I’d be surprised here and there with the appearance of a bouncing pug piñata that I could tap to break open, revealing presents like arcade tickets to buy things for my eejie.

Fitbit also slyly uses a dash of guilt as a motivator by tying the eejie’s emotional state to the fulfillment of quests. After the first time I saw how dejected she looked when I accidentally neglected my goals for a few days, I never wanted to let her down again.

The Fitbit Ace LTE versus Tamagotchi and Digimon

All of these things make it a really great health-focused device for kids. Hell, if a software update could bring some of these features to Fitbit’s regular fitness trackers, I’d download it in a heartbeat. The Fitbit Ace LTE is essentially a fully realized version of something toymakers have dipped their toes into with wearable virtual pets like recent Tamagotchi and Digimon devices. It straps a little companion to your kid’s wrist in hopes that it’ll encourage them to get moving, and uses games to make it all go down easier.

Bandai’s Digimon Vital Bracelet — which was released in Japan in 2021 before coming to the US the following year with the Vital Hero model — took a direct approach to fitness, using metrics like daily steps and heart rate activity to influence the outcome of the monsters’ evolution paths. With a companion app, you can also participate in battles, and more monsters can be unlocked by buying and swapping in what are known as DIM cards.

The Tamagotchi Uni, the first version of which came out in 2021, expanded on the basic step-counters of earlier models to include a full-fledged walking activity. Rather than simply logging steps, initiating a Tama Walk will send your pet on a 20-minute stroll, during which it can pick up supplies that can later be used to craft special items. How fruitful these outings are depends on how much you moved in real life to fill up the red activity bar. Plus, going on Tama Walks is a good way to boost your pet’s happiness.

As a sophisticated fitness device rather than a toy, Fitbit Ace LTE is able to go so much further. Its game Jelly Jam, for example, almost exactly mirrors a movement-based dancing game found on the Tamagotchi Uni and the Japan-exclusive Tamagotchi Smart. But while the Tamagotchi version is something I stopped playing pretty quickly after the novelty wore off — it’s boring and the toy’s sensors don’t correctly log the motions half the time — Fitbit Ace LTE’s spin on an arm-tracking dance game is pretty fun, if only because it actually works as it’s meant to.

Best of all, it could come with me anywhere. I swam with it, went horseback riding and even put it through a few dance classes. It’s lightweight and never felt cumbersome in any of those situations.

Still, a part of me wishes there were more ways to get involved with the eejie’s care beyond simply dressing it up and keeping it happy, like feeding or playing with it directly. Right now, it doesn’t have much depth and mostly feels like a mascot. I wouldn’t mind seeing future eejie options that include more animal-like creatures, either. My only real gripe with the watch is its battery life. It’ll need to be charged every night, which might be tricky for kids to remember. I woke up to find it dead several times after taking it off and forgetting to pop it on the charger. And it doesn’t track sleep.

Nonetheless, the watch is also a good peace-of-mind option for parents just as much as it is a solid wellness device. The call/messaging features are as basic as they come, but they work just fine for the intended purpose — giving parents and trusted individuals an easy way to get in touch with their kids, and vice versa. 

Calls with the watch sounded decent on both ends, and the location-sharing feature accurately reflected the device’s position when I checked it in the app. The Fitbit Ace app itself is easy to set up and navigate, with a simple interface that shouldn’t be hard to work with, even for someone who isn’t very tech savvy.

It’s not a full-featured smartwatch with an app library or even a way to communicate outside of the Fitbit Ace app, but its limitations are designed to keep risks to an absolute minimum. Given it’s made for kids starting at age 7, I think this is worth the trade-off. At $230 plus the $10/month Fitbit Ace Pass (which allows you to use the LTE connectivity without adding a new line to your existing phone plan), it is pricey. But it should be able to grow with a kid for at least a few years into the early double-digits without coming off as age-inappropriate. Pop off that bright green protective bumper, and it looks like any other smartwatch.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/fitbit-ace-lte-review-a-kids-activity-tracker-that-was-fun-for-me-an-adult-140043586.html?src=rss 

There’s a problem with most e-bikes, which is that you’ll never find one that does every job perfectly. A city cruiser with no grunt will leave you stranded when you reach an incline while a beefy cargo bike can haul gear, but it’s too big for commuting. Tenways’ AGO-T has tried to square many of these circles by sticking almost too much power onto a Dutch-style step-thru frame.

It’s marketed as a bike for city living, but for cities where you’re not just dealing with flat, well paved roads. It’s got a beefy motor and battery, giving it enough power to tackle the steepest hill with ease, and a decent pannier rack for cargo capacity. But all of that extra power comes with the weight that comes with it, and so while it’s meant to be nimble, it’s also hefty.

The e-bike market is sufficiently homogeneous that I won’t look at a unit unless it’s got some eye-catching features. The AGO-T’s spec-list sold me on a test ride given the sheer volume of stuff bolted onto its frame: A Bafang M420 mid-drive motor with 80 Nm max torque (although you’ll get less of that in day-to-day-use); a Gates carbon belt; and Enviolo’s stepless shifting hub. You also get hydraulic disc brakes, a Selle Royal seat, an integrated front light and an integrated rear light built into the pannier rack.

There’s often something a little medicinal about most bikes with a step-through frame. But a combination of paneling to hide away a lot of its mechanisms and the fancy “Jungle Green” paint job sets the AGO-T apart. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s a rather stylish way to get around town, even if it’s built more for power than maneuverability.

You can expect to pay a pretty penny for those sorts of specs, and the AGO-T is priced £2,699 (around $3,500). That’s a lot of cash for a bike, but not unreasonable given the gear on show, and the fact it’s been packaged so neatly. You can get a cheaper alternative like Gazelle’s Paris C7+ for a grand less, but you’ll notice compromises, like the weaker motor.

The AGO-T has a range of 100km (62 miles) with its motor-assisted top speed limited, as per the law, to 15 miles per hour. Put it this way, I rarely if ever felt like I was going too slow on this thing, and often had to dial down its speed.

The last few e-bikes I’ve tested had basic digital displays offering little more than your speed and how much assist the bike was giving you. By comparison, the AGO-T’s full-color LCD display comes across almost as too much, especially given its enormous size. There’s a lot of negative space in the UI, too, and it looks more like the instrument cluster on a car. Sometimes less is more. And, yes, a TFT LCD isn’t ideal when you’re out in really strong sunlight.

Up top is the time and battery level, while the middle shows speed in miles or kilometers per hour. The lower third indicates the assist level (from 0-5) and then there are two boxes, which cycle through a number of data points: Average speed, maximum speed, trip time, range, the amount of CO2 you haven’t burned and the trees you’ve commensurately saved. I’m not sure I’d ever need those last two data points available to me all the time, and I’m not sure what the basis for that claim is anyway. Especially when those sorts of metrics are far better suited to the app than the primary display.

As for the app, it’s like every other e-bike app in that you probably won’t ever look at it except to satisfy your curiosity. There is a built-in GPS that you can use by mounting your phone to the handlebars or, even better, with the directions pushed to the bike display. Sadly, the quality of the GPS on offer is well below Google or Apple Maps, with many local landmarks not listed. Similarly, the turn-by-turn directions routed to the bike screen consist only of turn signal and distance, which is a far cry from what a good GPS should offer. This is a feature that could be world class and suffers by merely being adequate, if that.

The AGO-T weighs 31kg (68 pounds) and you will feel every gram of that weight when you’re holding it. I do not recommend carrying it up and down stairs unless you’re built like the worst person you see at the gym. If you live in a poorly-served apartment building I don’t think this is the bike for you, but if you can safely store this at ground level, go for it. It’s like owning an SUV which is great when you’re tooling around town, and awful when you can’t fit into a small space in the parking lot.

Its heaviness means it’s a little stodgier when you’re on the road, especially at low speeds where you’ll have to work harder to maintain balance. There’s an accessibility argument often made about e-bikes that they help empower folks who may not be as physically strong. A bike like this might fall at this hurdle given its heft. But in motion, the AGO-T is tuned to be sedate, gliding around the roads rather than zooming down them. This smoothness makes sense, because you’re looking at this to get you from A to B, as well as haul some bags or a kid along with you.

Tenways markets the AGO-T on the basis it can take whatever a city can throw at it. I had no doubts, given the power of that Bafang mid-drive motor, that it would be able to tackle the steep hills in my home city of Norwich. When I test e-bikes or scooters, I try to zip up a hill with an incline of 22.4 degrees, which regularly defeats lesser bikes. But with the AGO-T, I actually had to turn the gears down because it felt too easy and weightless with the assist up to the max. Even after I’d tweaked things, I think this is the first time I’ve ridden up that hill and not broken even the merest hint of a sweat.

This does, however, come at the cost of the range, and the estimates quickly started dropping once I’d started tackling hills. That said, you can easily get 30 miles out of this on a charge, which is more than enough for most days, right?

Tenways also claims the AGO-T can tackle rough terrain on this bike, so I took it over a few dirt tracks. The adjustable front forks and suspension seat meant that the bike evened out some pretty bumpy areas. Obviously, I wouldn’t want to take this off-roading but I was surprised at how well it coped with gravel tracks and dirt pathways riddled with tree branches.

As a city cruiser that can eat hills like they’re cotton candy, the Tenways’ AGO-T is a bit of a fantasy bike. I could easily see myself using this as my primary bike, especially given the variable terrain of my home city. Whether you should buy one becomes less a question of its qualities that your needs in the given moment. Are you in need of a bike that can handle all types of terrain at any gradient that’ll also give you cargo space? Are you strong enough to wrestle with its considerable weight? And, of course, do you have enough cash in the bank to buy it and then make sure there’s safe places to park it? If the answer to all of those is yes, then this is pretty much a slam dunk.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/tenways-ago-t-is-a-well-equipped-but-heavy-e-bike-133005101.html?src=rss