Atmos Fit Elite Review

The Elite is the followup to the Atmos Fit, upgraded with the addition of a heart rate monitor and revamped aesthetics.

Out of the box

Included in the box is the unit, charger and manual. Unlike the previous Atmos Fit, you can’t use just any ordinary charger because the Elite’s charger is a three-pronged proprietary one which clips to the unit. So be careful not to lose it.

Charging the Elite for a couple of hours will give you a week of juice.

To fully utilize the Elite out of the box, you first have to download the companion app (Atmos Fit) from the iOS App store or Google Play. The app is well designed, streamlined and easy to use with a clean, intuitive UI. Just set your profile and you’re good to go.

Display

The Elite’s display is an OLED monochrome display that’s nothing to write home about, but it does have a certain retro 8-bit charm to the interface. A touch sensor is indicated by a simple circle in the Elite’s face. One tap will display the date and time which is automatically synced to your phone, together with the battery level and Bluetooth indicator. Another tap will bring you to the number of steps you have taken. Tap it once more and it displays the distance you have travelled. Another tap will display the heart rate. You have a couple of options on how to activate the heart rate sensor: one is by pressing and holding the touch sensor on the Elite until the heart icon beats, and another is through the app.

Sensor accuracy

The pedometer is fairly accurate when walking but it does get wrong readings in certain situations: For instance, I walked a short distance from the door to my car and drove around for about an hour, but the sensor indicated that I have walked 3 kilometers. I also woke up one morning and the sensor had already registered 200 steps while I was asleep (and I am fairly certain I don’t sleepwalk). But walking from the office to the house is reflected accurately (a distance of about 1 kilometer).

The sleep monitor is also fairly accurate. It does get the hours of sleep close to reality as far as I can tell. But I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the quality of sleep (deep sleep and light sleep) which is indicated in the app.

The heart rate monitor is where it gets a little bit iffy. It utilizes an optical sensor that shines light onto your skin to ostensibly measure blood flow. But I tried to measure my heart rate while I had the Elite taken off, and it still returned a reading. Thinking the ambient light is affecting it, I put it inside a dark drawer, and it still returned a normal heart rate reading. So I would not really put my trust in these things for returning an accurate heart rate. But in fairness to Atmos Fit, the science of measuring heart rate through optical sensors is not really an exact science just yet.

Notification and Alarm

The Elite, when connected through Bluetooth to your smartphone, can also notify you of a text message/call. Sadly you can’t preview a message, but it can be useful when you have your phone in your bag and is likely to miss a call.

You can also set a silent alarm through the app. I find this useful when I want to wake up early and doesn’t want to disturb others in the room with me.

Another feature is called the Safety Feature, in which your phone’s alarm will sound off when it gets beyond range of the Elite when connected through Bluetooth.

Verdict

Although limited and not as feature-packed as a FitBit or other higher end fitness bands, the Atmos Fit Elite is a good buy at just Php 890.00 (www.kimstore.com) which is just a fraction of the price. For comparison, you can buy 10 of these things for the price of one FitBit Charge 2. The pedometer , notification and silent alarm feature alone made it worth the price tag for me. Add in the watch features and the price more than justifies itself.

*There had been a recurring issue among our readers, namely that the Atmos doesn’t recharge when  the battery is drained. This seems to be an issue affecting a lot of units and we are reaching out to Kimstore for comment.

*Update (7/10/17): We’ve tried to get Kimstore’s tech support to help out with the technical issues you have brought up here. Sad to say, pinagpasapasahan lang kami and in the end there was no offered solution aside from taking your units back to them.

*Update (7/11/17): Kimstore had replied to our queries with the following message:

Hi Sir, actually ,that is just a batch problem, and has been resolved with the new batch of arrivals for atmos fit elite. For those having difficulties, feel free to return these units to us and we will provide full warranty and replacement support as necessary 🙂

So head over to Kimstore and have your malfunctioning units replaced, guys.