AURA Strap for Apple Watch Review
The AURA Strap sets out to monitor additional health measurements whilst still wearing the Apple Watch. It does this by incorporating new sensors into a strap designed for the Apple Watch itself, but is it accurate, easy to use and worthy of $119/ £119 on Amazon?
Design
The AURA Strap comes in five different colours: mint green, coal black, light grey, multicoloured pride edition, and our colour, peach red. We like the colour, and the velcro polyester strap material is soft and water resistant, but it is a slight pain to put on due to there being two Velcro areas to attach whilst avoiding covering the sensor which could happen if they are not equally wedded on each side. Another thing we don’t like so much is that the watch uses plastic connectors to clip the strap onto the Apple Watch and there is a little play. It’s not a huge issue and doesn’t interfere with the usability of the watch or secureness on the wrist, but visually it’s annoying. The straps are available in two sizes and compatible with 38/40mm and 42/44mm Apple Watch sizes.
So far the sensor located on the back of the strap, which is shiny, is still glistening. Despite wearing the strap for a month and coming into contact with various surfaces and having other altercations, it’s only picked up some light surface scratches. This was a nice surprise.
What’s the point?
Well, the idea behind the AURA Strap is that it monitors a whole slew of health factors in an attempt to provide a deeper understanding of what exactly is going on with our bodies. These include hydration, body fat, body muscle and minerals. From this data further extraction is done to provide a BMI, lean mass, visceral fat measurement and more. AURA have an App on both the Apple Watch and iPhone, which is where the data syncs back to you. Thankfully, though, this data also feeds straight into the Apple Health App, because AURA make use of the Apple Health Kit developer tools, so all your Apple Watch information is in one convenient place.
How do I use it?
Like the ECG feature on the Apple Watch, the AURA Strap has to be consciously enabled to get readings. It doesn’t monitor your health in the background whilst you get on with your day, like every other Apple Watch feature does. The reason for this is very simple; you have to make contact with the sensor plate onto a specific zone of your palm so the electrodes can do their thing. Four out of five times it works with no issues. Your hands have to be clean, your environment quiet (difficult) and it’s specified that it works best standing up.
Is it accurate?
When we first received the AURA Strap, results were differing significantly within a matter of minutes between readings. However, upon installing the latest updates, it does appear that this anomaly has been dealt with. When using the AURA Strap regularly it’s noticeable that results compared don’t show significant disparities and if taken minutes apart there’s only a small percentage difference in the data, which adds reassurance. Overall results do have a clear trend over time and are closely aligned. The one exception to this is the hydration level, which fluctuates more than any other stat, with a difference of over 15% throughout the day. This is to be expected though, and follows a trend; low in the morning at around 45%, by midday just peaking above 50% and in the evening around 55%, with around 3.4 litres of water being consumed on a daily basis. On first impression this does sound slightly stupid, because if you’re thirsty you’ll get a drink. But upon further research, hydration, like the rest of the body's make-up, isn’t quite so straightforward and hydration levels can be under the optimum percentage range without us knowing, which can then lead to health complications.
With each nugget of data, the AURA App on both the Apple Watch and iPhone explains the ideal range to be within, so we can quickly make sense of readings. With the muscle and body fat composition stats, that extract to provide a BMI, minerals, etc; we can say that the indicated data points to a body composition we’d expect. The BMI is within the accurate range and that’s reassuring. It’s definitely nice to be able to expand upon the functionality of the Apple Watch itself within a design that incorporates it, and to learn more about our bodies is only a good thing, so AURA have done well to pull this off. We’ve been using ours for over a month and the user replaceable battery within the strap is still above 80%.
Verdict
For us, if the AURA Strap monitored our hydration levels, body fat and muscle composition unconsciously, it would be a more interesting and useful accessory. But remembering, or even bothering, to go through the admittedly simple process is a downside, as the Apple Watch experience is built on just keeping a constant eye on our health to present an accurate picture of our lifestyles. The AURA Strap itself is comfortable enough, Apps work well and we love that it all syncs into the Apple Health App. Information seems to be consistent and within the realms of being accurate. It’s a good first try at attempting to do something interesting within the strap and we look forward to seeing how this product evolves.
