App expands Microsoft Band with 50+ activities

03/16/2016

3 minutes to read

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Microsoft //BUILD conference is just around the corner, and many exciting announcements are expected: many are coming from partners and developers. For those of us using Microsoft Band, this one comes just in time: Active Fitness just released Windows 10 versions of its popular Active Fitness and Winter Sports apps into the Store, and they can expand your Microsoft Band with 50+ new activities, including skiing and snowboarding! Just in time for the ski season. What's even more cool, the apps allow you to conserve Band's GPS battery life, so the Band can run beyond 24+ hours while still getting ski updates!

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Yes, Microsoft Band can now ski and snowboard, the apps also add fun activities as dog walking, shopping and even inline skating from all over the world to your Microsoft Band! Active Fitness cloud platform user base has grown to more than 2 million users recently, not bad for a small development shop. Active Fitness platform also powers apps from top brands and sport manufacturers, and is a happy sports community (Source: Active Fitness official blog).

So how does it work?

If you own a Microsoft Band, simply install Active Fitness or Winter Sports apps from the store (for now only Windows 10 Mobile version of the app supports Band integration, but the publisher plans to add Band support to Android and iOS versions shortly). Go to Settings, Band and turn the switch on to enable Microsoft Band support. Then you can enable any of 50+ activities that Active Fitness or Winter Sports apps have to your Band. And this is it!

One of the most unique features of Active Fitness that no other competitor can match, is very extensive winter sports support: ski, snowboard, cross-country skiing, telemark, Nordic walking, mountaineering and other sports people love doing in the snow. In fact, Winter Sports, a snow sports version of Active Fitness earned credits for being an official app of Professional Ski and Snowboard Instructors of America and participated in many sports events on the snow. Winter Sports runs on the same cloud powered platform of Active Fitness, which means users can use the same cloud account to login to the apps. The //BUILD announcement comes just in time for ski season 2016: with a little help from Active Fitness and Winter Sports apps, Microsoft Band can now do skiing!

In addition to tracking activities, Active Fitness also includes powerful training programs, interval training, social community with friends, fitness pictures (similar to Instagram but fitness-specific), information about trails from more than 2,000 ski resorts worldwide and unlimited number of trails created by users themselves. In fact, Active Fitness blog details some of the travel adventures possible with the app.

Active Fitness cloud platform runs on Microsoft Azure, the most scalable platform in the world. That guarantees its scalability and advanced social and cloud integration. The Active Fitness user base rocketed to 2 million users in a couple of years, which is a stunning success. Active Fitness has trails from any nation of the world it seems, which aligns well with the company slogan: trails created by you. Another cool thing about Active Fitness is that it is using Xamarin technology, another hot startup acquired by Microsoft recently.

SUMMARY: With Active Fitness and Winter Sports apps, Microsoft Band gets many more activities, including skiing, snowboarding and about 50+ others. These apps also help the Band conserve GPS while still getting ski, snowboard or other stats from the apps. Active Fitness is a small privately owned startup in Silicon Valley with 2 million users in its fitness social networks and apps.

MORE RESOURCES

Active Fitness website

Winter Sports website

Active Fitness Trails Worldwide Active Fitness official blog

(Source: Active Fitness official blog)