Reviews You Can Rely On

Striiv Fusion Bio 2 Review

Poor performing tracker with a high price tag
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Striiv Fusion Bio 2 Review (The Striiv Fusion Bio2.)
The Striiv Fusion Bio2.
Credit: Striiv
Price:  $100 List
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Manufacturer:   Striiv
By David Wise and Austin Palmer  ⋅  Jan 11, 2017
45
OVERALL
SCORE
  • Fitness Impact - 30% 3.0
  • Health Impact - 25% 4.0
  • Ease of Use - 20% 5.0
  • Ergonomics - 15% 7.0
  • Display - 10% 5.0

Our Verdict

The Striiv Fusion Bio 2 is Discontinued as of Late 2018
REASONS TO BUY
Comfortable
Interchangeable bands
REASONS TO AVOID
Mediocre fitness tracking
Inaccurate heart rate monitoring
The Striiv Fusion Bio2 is new to the field of fitness trackers, and unfortunately failed to impress. This was our least favorite fitness tracker out of the bunch, scoring a 45 out of 100. Scoring average when it came to ease of use and its display, the only factor that we found that slightly redeems it was it had a good aesthetic and was comfortable to wear.

Our Analysis and Test Results

The Striiv Fusion Bio2 finished at the bottom of the pack, with the lowest score of 45 out of 100. This model substantially struggled with our two most important metrics: health impact and fitness impact. We feel that the Bio2 still has a little way to go to catch up to the rest of the competition.

Performance Comparison


striiv fusion bio 2 - the striiv fusion bio 2 performed somewhat poorly in our tests.
The Striiv Fusion Bio 2 performed somewhat poorly in our tests.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman

Fitness Impact


The Bio2 was noticeably lacking in our fitness impact tests, earning a 3 out of 10. While it did well at tracking steps, and seemed the best at not registering our attempts to trick it into recording false steps, but that was about all that it excelled at.

The Bio2 has a much smaller online community than other brands, only showing your friends on a timeline-like graphic to see who is ahead. It is only possible to add friends via name or email, not through Facebook.

This model also does not provide you with challenges to motivate you to be active like other models. The Bio2 limits you to a generic activity throughout the day, compared to tracking different activity profiles. We also found that it seemed prone to underestimating workout times, only recording 11 of the 27 minutes in our high-intensity workout test. The Bio2 also lacks the capabilities to track flights of stairs climbed.

Health Impact


While doing slightly better when it came to health the impact, the Bio2 still earned a meager 4 out of 10. The only thing that it excelled at — vibration waking alarm — was a small component of this metric, and it did rather poorly in every other aspect of this category.

striiv fusion bio 2 - we found the bio 2 was waaaaaay off at measuring elevated heart rates.
We found the Bio 2 was waaaaaay off at measuring elevated heart rates.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman

While the Bio2 (and every other tracker) did an excellent job at tracking resting heart rate, it did abysmally in our tests for tracking heart rate while completing a workout, averaging an unacceptable 54 bpm off of the chest strap heart rate monitor. This model does not track calorie intake, requiring the use of a third party app (MyFitnessPal).

striiv fusion bio 2 - myfitnesspal is an app that pairs with many trackers and allows you...
MyFitnessPal is an app that pairs with many trackers and allows you to monitor your calorie intake and maintain that diet you are working on.

The final thing we looked at was sleep tracking. The Bio2 received the lowest score in our test, requiring 3 attempts to figure out how to do it correctly and get data that seemed somewhat reasonable. It requires you to automatically initiate sleep tracking, and the data wasn't very clear

Sleep tracking metrics captured by the Striiv tracker.
Sleep tracking metrics captured by the Striiv tracker.
The home screen with basic stats on the Striiv mobile app.
The home screen with basic stats on the Striiv mobile app.

Ease of Use


Continuing a trend of mediocrity, the Bio2 scored a 5 out of 10 in ease of use. We liked that it utilized a standard micro USB cable to charge, needing about 2 hours to fully charge the battery. This tracker also synched data to the app very quickly compared to the other model. The app seemed like it was a little outdated, but it was clear to navigate through it. We didn't particularly like that the majority of data was displayed through relative bar charts, without a specific numerical amount associated with it. This tracker was easy enough to put on, and rated to IPX4 for splashes.

Ergonomics


Redeeming itself, the Striiv scored well in ergonomics, earning a 7 out of 10. We found it to be very comfortable to wear. The profile is low and close to the wrist, only getting very lightly stuck when putting on a jacket.

striiv fusion bio 2 - our panel did find that the striiv model was comfortable to wear.
Our panel did find that the Striiv model was comfortable to wear.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman

Averaging out the opinions of our test panel, the general consensus was the Bio2 had decent aesthetics, though it wasn't the best.

Display


In our final metric, the Bio2 did average, earning a 5 out of 10. It has a nice display, easily displaying the date and time, as well as steps, distance traveled, calories burned through activity, and time spent being active.

striiv fusion bio 2 - we found the display and responsiveness of this tracker to be about...
We found the display and responsiveness of this tracker to be about average.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman

While this device purportedly can receive text, call, and app notifications, we were not able to make that feature work reliably in our testing. The screen was very hard to read in bright light, but did well in lower light conditions. It also seemed a little laggy getting the screen to turn on, requiring you to press decently hard.

Value


While being one of the more inexpensive fitness trackers, it offered a bleak performance in our tests. We did not see this product as worth the money.

Conclusion


All in all, we would not recommend this product to a friend. There were other model that offered a better performance at an equivalent price, and there were no standout features that really justified picking this model over its competitors.

David Wise and Austin Palmer