If you haven’t read the initial post about this product, please begin here.

About three weeks ago, I headed to LA International airport to take a business trip. At the time, my Dash weren’t consistently working despite being fully charged and had been working at some point. I took them to on my trip anyway, optimistic that customer service would get back to me and address my out-of-the-box issues with the unit. Right as I arrived to my destination, an e-mail was sent to all Kickstarter backers regarding the currently deployment and, sure enough, there was a firmware update to be issued. As it turns out, that update solved my problems and so I was able to begin using the unit consistently and attempt some personal tests in order to answer questions of my friends and family regarding how I like the product.

 

I was able to work out VERY consistently while I was abroad. I began taking The Dash with me for my cycling portion and running portion. It’s pretty awesome having the ability to track the workout, it really sucks to not be able to save that data for when the workout is complete or to push that data to the Health App embedded in iOS. It is also a little clunky to begin the workout on the device as there is no other way to select which activity and to begin. All that interfacing is something that can be easily solved with an app upgrade and firmware, so it IS fixable.

 

I don’t swim, but I was curious about what the quality of features while in water so I wore my Dash into the shower. Because the sensors are not capacitance (like I originally thought), whenever water droplets passed over the sensors, it registered a command. Usually nothing big, but it paused my music a couple of times and turned the volume up and down a little. The left Dash doesn’t really do much with a single push touch, but it will beep, so there was a little bit of that as well. I was able to turn on the transparency feature and while that was cool, it began to get annoying having each side beep in my ears so I actually took them out and set them on the counter to finish my shower.

 

I wore The Dash around my jobsite (currently under massive construction) and the transparency helps move around in places without isolation, which is fantastic. I also took a couple of calls home both on the phone and FaceTime and while that works, it’s not the best connection unless The Dash is firmly seated in the right ear. It’s fine though and transitions between music and calls nicely. The onboard audio player has a slightly higher quality than the streaming, but neither is a bad listen. I wore them in the Metro and on the busses and all over the place, they’re truly a great buy. As a first generation tech product you won’t find better, Bragi put a lot of attention to quality and upgrades and it is well worth the $299 USD you’d have to shell out to get your own.

 

[kyle]