At a Glance: Quick Ratings
Heart Rate Functions
Fitness / Sport Features
Ease of Use
Battery Life
Where To Get It
A Deep Dive Into Mio Fuse
The Mio Fuse has been reviewed by Tristan Haskins aka CardioCritic – an innovative activity tracking bracelet featuring off the wrist, strapless heart rate monitor.
In Feb 2021 Mio released the Mio Slice. The Slice is the world’s first activity tracker to include PAI, that’s Personal Activity Intelligence. Rather than “just” count steps, the Mio Slice wants to see elevated heart rate at regular periods throughout the day. As with all Mio’s products is features WRIST BASED heart rate. If you are looking for a motivational, innovative, stylish, water resistant fitness tracker then you may want to consider the world’s first PAI powered fitness band – the Mio Slice.
Video Review
The Mio Fuse is an innovative product that has been designed with ACTIVITY in mind. The Fuse wants to motivate you off your couch and in to activity. It can be anything from walking a bit further than normal before catching a bus to work… maybe a jog/walk around the block at lunchtime instead of checking your Facebook status.
The Mio Fuse wants your Facebook status to be ‘Another day achieving my daily goal”. If you want to get fitter and feel like treating yourself to a gadget that has the functionality to help you achieve your goals, please consider the FUSE.
The Fuse has been cleverly designed to appeal to a mass market. It’s great for the occasional exerciser who wants to increase their daily activity from 5,000 to 10,000 steps. But it’s also perfect for the fitness enthusiast who wants OFF THE WRIST heart rate monitoring while they work out in the gym, run a Park Run 5K or take part in a 40 mile cycle sportive.
If you’ve been using a Garmin Edge or similar with either ANT+ or Bluetooth 4 heart rate belt, the Mio Fuse will transmit live HR data to your Garmin bike computer (or your iPhone or Android device*) I can ride my bike with my Garmin Edge 810 mounted on the handlebars with LIVE Heart Rate data taken directly from my wrist… NO MORE CHEST STRAP.
Main Features and Functions
The Fuse’s BEST FEATURES depend really on who you are and how you are using it. For me, sitting at my desk for 8 hours a day, the activity tracking GOAL is great. A quick glance at the goal status shows me how close, or far, I am from achieving my target. It’s also brilliant at recording the distance I am walking during my lunch break by way of very sensitive accelerometers.
The internal accelerometers have proven to be VERY ACCURATE providing near to GPS accuracy when walking and jogging. The Mio Fuse provides both SPEED (eg. MPH) and PACE (minutes per mile). The day I got my loan unit from Mio I popped it on while I jogged a quick mile on the office treadmill… The displayed pace was SPOT ON. The total distance ran was shown to be 1.02 miles. The treadmill showed 1.04 miles… MORE than close enough.
The Mio Go APP is also VERY GOOD. Easy to use on my Sony Xperia Z3. Setting up either ONE ZONE or 5 ZONE heart rate training is a doddle. Synchronising my daily data was seamless and simple.
- STRAPLESS, off the wrist, EKG accurate heart rate monitoring
- Bluetooth and ANT+ heart rate transmission to compatible devices
- Highly accurate internal accelerometer providing feedback on speed, distance and pace
- Easy to use
- 1 or 5 heart rate zones (user configurable via Mio Go App)
- Daily Activity Goal (either steps / calories or distance)
- Super light weight – less than 40g
- Comes in multiple sizes so you can get the perfect fit
PAI on the Fuse
The Mio Fuse cannot display your PAI score, but it is available via the Mio PAI 1 app. PAI is a more effective way of measuring daily activity by analysing heart rate intensity throughout the day. This is a more effective measure than than simply counting daily steps. More details on PAI and how it works can be found here.
Top Alternatives
Next Model UP
There isn’t really a model up from the Fuse. This is their top of the range ACTIVITY TRACKER with strapless heart rate monitoring. Mio do sell the Alpha 2, but that’s more of a traditional heart rate monitor watch (all be it strapless) for sports use but it does NOT include a daily activity goal….
In Feb 2021 Mio released the Mio Slice. The Slice is the world’s first activity tracker to include PAI, that’s Personal Activity Intelligence.
Next Model DOWN
The next model down would be the Mio Link. The LINK is just a heart rate transmitter. It exists purely for those who would prefer to use a WRIST sourced heart rate than a CHEST STRAP HRM sensor. The Mio Link does NOT have a display nor does it count steps etc. It is purely an HRM sensor and transmitter.
Polar Recommended Alternatives
Polar A360
If you are interested in a quality alternative to the Fitbit Alta then please consider either the Polar Loop 2 or the Polar A360 fitness band. The A360 has a very clear, large bright colour display making it very easy to read in ALL lighting conditions inside and out.
It also features built-in heart rate sensor (like the Charge HR). It has all the expected functionality of an activity band including daily step target, sleep monitor (duration & quality) 5 x HR zones to help train at the optimal heart rate intensity and it’s all supported by a very competent iOs and Android app, Polar Flow (all data is also uploaded to flow.polar.com web-service).
Mio Comparison Table
Still undecided which Mio heart rate monitor product is best for you? Maybe this comparison table courtesy of MioGlobal might help. This table does NOT include the new Mio Slice (added early 2021). The Slice is the world’s first fitness band to incorporate PAI score. We gave the Slice 4.5/5 review stars.
Correspondence with MioGlobal following the Review
Following any review we aim to give constructive feedback to the manufacturer. Below I have published the main 4 suggestions to make the Mio Fuse the best activity bracelet on the market.
1) Activity Bar to include WORKOUT time
Tristan’s comment : Would it be possible to add Heart Rate based workout time to the Activity bar. Yesterday I rode 1.5 hours (27 miles) with an average HR of 150… My Polar VR800 showed 230% of daily activity goal achieved… the Fuse showed nothing as I had not done any STEPS…. The VR800 and M400 from Polar combine STEPS and WORKOUT time to the Activity Goal progress
Mio’s Reply : That’s a great suggestion, and we’ll look into it. One option you can use right now for activities where steps don’t apply is to set an active calorie goal. In workout mode your calorie burn is calculated using heart rate, so it better reflects your effort for cycling, rowing, swimming, etc.
2) HR LED’s (different frequencies)
Tristan’s comment : Would it be possible to programme the HR Zone LED’s as follows
- UNDER ZONE (Blue) Flash every 1 second
- IN ZONE (Green) As it currently is
- ABOVE ZONE (Red) Permanently ON or flash every 1/2 second
The reason I say this is when running at speed, or cycling hard I kept having to focus on the Fuse TOO LONG to see the Zone LED flash. Each time I looked for guidance it seemed to coincide with a period of LED OFF…. Not great when cycling at 25 mph. All I want to do is GLANCE and see within 1 second if I am ABOVE or BELOW zone.
Mio’s Reply : In the app you can change the LED frequency. Have you seen where you can change the Zone LED Flash Pattern in the Setup menu of the Mio GO app? There isn’t an option to change it by heart rate zone, but you can select Always On for all your zones, and that should fix your at-a-glance issue! >>> Brilliant 🙂
3) Workout Summary (Average HR and Speed)
Tristan’s Comment : Is in not possible to add AVERAGE HR, AVERAGE SPEED/PACE to the workout summary?
Mio’s Reply : If you open a workout record in the Mio GO app there are the Avg/Max HR, speed, and pace values. Do you mean that you’d like to see it in the Activity History screen as well? >>> Yes, I’d love to see this in the Activity History Screen too 🙂
4) Daily Alarm
Tristan’s Comment : Could you add a DAILY wake up alarm, maybe set up in the APP (Mon-Fri) or Every Day or (ONE time only)?
Mio’s Reply : Yes, it is already on our list of things to add – thank you.
Review Summary
So far we have found nothing we didn’t like. The synchronisation of data between the Fuse and your iPhone / Android could be quicker, but that’s certainly digging for criticisms.
A longer battery would be nice, expect a week at a push with 1 hour of activity per week… but being USB charged, this is NOT an issue. Just charge it every few days. Maybe the clever people at Mio could consider adding a DAILY ALARM to the unit? This could be set in the APP…. nothing fancy.
Relative Article: Mio Link, effective heart rate monitor watch?
