Today I am having a closer look at the Acer Liquid Smartband which retails for £79. If you want to read any of my other wearable device reviews click here – https://gavinsgadgets.com/reviews-accessories/ . The reviews include everything from Pebble, Samsung Gear Fit, LG G Watch (R) to the Samsung Gear S and now the Acer Liquid Leap SmartBand.

The specifications of the Liquid Leap are as follows –

– Screen 1″ OLED Touch Screen, Surface Hardness: 6H ,Screen Resolution: 128 x 32
– Capacitive, Single Touch function
– Waterproof IPX7 – The Liquid Leap can be immersed for up to 30 minutes at a depth of up to 1 meter.
– Weight – 20g
– Bluetooth 4.0
– Up to 7 days battery life
– Processor 2-bit ARM® Cortex™ M0 CPU
– Memory RAM 16 KB RAM + 256kB flash
– Brightness – up to 70LUX (with Touch panel)
– Sensor Type- G-sensor
– Features: Email, Music control ,Camera control
– Compatibility – Android 4.4 eg. Acer Liquid X1 /Jade /E700 /Z500 /Z200, Samsung Galaxy S3/ S4 / S5, Moto X / G, HTC One M7 / M8, Nexus 4/5 – Apple iOS 7 / iOS 8: iPhone 4s / 5 / 5S / 5C / 6 / 6 Plus

As you will see from the last line, the Liquid Leap is cross platform with support for Android and iOS.

The device tracks your steps, exercise and sleep as well being able to glance and read text messages, see who is calling and view all your upcoming events. But lets take a close look at the hardware and the app that comes with the device.

The Acer Liquid Leap uses a charging cradle as shown above which connects with a micro usb cable which is included in the box. The cradle is easy to attach, just means if you are going on a long trip you will need to carry it with you. The battery is meant to last up to 7 days. I have managed 5 days but it has increased on each of the charges. The battery was totally flat when received.

So out of the packaging, the first step is to charge the band. While that is charging download the Acer Liquid Leap app from either the Google Play store or AppStore. When the Leap band first started charging a 4 digit code was displayed on the screen. This is used to setup the device with the app and your phone.

So what does the app look like and what are its features? Below is the home screen menu.

Below is the main manager screen which looks clear and concise. In case you are wondering why there are no current steps showing for the day, look at the status bar. It is 4.31am when I took the screen shots. The different sections are all self explanatory and tapping on each section reveals more information.

Here you can see the number of steps taken and below the distance travelled.

You can also setup Goals in the settings too.

Another settings options displays the battery and what notifications you would like to see on your Liquid Leap. As you can see the options are limited, so to preserve battery life I turned most of them off.

In terms of sleep recording, the stats only reveal the total time slept and not any further breakdown of sleep stats.

In terms of comfort the Liquid Leap was comfortable to wear. The strap securing mechanism is similar to that of the Fitbit Flex. In terms of what you can do with the band itself. A few taps on the device to turn it on reveals the time and date. Swiping reveals steps, swipe again shows distance, then calories and time towards your goal setup. If from the time screen you swipe right instead of left, you get to the apps section. Here you access sleep mode, notifications, settings, and music controls. The settings menus allow for the screen to be flipped, show battery level, restart device and factory reset it. It really is simple to use, one because it is easy to use, and two as the options are not extensive.

The first time you use the app, you setup as user name and password, enter your sex, height, weight and whether you want to use metric measurements or US ones.

In conclusion, this is probably one of the simplest tracking devices I have used. It was also simple to setup. However, in use I found it to track more steps than my other devices attached to my arms which included the Samsung Gear S and Fitbit Charge HR. In a day it showed 10% more steps than the other device, although every device showed a different number of steps.

The wearable space is rapidly increasing, and Acer have shown their hand with their Liquid Leap. It is not perfect but for some its simplicity may be ideal.