Has not improved over time – Bellabeat Wellness Coach Review

I loved my leaf, and I was so excited for the app and using my stylish leaf. I would wear it every day, usually as a necklace or on my shirt. I would even wear it sleeping! But two years using the leaf and I have not seen any major improvements with the app at all. I feel like Bellabeat gave up on the Leaf and they are just constantly trying to create another “it” product instead of improving what they have and keeping their customer base happy. The biggest change I ever saw was the addition of water, and it seems like it’s only to promote their Spring water bottle. There are several areas that need serious improvement. Step Tracking - There are several days I’ve seen where I’m riding in a car all day and some how that counts as thousands of steps when I haven’t moved an inch. There isn’t a way to modify the steps to say “no I wasn’t walking at this time” or anything. Sleep Tracking - If you go to bed before 9pm good luck ever tracking your sleep! It’s as if Bellabeat thinks people don’t work nights or have early mornings. - There can be serious glitches where the tracker thinks I slept for 24 hours, even if there are steps registered during that time! It seems like a bug that should have been fixed a long time ago. Water - As mentioned below it’s mostly just for another product to buy from the company. There are no alarms or alerts to remind you to drink water. The app could at least give push notifications. Meditation - There are some really good points to the meditation, the guided meditations are very relaxing and are really the only thing that makes the app worth using - Why not have push notifications to remind people to meditate? Or have some special alarm set up for meditation? Such a simple change would have made this app and tracker to the next level. Stress level - This really could have been done way better than it is. There is no way to input your actual stress levels. It basically does a simple calculation based off of where you are in your cycle, how many steps you took, how much you slept, and if you meditated. It’s good for if you want a general overview of “oh I am near my period maybe I’m a bit stressed” but overall? It’s a horrible calculation with no direct input from the user. Period Tracking - Biggest problem it is it trans exclusive. Let’s face it not all women have uteruses and there is no option to opt out of the period Tracking. Some women don’t even have periods due to their medications or whatever. This should be a function that can be turned off easily. Lack of social contact or use with other apps - This is really where Bellabeat dropped the ball. There is no way to add friends, there are no blogs or articles to follow or read, there is nothing to make you spend time and stay on the app or keep on going back. - There is no way to connect to any other app (including my fitness pal) except for the Apple health app, which is pretty useless. - Apps cannot write onto the Bellabeat app, which is a pain if you are trying to combine two data sources - There is no way to keep track of calories burned from the activities. Overall, I feel like the developers basically gave up and thought it was “good enough” and never saw a reason to develop further and make this something with a growing community. It feels more like they were out to make a quick buck and didn’t have a long term plan in mind outside of the initial development. I loved this at first and used it religiously, but the more time went on and there weren’t any new features it felt like more of the same and just extra work. I felt like I was going into three different apps to track everything from just one workout. Sadly at this point unless I see a major overhaul of the app my little leaf will be sitting on a shelf and I will be buying a Fitbit to replace it. It may not be as stylish or cute, but it has the functionality you’ll miss using the leaf.
Review by Narasenbei on Bellabeat Wellness Coach.