Microsoft Wants Its Wearable On Your Wrist And Your Health Data In Its Hands

Microsoft has had a pretty tough time getting very far with smartphones. Maybe it will have better luck in wearables.

As Forbes staff writer Parmy Olson first reported last May, Microsoft is getting into the wearables game, and today it finally showed its hand with the announcement of the Microsoft Band, a $199 fitness wearable that continuously tracks your heart rate.

Available immediately in both online and physical Microsoft stores, the wearable is packed with 10 sensors--such as GPS, an optical heart rate monitor and a UV light monitor. In addition to constantly tracking your heart rate, it also can track things like how many steps you've taken, calories burned and your sleep quality. A Bluetooth radio in the wearable syncs the data up to your phone. Microsoft is claiming two days of usage and expects you to wear it all the time.

It also has a few so-called smartwatch capabilities with text, email, social media and calendar alerts.

The Band will work on iOS, Android and Windows Phone, but if you pair it with the Windows OS, you'll be able to use digital assistant Cortana, Microsoft version of Apple's Siri. You can tell Cortana on the device to give you information on weather, traffic or stocks as well as set reminders or take notes.

On top of the wearable announcement, Microsoft is also coming out with Microsoft Health, a cloud-based service to store and analyze health data coming from multiple sources--that includes data coming from competing health wearables. As with the watch, the cloud service is compatible with the three main mobile operation systems--iOS, Android and Windows Phone. The app will analyze information such as how many calories you've burned or how much sleep you're getting and then give you feedback on fitness goals you've set.

The Health platform has a number of partners starting out that it will work with, including UP by Jawbone, MapMyFitness, MyFitnessPal and RunKeeper.

With this move, Microsoft is finally catching up to some of the competition of its fellow tech giants. Google and Apple have already begun offering their own platforms for centralizing and analyzing health data across a number of sources. Apple brought on HealthKit with its iOS 8 update and Google has its Google Fit for Android.

The consumer market for fitness wearables is exceedingly crowded at the moment. There have been a number of new devices with a multitude of sensors and claims about battery life and accuracy. Basis, Intel's  fitness wearable startup it acquired this year, unveiled its the Peak for $199 and will be available in November. Peak offers constant heart rate monitoring and claims five days of battery life over the Band's two. And fitness wearable maker Fitbit recently announced its $250 watch, Surge, available next year.

Equipped with 10 sensors, the Microsoft Band is able to collect a lot more information than some of the other fitness wearables. For example, the UV sensor tracks your sun exposure and Microsoft can combine that with your other health data to find out how it relates to stress and health. But Microsoft consumer hardware products haven't always shined. Its Zune music player went nowhere and the future of its Surface tablet remains uncertain.

Between April 2013 and March this year, 3.3 million fitness trackers were sold in the US, according to research firm NPD Group. But the whole wearables market is expected to grow rapidly now that Apple has staked its claim in the ground with the $349 Apple Watch that is expected out early next year.