Scosche 24 Heart Rate Band

I picked up a Scosche 24 HR band back in May and for the most part it’s been okay.   There are some runs where the readings are questionable (pretty sure I’ve never hit 208 BPM in my life and that it would kill me to do so now) and some runs where there was a lot of drop outs, especially if my watch and my scosche were on opposite arms, and a few runs where it just shut off in the middle of a run.

Hmm you know it sounds like maybe it’s just barely been ‘okay’.

In the last 3 weeks I’ve gotten significantly shorter battery life than it was giving me prior.  And I’ve been very careful after the first unexpected ‘no charge’ incident on my 5th run after a full charge to keep an eye on it and make sure I’m not leaving it on.

Today things took a turn for the worse though.  While out on a run I was getting a high reading on my watch.  My Scosche was on the outside of my forearm so I pulled the strap to spin it where I could see if it had turned off and “Pop” it flew off my arm.

I picked it up and saw it was missing a watch pin (the spring loaded pin that the bands hook on).  Well crap.  I finish the run and come home and the spare pins I have from my Fenix watches are about half a MM too long to fit.  So I google “Scosche 24 pin failure” to find out what the size is, thinking I’d just pick one up and replace it, and I start seeing post after post on Amazon from other people saying they’d lost a pin and theirs was because the case had cracked as well.

Sure enough I put mine under a strong light and one of the pin mounts is cracked.  Well double crap.

This particular area doesn’t seem all that well designed to me.  The screws that hold the top and bottom case parts together are in such a position it forms a natural weak point due to lack of material in this area.  And although I’m not a destruction testing scientist, nor do I play one on T.V., the material for the lower half of the case has that shiny ‘snap like a twig’ plastic look to it.

Maybe it’s a QC issue, bad choice in materials for the case or just bad design but whatever the case it’s unusable at this time.   I might be able to design and 3D print some kind of cage to put the unit in and that will attach to the 24 band or possible one of the old version’s velcro bands.   But that’s not going to be an option for 99.999% of their customer base.

I’ve dropped them an email explaining the situation, hopefully there will be a happier outcome but at this time I’m not sure I can recommend the Scosche 24.   There’s no android app to check firmware, I’m getting random shutdowns, battery life seems to have broken after 3 months and now I find you apparently have to really baby the case putting it on and off or you’ll crack it.

I’m hoping these things get fixed as I really, really, like the Scosche, it’s far more comfortable to me than a chest belt, the readings are almost, for me, as good as a chest monitor and in general it’s a good piece of kit, when it works and doesn’t break.