In an ironic twist of fate, on the same day the Windows team issued a warning to Windows Mobile Insiders about a known issue affecting connectivity between the handsets latest preview build and the fitness tracker, the Microsoft Band 2 received a new update.
The new update, according to the Microsoft Health Blog, now enables the Band 2 to automatically pause its tracking of activities while a person is not in motion. Specifically, Band 2 owners can look forward to:
Microsoft Band is now equipped with Auto Pause. When you enable Auto Pause, your band will automatically pause your tracking session when it senses you’ve stopped. When you start again, your session will automatically resume. Stop at that intersection, take a water break, or chat with your neighbor without a second thought.
Understandably, the Band 2’s Auto Pause feature only works with the Run and Bike Tiles currently. Presumably, the Auto Pause feature will trickle down to other activities such as curated workouts based on the Health App.
In the less feature-rich news, the Band 2 also received a bump to its language support. After applying the update, Band 2 users can “view select character-based languages” on the device. Language support has been extended to Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Korean and Japanese. In another bit of irony, the workaround for the known issue in the Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview build 14283 affecting the Microsoft Band 2’s connectivity is to “temporarily change the language of your phone as a short-term workaround until we release a fix.”
For Insiders who rely on the functionality and ease of use of their Microsoft Band 2, we caution updating both the Band 2 and your Windows Insider Windows 10 Mobile device today.
