LEAF by Bellabeat: The prettier health tracker

LEAF is a really lovely metallic leaf-shaped piece of jewelry/technology from Bellabeat. It's like a Fitbit, except more fashionable and designed especially for women. It tracks a woman's health through her activity level, sleep and menstrual cycle.

Is it all complicated though? Syncing stuff and putting in numbers and blahblah, wearing tech is always a pain in the butt. According to Bellabeat, you just wear it. That's all. There are no buttons, no screens. LEAF is customizable and can be worn as a bracelet, necklace or clip. Bracelet and necklace accessories are included with purchase. The Silver LEAF comes with the beige bracelet and the Rose Gold LEAF comes with a brown bracelet.

LEAF works with an app that provides a simple visual snapshot of your daily activity, sleep, periods and meditation. With four tabs telling you everything you need to know about your daily progress, you can compare activities and learn what you need to improve in your life.

• activity and step tracking – You can also add custom activities in the app, because every activity counts.
• breathing and meditation tracking – It's not just about moving, it's about being still and breathing for a while.
• tracking movement during the night – With graphic visualizations in the app, sleep monitoring helps you understand what your body’s going through during the night.
• period tracking feature and fertility calendar – Never get caught by surprise by your period again and whether your trying to have a baby, or really don't want to have one, you can keep track of your likely ovulation schedule as well.

You're not just going to track things though. LEAF will also give you reminders at the same time every day, helping you get yourself in the habit of doing things as part of your routine.

• Wake up each morning with wake up alarm, and stay active by setting an inactivity alert.
• Get notified on important events by smart alarm's discreet vibration.

All Leaf is missing is heart rate tracking. The website says they may be planning this for a future model; I'll be waiting for that one as that will make Leaf all-in-one for everything I need.

Do I sound excited about this? I kind of am. Right now I'm absolutely in love with the idea of it and how pretty it is. I was always eyeing the Fitbit but questioned how useful it was for the price. But Bellabeat's LEAF seems like it might be a great competitor, for a better price and with features that actually appeal to me completely.

I hope to get one of these soon after they get heart rate monitoring and if/when I do, I'll do a full review of how functional LEAF is for real world use.