Virgin Pulse

I’ve never written an app review before but this app is changing my life. I’ve spent years looking for an app which links to other apps that I’m currently using and collect all my data in one place. But even the best or the best has room for improvement. Would love to see monthly/yearly stat records on one screen. Also more quantifiable habit tracking rather than just yes or no. Would love to be able to track lifestyle habits that I write in, share a daily gratitude and memory, track the weather as well as additional health tracking (oz of water, calorie intake, pain management, medication management, headache tracker). Many of these things impact health and mood and it would be great to be able to see the correlation. Thank you for providing such a useful tool and please consider offering more options so that we’re able to track more aspects of our self care.

I think the VP program overall is great. It encourages and reward’s participation, healthy habits, and education while giving additional interaction between employees. Unfortunately, the app design is buggy and often pretty janky. Many of the ways to earn points do not track properly and instructions for earning/participating/connecting are usually incredibly unhelpful and vague. There’s enough working point tracking to get the maximum value every quarter, but it’s pretty demotivating when you go out of your way to do an activity for the points and then VP doesn’t acknowledge it and leaves the box unchecked. An example of bad instructions within the app is the quarterly wellness screenings bonus. You can’t sign up on the app, must be on browser, and there is hardly any confirmation from VP that they know you have scheduled an appointment, or after you go, that they got your results properly. It takes a few days for them to update your charts, and the checkbox in the app never gets checked. VP Cash awarded from the check is given at the end of the quarter so there is no way of knowing you got credit until the quarter is over. Even the bonus points you get from completing the checkup are not even included in your points log. What’s even the point of the log if you are only going to log some of the earnings.

I want to give it 5 stars but no app is without its kinks. This app definitely has room for improvement but is amazing for where it is at now! I have personally spent years tracking different aspects of my life such as health/ finances/ work through various methods. Virgin Pulse houses all that in 1 place, I love it. And it offers tips and advice so even better! Navigation is pretty straight forward but still not as smooth or seamless as I would like. Since it houses so much information on different topics it would be nice if the user that the ability to organize and group certain portions together at our discretion. Also color coding would be great. It currently has its own version of color coding which is not explained anywhere. I had to call and ask what ever color meant. I was so thrown off that some goals I was tracking that I was falling behind on were labeled green. Some where yellow. And others that I was doing well at were red. It made no sense. But the colors correspond to genres and not for how well you are doing on that goal. Regardless, I have my personal color preferences I would like to use. I’m excited to see this app improve and for now will be content with what it offers, as no other app/ journal/ or tracker I have ever used even comes close to this one.

The app works fine. The wellness program itself is nonsense. As with other wellness programs, you can earn points by exercising, but also included is completing health “journeys”, reading daily cards about diversity and wellness and cyber security and mindfulness. The points earn entries in a quarterly raffle for prizes. You earn multiple raffle entries for the more pints you earn, a max number of 100 raffle entries for 10k points. Problem is that there is no publicity about who wins what quarterly prize. That’s because out of my company of 10,000+, 20 prizes are given out. There’s no incentive to earn more than the max of 10k points a quarter. Even with 100 entries, the odds of winning any raffle prize is only slightly better than winning the mega lotto. I earned 24k points the first quarter of the program, partly cause I completed a smoking cessation “journey” (don’t smoke, never have, wanted to see what would happen). Guess I could also complete the pregnancy wellness “journey” (I’m male). Guess they could give me the insipid response of “but the real reward is your health”. Um I already exercise. Only reason to participate in the program is to get paid. How about setting this up like the Blue Cross Blue Shield wellness program - average 7k steps a day validated by my Fitbit, earn $50 a quarter? THAT is an incentive. Discourage your company from using Virgin Pulse as a wellness program - waste of time, self defeating.

I’ve used this app faithfully every day for several years... When you are self disciplined to live the lifestyle you can obviously incorporate updating an app to track your dedication... Updating your VP cards and Healthy Habits just becomes part of the process... however when the app shows them already completed one tends to initially move on and think to yourself oh, I must have completed that and forgotten I did it... only to find a few days later that tracking shows you missing several days which is very annoying because once those days are skipped there’s no way to make up the ‘card’ points!! Becoming more aware of this occurring, I’ve opened and closed the app 3-4 times before it registers the current day is in fact still requiring completion.. I’m sure everyone can agree in today’s overly busy society no one has time or patience for dealing with this type of glitch long term.. we are conditioned nowadays when things don’t function properly to fix it or replace it... I lost interest in logging into Facebook and that app enables us to connect to the most important people in our lives... so, if that factor alone couldn’t inspire me to overlook all the drawbacks to FB, I’m not too confident I’ll sustain interest in using this intermittently functioning app to track the daily routine of my already established dedication to living a healthy lifestyle.

The only reason I have to use this app is because our medical insurance is using it to track 3 measures which they will pay us out HSA contributions for completing. I have been fighting to get this to work for a month now. The sleep tracking that maps over from Fitbit does not match what Fitbit says I am getting, on an average night it’s mapping over an hour and a half to 2 hours less. I will never get my sleep measure with this inaccuracy. They have told me that I can try wearing a different device they provide, which I tried last night and then I went to sync it up, it’s telling me there’s no unregistered Max Buzz’s....so that’s not working either. I shouldn’t have to wear multiple devices to get an app to work. I shouldn’t have to give up on a device that has been in the market for years for something that only counts steps and maybe sleep. The mapping over of calories from MyFitnessPal requires that you take three steps for it to map over. If you don’t do that, it will not pull the information. Numerous emails and phone calls with this company...at one time somebody told me they don’t register the REM sleep....ummm, wrong....training needs to be had. I’m done fighting, I’ve raised these issues to my HR team who have also raised them to the medical carrier. I’ve just come to the conclusion that even though I’m doing everything right, I’ll never be compensated for it.

Here is a product that holds you prisoner with employers. Once you buy a pulse product, you cannot use if you leave employer. If you plan on staying with your current company forever than it may be worth it. I left employer just after purchasing and can’t use unless sponsored. Customer service cannot and will not help you. The reply from them after my review is political in nature and not set up to resolve your problem, they are not working on it. My advise don’t buy this product that is really made to help your employer more than you. Get a Fitbit or other product for your health you can take anywhere. Their response says it’s a company sponsored program, then don’t charge me for a tool I can use when I leave the company. This now places a bad flavor with not only Virgin Pulse but also my former employer. Again it does not take much to have the watch function work but your to cheap to do anything about it. Your responses are political damage control and still worthless. This review is meant for you to lose customers for not treating them fairly for service on a product they purchase with hard earned money for their fitness only to be deactivated. I really do hope the corporations you support see this as well. They only use you to lower insurance for the business owner and many times don’t bring down the savings to the consumer.

Overall does an okay job of very basic self-tracking behavior and (for me) was easy to get in the habit of entering info every day. It is limited in capability and lacks much in the way of functionality. Where it really falls short is tracking steps. I have a MaxBuzz wrist device. The app does not accurately counts steps - and sometimes just stops recording. I have noticed this in several different scenarios but especially when flying. I travel a lot for work and noticed the app gets locked up when I get off the plane. I recently got off the plane on concourse B in Atlanta and walked to baggage claim. That should have been at least 1000+ steps. Instead, it recorded zero steps. I tried turning the phone off/on but the app refused to update. This happens too often and is very frustrating. Maybe it can’t handle the phone being put into airplane mode. The app also doesn’t recognize my time zone no matter how many times I enter it in the profile; it always shows the last sync time 6 hours ahead - as in UK time. I am at home today and logged my stats first thing this morning and checked my steps through out the day but the app says last synced yesterday. This app could be so much better if they would put some effort in the development.

My organization offers us money in our FSA/HSA by getting points through the app. Connecting it to my Health data gives me steps and sleep automatically so that’s easy enough. Clicking on a couple of self-help cards a day is easy enough as well, with on issue I’ll mention later. The Healthy Habits section is a pain becuase you have to click twice on the habit and wait for an animation to go through each one. I track the bare minimum because I don’t want to wait for that animation for 10 of these habits. If it was a simple check box next to the item it would be much better. The big issue I have is with notifications and badges. I set the notification to remind me to do my cards at a set time and those only fire about once a week. For a while they never worked but after the UI updates it would work very sporadically. The other issue is that there is a notification that just won’t clear. I have checked every screen in the app, but noting I click on will clear the app badge so I always have 1 unseen notification badge on my Home Screen. The app needs a notification section that actually lists what notifications you have received and which are unread.

What is going wrong over there? Every time you release an improvement you take out the best things. The most recent change, separating the daily points total from the total points is about the worst idea ever. The reason I like using the app is seeing my points increase. Maybe it’s worse for me because I have over 18,000 points now so it’s hard to pay attention to daily changes. But isn’t that the point of gamifying your life in the first place? Maybe that little animation wasn’t critical to the experience but it wasn’t distracting and I liked the feeling of reaching and passing the goals. Now I am forced to look at a single screen dedicated to the total and I have to change screens to see my daily total? I feel so disappointed. I’ve used this app almost every day for more than 2 years and was delighted to see how I earned my daily points. Now not only do I have to make an added and annoying unnecessary click, it also separates the connection between the daily effort and the total. Why would you do that? It seems you’ve lost touch with your reason for being. I got used to the hideous and uninspiring blue interface color but this change to communicating points makes me feel dead inside. : (

Overall, this is a good app for keeping track of wellness but there are too many problems. 1. The requirement to use MyFitnessPal to tally food intake is a problem. Many might not want to share the level of detail from MFP. 2. The other VERY annoying quirk is that even with notifications on, they do not appear at the time specified. In fact, in the years that I have been using the app (required through work), I have never had a notification — not a single one. The whole point of an app is to make life easier. Unfortunately, this app fails. 3. The Sleep Tracking portion directs me to open the app when I access it through the app (sending me to the App Store). It was an annoying quirk until in the last few days the page won’t display at all in the app. It just shows blank with the link to the App Store. Utterly useless. 4. It could also use additional features like meditations (2, 4, 8, 10, and 15 minute breathing/meditation exercises), counting "meditation" through the Breaths app on Apple Watch, heart rate (high, low, and average), among other things available on the AppleWatch. The developer should trash this garbage app and start over. The program is sound — it is just a horrible app.

No direction on how to complete tasks. For example, The Fidelity Checkup. No direction on how to traverse the path to get to it. However, I spent copious amounts of time trying to figure it out. I finally figured it out and was able to find it, I completed it, but no points were ever awarded. I have experienced this on several items. Ayco survey (evaluation) is another example. I have completed it several times over the last couple years. Never have I received points. Another issue is Well Beats. Twice now, in different quarters, I have had issues with Well Beats. I complete a video, but do not receive points for most days. However, I do receive points intermittently. I contact Virgin Pulse, but am told it sometime takes a few days, but the points never come. In summary, Virgin pulse does not seem to be user friendly and is misleading on a number of tasks, and does not work well. This might be by design so users are not able to get points, but gives the allusion Virgin Pulse offers them.

We have to use this for work to track & boost our health & well being and to earn points toward discounted benefits. Has some useful tips & tricks for better/easier living & organizing your life. It’s not bad for something that is required, but personally I wouldn’t use it, because it detracts from more productive & helpful ways for me to achieve these goals than constantly being tied to this app to stop & enter everything I’m doing. Ends up backfiring on the very things it’s supposed to help & feels too much like a chore instead, provoking anxiety & stress. Doesn’t customize all that well either and could use better algorithms to provide more appropriate tips for individual situations, rather than just a standard cookie cutter that fits most but not all people. This review comes from an active user with more than 73,000 points, so I’m almost maxed out on the scale with two weeks left in our annual health track requirements. I’ve far exceeded the goal my company sets for us with regard to points. But again, not bad as far as a required health tracking tool for employees.

UPDATE: I received multiple emails stating that VirginPulse wanted to investigate this further and I should contact support... which I did (04/27 @ 9:23am cst - in case support wants to find my call and listen to the recording)... WHAT A FREAKING NIGHTMARE!!! The support tech basically told me it was a automatic letter and there was nothing he could assist with - I realize he’s probably not the app support team, but he could have at least put me in contact with the proper person/team. He and I went round and round until finally I was so frustrated I said “I’m done” and hung up on him. If this rating wasn’t directly related to the app, I would drop my rating to 1, because their customer service was pitiful! Not everyone in the world uses MyFitnessPal as their nutrition/activity tracker. I, and many others, use MyNetDiary. Within my organization, we get health points and ultimately a health bonus ($) for tracking this information. I do not like MFP, and because I don’t use it, I am penalized for it. PLEASE ADD SYNCING WITH MYNETDIARY! Thank you. Once this sync option is added, I will change my rating to 5 stars.

I’ve used this tool for 3+ years because my employer provides financial incentives as we earn points. Recently, within the last month or so, the Healthy Habits tracker stopped working correctly. When I tap to select “Yes or “No” the answer doesn’t update. For example, if I am tracking that I start my day with water, and there is no answer, when I tap to change it to “Yes” or “No” the item slides as if to change, but doesn’t. And some items are displaying as if I’ve answered them already, when I have not. And I cannot change them to make them accurately reflect my day. The only item that appears to update correctly is adding my workouts. I contacted Customer Service recently and they suggested I delete and re-install the app. I did, but it still isn’t functioning correctly. I also removed all of the items and started adding them back - but that didn’t work either. Disappointed because this is an easy, quick way to track habits, supported by my employer, but it doesn't appear I can use it right now.

The reason they get one star is due to being a great program while you have it. But! When you leave your company and move on to another. You get an email late at night letting you know you have until the next day to cash in all your rewards. If you don't, the company keeps "steals" them. I left my company and I got the email at 11pm. Letting me know that my rewards needed to be used before the following day or I would lose them. Unfortunately, I was in bed and did not get it until the next morning. When I logged in, it said my points have been expired. I reached out to the company and they rests red their policy to me. A bunch of crooks.. Literally gave me 1 hr. To get my points value redeemed. If I was awake and looking at my email at 11pm. Don't waste your time. I did contact your support team. They said I was told one day before you deleted and took all my money/points. They said there was nothing they could do about it. I had missed the 1 day time window you allowed me. Even though as I said, you emailed me at 11pm. And when I tried to cash them in that morning it said my account and funds have been deleted.

We love this app for the health benefits and the point system. We take advantage of as much of the programs as possible. *However*, occasionally, certain features won’t load properly (not because of one particular phone or Internet; already checked those possible causes). In addition, my husband’s account was locked because of an accidental wrong credential entry and instead of a quick reset link, his account has been locked for a week and a half. Customer support has basically not helped us at all but to continue saying “it’s with the team that will unlock it.” Meanwhile, we are unable to track points for the point system and unable to utilize the health benefits. So, I suppose that I would caution you against making any mistake, or you won’t be able to use the app for possibly weeks (which in this day and age of technology is mind-boggling). While I appreciate the features, this has become incredibly frustrating and has left much to be desired concerning their customer service experience.

I started using this when I finally signed up for a company challenge walk. Once set up, it is super easy to use! I have it synced to my Apple Watch for syncing my steps which is great because I walk a lot! Best of all is it is tied to my company’s HSA so I earn well-being dollars by doing different things like walking 7k steps per day, reading cards each day, checking off on healthy habits and other things. These are all things we all do already. The app makes this so easy to do every day. Every well-being dollar earned is one less out of my pocket so to speak. I’m not sure what would happen if I left my company. I wouldn’t be able to earn well-being dollars but I’m not sure if I’d still use the app or could do so. I’m happy at work and I believe work is happy with me so for now I don’t need to worry about this what-if. 😄

My employer recently transitioned our medical benefits onto this platform. You spend all day clicking around and waiting for information to load. I tried to look up an in-network provider and the app forces you to search by geographic parameters first and doesn’t allow you to enter in what you are searching for. It takes forever to try and retrieve the entire list and then tells you that your search is too broad (duh!) and returns back zero results and finally lets you enter in clinic/provider/specialty. If you want to search for anything else, it makes you start the whole process again. I spent 30 mins trying to find a speech therapist and I still haven’t found one. I gave up and called my healthplan instead. I also tried to pull up my benefits and I have to scroll thru all these nonsense, make 3 additional clicks, click on “start now”, and then I get to my benefits. What’s up with all these “start now” buttons…this is not some video game. I’m just trying to access my summary of benefits which is a pdf. Waste of time!

Horrible functionality. This app does not allow for direct entry of your workouts. A 45 minute workout is supposed to be worth 140 points. When you enter it directly, you are capped at 10 points. When you enter workouts through Apple Health, Virgin Pulse doesn’t record your full workout. For example, if you do a 30 minute Peloton Ride followed by a 15 minute ride, Apple Health records 45 minutes of workout time. Yet, Virgin Health only records 30 points. Since the only reason anybody uses this app is to claim their employer’s contribution towards an HSA, this flawed ability to perform its core function causes me to leave a decent portion of my company’s contribution on the table for workouts I’ve completed and Apple Health can prove it. This leaves me (and plenty of others in my company frustrated.) If your company is looking for a health tracking app for your HR/insurance efforts, the Virgin Pulse app doesn’t work properly and the people on their help line can’t solve the problems for the user either. This app is not ready to use, unless you want to leave your employees frustrated and unsatisfied.

I, like many others, have been forced to use this app on my cellular device or by logging in on a desktop version due to our company healthcare policies. Well this used to work almost seamlessly it seemed, for the past year so it’s been absolutely crap tastic! I will go in and mark my daily cards, as well as mark my activities, and the next thing you know when I look at the app the next day, it shows I did not mark anything for the day before. I’m lucky in that I can add my weight in, but because I don’t subscribe to the my fitness app, or any other tracking device that can track me wherever I go, any workouts I do are not recorded. Losing my 40 points that I get on a daily basis for doing my cards is ridiculous (you can’t recover them), telling me to go to the chat option is ridiculous because I’m usually using my phone most often during the day. When you say that bugs have been fixed, why aren’t they actually fixed? ***update***again, an update broke the app. What in the actual hell are you “fixing”??? I’m losing points, again, because the app isn’t recording my daily cards!

I like the app for tracking my activities to earn points that can be redeemed for merchandise or gift cards; However there always seems to be tech issues. Most recently I was redeeming points to get a virtual gift card. I received a message that said there were problems and that I should try again later. So I waited and did this two more times, getting the same message. Turns out that the purchase went through all three times so instead of having one gift card, I have three, two of which I don’t need. When I contacted Virgin Pulse support & asked for a cancellation and a refund of two of the gift cards, they said that there was nothing they could do since they don’t issue the cards. They may not issue the cards; however the problem was on their platform. I wouldn’t have requested three cards had I not gotten the message that the purchase didn’t go through. So the message for all: even if it says your purchase didn’t go through, it did.

Bottom line: I really like this app. I find it to be an extremely convenient way to participate in virgin pulse. I like that I can easily complete daily cards and healthy habits, track my iPhone steps, get access to challenges, track my stats, and remain aware of opportunities my company is posting. In fact I find it so convenient, it has a place on my home screen. HOWEVER for such a handy app, I have a major complaint. The iOS badges feature that shows you the number of uncompleted daily cards and healthy habits refreshes after opening the app but is only accurate until midnight—not increasing to reflect new available cards the following day, and it’s been this way for the last three years I’ve used the app. It doesn’t seem to be my phone either as I’ve tried to uninstall and reinstall the app several times, and hav gone through phone upgrade cycles too. The whole point of the badges feature is to help remind you when you have something that needs your attention. When I complete all cards and healthy habits, the app will clear the badge count, but since the app doesn’t refresh the count the next day, I get no reminder the next day and then forget to complete the cards. And once that day’s cards are missed, I’ve lost the opportunity and can’t get those points a later day. So my only request for Virgin Pulse to improve the app is to fix this problem. If it got fixed I’d be happy to change this review to a 5!

Works great when it does but when it doesn’t, it can be frustrating. I’ve used this app for 3 years now since it gives us the employees some cash back doing what we already do. Can be a good motivator as well. My issue is, the updates sometimes make a stable connection horribly wrong with Garmin. The last two Updates killed my auto connection with the Garmin app that’s connects to my Garmin HR. Won’t connect despite multiple restarts and re install. So all my activities are not accurate and the actual tracking is not how I would want it honestly to be. I did use the max but it was bulky and not waterproof and has no Bluetooth. So I’m torn in making a bad review but it needs work... it really needs stable multi app connections and updates.

Not sure why this is reviewed so high. I have experienced syncing issues time after time, and it has affected my reimbursement from my employer rewards program. Now to sync steps they insist you must remember to manually sync it every 2 weeks, because it will not sync any data from beyond two weeks prior. It requires clicking in the app 5 times in a convoluted hidden path to find the sync button…Rather than having the common sense to put a sync button on the homepage of the app. This is 2021, so apparently manual syncing is required for this app instead of auto syncing like literally any other app that syncs information on my phone. It also does not manually sync predictably with my fitness pal for my calorie intake tracking. I have given up and no longer track my steps, calories, or sleep and am probably less healthier because of it, and this has also tangibly lost me money. Get it together virgin pulse; make this app auto sync without constant issues. This app is supposed to promote health yet does anything but reduce stress to get it working properly.

My employer switched from a gym benefit (X dollars annually) to Virgin Pulse. Not many were happy about the switch, but I tried to make it work. After a few months, I found it too tedious to keep up with swiping the cards daily and logging habits, which strangely count more than exercise for Virgin Pulse. I thought I’d still do all right, since I was syncing my steps from the Health app on my iPhone. Turns out Virgin Pulse conveniently dropped the step tracking connection during a month I didn’t check in, and in the process I lost around a hundred of dollars of benefits. If you’re a user of this app, check it every day. Don’t trust it to function as advertised. If you’re an employer considering Virgin Pulse, recognizing its business model is taking data from your employees and leeching off the benefits you think you’re providing to them. As for the developer, if you want to improve your reputation, users should be able to earn the full point allocation without logging into the app daily so long as they get enough steps.

It stalls every time I try to open it. I open the app and click sign in. It scans my face and then shows the loading circle that just hangs forever until I’m forced to close out of the app. It won’t let you sign in unless you delete the app and reinstall it and set it up all over again from scratch. All of this just to complete the next step in my “health journey” so that I can get the points. I genuinely think the app is purposely making it impossible to sign in just so it doesn’t have to award points to people who’ve completed their health journeys. I never had any issues signing in until I started doing health journeys and earning points, and now that I use the app every day to log my health activity, suddenly I’m having all these sign-in issues. It feels like sabotage at this point and probably isn’t worth using this app anymore, so I guess you won. I’m deleting the app and I have zero plans to reinstall it. Thanks for wasting my time. Thanks so much!

I have been using this app for 3 years to meet my requisite for health benefits to pay off medical bills. It seems to have gotten a little better each year but it still needs a lot of work. It hard to earn points. Sometimes you put a lot of work into doing something to find out that it never logged the points. Sometimes it sends to to a different website where you log in personal information and you don’t get any points for completing the task they want. So you don’t get points and now you gave out your personal information and don’t know what will happen to that information. I will have to continue to use this for my work so have no choice but to use this program. There are still a lot of glitches to use until they get up to the full ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

My employer's health insurance gives rebates for doing this daily. The app tracks steps, exercise and reading little tips each day, many of which are useful. The optional competitions with your coworkers is nice too. But the WORST part are the bugs, mostly the "network error" messages that pop up multiple times per week. Not my network errors, theirs. I've had it not record the tip "cards", which get me the rebates. The errors will also prevent you from seeing the tips, which also give rebate points. There are interface errors too. For example today I was trying to read tips on way to relax, BUT the text of the tip wouldn't open, no matter where I tapped. How's that help me relax? That's what finally prompted me to post this review, the increased frustration while trying to learn how to relax! :-(

I truly dispose this app ow. I’ve used this app for over 7 years. Recently it’s barely worth anything - I can’t even set a profile pic without a2 minute wait then an error. All it’s guaranteed to do is get me frustrated in the morning before I’ve had breakfast. I used to read my daily cards and record my habits from the previous day first thing in the morning. It’s a habit I’ve enjoyed. But lately the app performance is an absolute joke. It won’t fully load often. It won’t scroll, sometimes after it finally does scroll, it then “blinks” and you’re back at the top of the screen again and I won’t scroll again. It takes 2-5 taps on any link or button to get it to actually go. I hate that a peaceful habit that I enjoyed for so long is now so aggravating. After my current team challenge, I predict that I’ll find a new habit tracker and may never open Virgin Pulse again. I’m sad to lose the work and benefits announcements, but it’s not worth it!

Most people don’t see it. It’s a program companies use to inspire healthy living. The truth is the program financially rewards those in good health and withholds money from anyone who’s overweight or suffers from any health problems. I’ve struggled with Type 2 diabetes for years because of allergies and resistance to almost all diabetes medications including insulin. Despite my dieting and working out 5-6 days a week my blood sugar numbers remain higher. Therefore, Virgin Pulse withholds ANY financial benefits towards our HSA account and simply rewards those who are skinny and free of health problems. Despite working as hard as possible to deal with Type 2 diabetes the Virgin Pulse representatives that did the testing at my wife’s company literally spoke to me like I was lazy and told me all the ways I was gonna die early. (All with an attitude like I should be ashamed) Made a point to humiliate me by scolding me, out loud, and reading my test results in front of a room full of company employees. HUMILIATING!!!

My Maxbuzz is not synching up (Steps, active minutes and sleep) since the VP App update in Jan 2nd. Ticket has been opened with the VP HELPDESK for more than 20++ days now. What infuriates me the most is the attitude of the helpdesk person that’s handling my ticket. His only interest is to close the ticket; whether my issue is resolved is NOT part of his consideration. After the standard uinstall/install app, update iOS/Cp app, reboot iOS/Maxbuzz etc etc doesn’t work; he start putting on the dark hat. Send a note; hoping that i’ll will not reply in 4 days so that ticket will closed. Or he will ask me to do all types of run arounds ..send screenshots, screen recording, home address for refunds etc etc; and then do everything all over again every 3 days or so. seemingly just to wear me them or hope that I will ignore the ticket long enough to let it close automatically .By the way, if my ticket is open, i can’t open another ticket .. so I missed out on all the point and reward .. Yeap, another grand black hat tip to get me to give up. Come on virgin .. you could do better than this. I’m willing to do conference call and proof to you that all the steps you prescribed doesn’t work. All I ask from you is to take my issue seriously, I’m ok to wait for a solution; but run arounds tricks like this only infuriates people and wears out people goodwill. That’s to nobody benefit.

I am forced to use this app every day in order to “reduce” my already-too-high annual health insurance premiums. The interface is cute at first, but gets tedious and repetitive with daily use, with screen transitions not occurring quickly enough for my taste. I am, however, now highly trained - the first thing I do every morning is log in and grind through my points collecting. I have become the salivating dog. If they could fix one thing, though, that seems rather obvious in this age of modern app technology - screen rotation/orientation. I hold my iPad/iPhone in various positions as needed throughout the day, often in conjunction with a separate, Bluetooth-enabled keyboard, but this app doesn’t recognize any orientation except the default “button-at-the-bottom” position. Small matter, though, as in less than three months (!) time, I will have amassed the points needed to receive the maximum discount, and I will happily uninstall this app. Until the next fiscal year begins, at any rate.

iOS user here. Generally, the app is decent. The lack of a mobile version for the Programs page is exceedingly frustrating, as the pop-up for any trophies you’ve earned can’t be closed because you can’t move the page to reach the “X”. Logging into the website via safari resolves this issue as you can zoom out and close it, but then why use the app at all? The biggest issue however is the fact that I generally take anywhere between 9,000 and 14,000 a day, and yet for the past three days it has not updated my steps in my points statement. Looking back through the month, there are at least 7 other days where they haven’t been reported on my points page. They show up in my stats, but I do not receive the points for them. I have a Fitbit Charge 2, and have disabled phone statistic recording in lieu of the more accurate Fitbit. I did not have this issue prior to the latest update. I’m missing out on at least 1,000 points from this (and that’s just from this month)... obviously this is extremely frustrating. This is also the case (although far less frequently) with my sleep recording. The number of hours slept is also different by an hour or two, usually stating that I slept longer (I wish!). Will the points be retroactively applied to my account when this issue is resolved?

This app is complete garbage. They feed you these petty little points to so you rack up all that screen time on their app. Like I need to be told that vegetables are good for you. Also it’s rigged they want you to buy their product or other products to maximize your points. For example, you can earn x10 the point points tracking your sleep with a device vs manually inputting. Forced to use this app for my company to get credits on my health insurance. Also, all my workouts are converted to steps, probably because they want we to buy and use another sort of tracking device to earn maximum points. Their health tips also come off dated. We’ve come along way since since the early 90s and a lot of people have different body types that depend different foods and different diet types. This app doesn’t actually help people stay health and keep in mind that’s also no their goal. What an absolute waste of time with zero real substance.

New updated view is TERRIBLE and not intuitive at all. I go in to track me activity and see what I need to complete for the day. I like to open it and see clearly that I'm a set and then close it. The new layout makes it super hard to tell what I need to do. "Actions" check off when I have done them, but stay there and have a yellow icon next to them, which tells my brain I need to do something. Healthy habits is now just a regular apple icon, instead of showing if I've entered them or tracked them yet. Rewards button is hard to tell it's where you're supposed to tap, it just looks like a section headet. Also my virginpulse MaxBuzz seems to be unable to completely sync with this new update, meaning I now need to enter steps manually, which defeats the purpose of having the pedometer. Annoying! The old interface was visually great and easy to understand and navigate. Why make changes for changes sake?!

This app used to work fine but after the new year started it had all sorts of issues and tech support does not seem to be able to fix. According to the Rewards screen, I am supposed to be earning points for the GIThrive activities that I complete, but they never register. I’ve sent screenshots to both Virgin Pulse and GIThrive Tech support teams and exchanged several emails but still not fixed. I’m also supposed to be able to earn points for completing activities on the ReThink Care Programs but I can’t even connect to them. Every time I try to access one of them, I get an error that I am not able to connect to the server. Have sent screenshots of this to Virgin Pulse tech support as well but still not resolved. I’ve also submitted a complaint to my company Benefits office since I’m sure they are paying for these services that are not working. I can only hope that someone figures out what broke the app in January.

I started using the virgin pulse app over a year and a half ago. It is by far the best thing I could have done. Once I ordered my first activity tracker I wasn’t sure what to expect. After the first month I noticed that I would constantly check it and see how I was doing throughout the day. When you check your tracker you are more aware of what you have done and what you have to do yet. I love the designs they have and I absolutely love the max buzz tracker. I actually showed it to one of my co workers and he ordered one the next day. I love the fact that my max buzz lets me know when I hit my goal for the day. It actually keeps my mind more focused and on task. I would highly recommend the Virgin Pulse app and all of their devises. I will never go back.

What I mean is I feel like it’s pretty thorough, and goes way deeper in the features than you would expect. Such as finding recipe plans to tracking your calories by connecting it to fitness pal and tracking your steps by connecting your smart watch account and giving you points and rewards for tracking everyday. Well I use it through my work and they reward me in everything that goes from credits towards their fitness merchandise which even includes one of a kind backpack/tote bags that have pretty cool logos to converting to gift cards or even depositing your credit as actual cash straight to your bank account. Insert mind-blown emoji here. I don’t know how many other companies use this, but I really appreciate this thing!

Virgin Pulse is very limited in the number of apps it’s compatible with for pulling step data and sleep data. This is particularly frustrating given that so many companies require it for their health insurance benefits. If the company does not want to expand the number of smart watch & fitness trackers the app can pull data from, they should at least make it compatible with Apple Health so that users can utilize that as an intermediate conduit for passing health data. Apple Health is able to pull data from a wide array of devices, but Virgin Pulse does not support using Apple Health as the source for step data. It should be noted that some pages on the virgin pulse website are misleading about this - they discuss using data from Apple Health, when in reality Virgin Pulse is only able to use data from iPhone steps (only capable of pulling in steps physically measured by your phone while carrying it, not of pulling in your actual step count from Apple Health)

My workplace switched to this app for BCBS benefits. It’s really tedious, especially the “daily cards” and “journeys” and stupid little things you have to click through. I was just beginning to enjoy that it tracked how long I slept each night and my steps, as it was really making me prioritize being more active and having a more regular sleep schedule. However, the other night as I was going to bed, I got a notification that the battery low, so I let it charge overnight. Now it’s not syncing my sleep and steps with the “max buzz” (cheap knock off fit bit) and listing everything as 0, even though the little watch states I have 10,000 steps. I’ve been cheated out of over 100 points per day that go toward a cash payout as part of my company health insurance benefits. I swear this app exists just to prevent people from using their company health insurance to the fullest extent. Really unfortunate, because it could be a good thing.

I didn’t think this app would help improve my health habits; I already desired to live a healthy life but felt I had too little time to incorporate new habits of exercise, etc. But I was required by my insurance company to acquire do many points a year to qualify for the cheaper insurance plan… The app has slowly effected changes in my lifestyle. Seeing the reminders on my phone while at work repeatedly reset the day’s priorities. And more exercise and better health habits increased my energy and mental acuity, therefore increasing my ability to get more done in a shorter amount of time. This freed up more time for sleep and exercise and even more time for family and friends….a great “vicious cycle”!

I’ve been using this app for several years now through my husband’s company. It has been very frustrating. It has been connected to my Apple Watch and says it’s been connected to my Apple Watch for years and yet sometimes it tracked and sometimes it didn’t. And apparently it just tracked random months throughout this year. That means I didn’t get all the credits the company offered for our health plan since I didn’t reach a certain number of steps (because it wasn’t tracking). I called on this and they would not back track to previous quarters and give me credit. It’s been very frustrating! I do exercise several times a week and do the things they like to give you credit and save you money, but I didn’t receive those savings. I do hope the company chooses another option for next year. I have heard there have been many complaints.

7 day step count is wrong…mine is currently off by about 800 steps and I’ve seen it be off for more than that. That makes the friends leaderboard worthless and disappointing when you think you can’t keep up with your friends. I attended a web workshop last week, and the points were never logged so now I’m going to have to contact someone to try to get it fixed. I spend much more time than I should on my phone clicking through stuff just to get points then double check to make sure I got the points. You have to physically open the app to get it to sync because it doesn’t do it in the background. I thought spending time on the phone is unhealthy…you’d never know by what this app requires you to do to keep an employer discount on health insurance. I gave 2 stars bc of the cash payout if you meet milestones.

This app is definitely much better now than when I first start using it in 2015. It is easier to do things online rather that on the app. However, for tracking purposes it's ok. One thing that is still not working is when you try to change your habits. So, if you try to cancel one in order to pick a different one, the app doesn't register the change. Yes, I pressed "save". It's not often when I change habits, but I do try to take advantage when they are giving you more points for doing them. Overall it works well for me. I have an IPhone 6plus. Please keep making improvements and adding new features!

Hello! This app is user friendly enough but please include a Contact Us button in the app settings menu perhaps that leads to an email generator or embedded comment box, so suggestions can be made to the limited set of options for living a healthy lifestyle. My favorites that aren’t found in the app yet include gardening, essential oils, vitamins including DHA, and making healthy food choices at home and out such as fish versus red meat, poultry, salads, oil and vinegar versus creamy dressings or sauces, low sodium, grilled not fried, and skipping the sodas and dessert. Maybe also brushing teeth one extra time per day than usual, flossing several times a week, and going to the dentist annually - because dental health affects stroke and heart health, improves confidence and relationships, etc. Thanks for considering some or all of these, especially the gardening and essential oils!

I’ve been using this app for a few years and it’s great! Very user friendly and I’ve earned hundreds of dollars to use how I wish! I used to give it 5 Stars but I’ve knocked that down to 4 Stars after the last update. For some reason I can’t get it to pair with Apple Health anymore and my other sleep app is no longer supported. Unfortunately that means I’m not earning points as easily and I have to enter most of my information manually - which is a pain! That said I’m still hitting my quarterly goals so I’m still getting the maximum payout so I can’t really complain! Overall great app that helps me stay focused on being healthy!

I have 4 health related apps on my phone. I’ve recently added the Virgin Plus AP to my roster because my day job rewards employees based on certain goals reached! However, it’s accelerated options, surveys, and suggestions have already intrigued my curiosity and the results are folding into all my habits, changing them for the better. This is a mostly positive critic, however I do wish more aspects of it were more intuitive. Sometimes I spend upwards of five minutes just trying to find a recipe or ‘card’ I wanted to come back to. Otherwise, this ap is extremely helpful and gives just the little push I need to keep me focused on my goals.

The app works well enough, I think, if you’re looking for (and disciplined enough to stick to) something that can help you achieve various health goals. The incentive, outside of a “better you”, being the points you earn that translate to various rewards. I joined my friends team (or group or circle or whatever it’s called) so that we could both earn these rewards only to find out that while I did earn points, they only translated to rewards for him as I’m not eligible. I’m disciplined enough where I don’t need an app to stay focused on my goals so the only incentive to use this one is null for me. Allow rewards for all (maybe even if it’s less for those not connected through their employers) and perhaps I’d come back.

I have yet to figure out the purpose of this app. In order to receive MRA funds from my company I must use it but I haven’t yet figured out why. The option to add a fitness/step counter exists however lacks compatibility with many accessories and does not synch to the steps on the Health app on my iPhone as offered. I have deleted, reinstalled, restarted my phone, disconnected and reconnected the Health app at least 10 times and steps will still not synch even though I’ve give full permission in both app. Additionally, I had to download a second app to actually complete coaching and nutrition information. So I use one app that apparently isn’t supported to track activity and a second app to coach and track nutrition and the Virgin Pulse app to...have no idea. I have also reached out to support about the steps not syncing, they replied once and this did not fix the issue. I have followed up again twice and not received any response.