According to a journal of medical internet research, 23% of adults and 81% of school-going adolescents are not meeting physical activity guidelines. Hence more than ever fitness trackers are relevant to users. A lot of people have a hard time understanding the differences between smart watches and fitness trackers, using the term interchangeably. But the truth of the matter is that fitness trackers essentially are not - Smart Watches.
Smart watches are primarily made no matter how smart they are to tell time, on the other hand fitness trackers though they also tell time are primarily made to record and analyze the wearers activities. This comes in various forms of sensors such as heart rate monitoring, gyroscope to identify whether you're running, sitting or standing, magneto meter to tell which way you're moving and barometer to calculate your altitude. Pair that up with a mobile app running a smart algorithm and you get impressive insights on your activities such as steps taken, calorie burned, heart rate variability and so forth.
So what are the three things to consider while buying an activity tracker ?
1. Comfort & style
Gone are the days of square looking wearables, they need to be ergonomically designed to fit your wrist, arm or chest (for the advanced versions). They need to be comfortable as well as stylish. Yes you can have both!
2. Primary Function
Are you using it to track your outdoor or indoor activities, or simply tell you how active your life style is ? If you plan on using it for the latter you would not need to spend much. Any tracker under a 100$ should do, But if you're planning to use it for fitness tracking including goals and trends, you will have to invest a bit more based on your budget and requirements. Wrist activity trackers for example, will not give you the level of precision that you're looking for hence better choice will be an arm band or a chest strap.
3. Features
Battery life by far is the most important for any wearables as much as water and dust resistance often denoted by IPX levels. You should expect your tracker to be able to operate between 36 hours and 1 week depending on the amount of features packed in it. Another feature to consider will be the level of smartness, here at WearMe:
Gen I wearable would simply connect to your phone using bluetooth/Wifi,
Gen II wearable has its own app or send your data to your preferred fitness / medical app,
Gen lII wearable has its own app as well as some type of artificial intelligence built in to it
So next time you're shopping for activity trackers, I hope these three considerations would be of help in choosing the best smart activity tracker that fits your needs. Happy Hunting!