Best fitness trackers 1-5
Ah, the holidays. It's a time for family gatherings, gift giving and massive, massive dinners. The only thing that's not great about this festive time of year is what it does to your waistline.
Whether it's too much turkey or all that eggnog, the calories sure add up, eventually leading to gym memberships and New Year's resolutions to exercise more.
While it's easy to make promises, actually sticking with them can be hard. That's why a good fitness tracker can give you that extra nudge to go jogging, or even walking (you've got to start somewhere).
What's more, these health tracking wearables can help you keep an eye on your heart rate, calorie count, tally up your total steps and much more. With new devices coming out almost every month, there's no shortage of choices. To help you sort through the muck, here's a list of our take on the best fitness trackers out there.
1. Jawbone Up24
Are you in the market for a nearly weightless fitness tracker? Look no further than the Jawbone Up24. Ditching a built-in display makes it one of the lightest wearables available, weighing in at a scant 20 grams coupled with a comfortable soft exterior.
While the Up24 lacks a display of any kind, it syncs every step and your sleep data to a gorgeous smartphone app. All your biometric data is then displayed clearly with with bar graphs, line charts and all with so many colors. The Up24 will also periodically tug at you with reminders to get up, plus users can setup personalized challenges that go beyond burning more calories. For example, you can set goals to get more sleep or make sure to drink a healthy amount of water everyday.
2. Nike FuelBand SE
It's an oldie but a goodie. The Nike FuelBand SE was announced way back in November 2013 but it's still one of the most stylish and effective fitness trackers to ever come out. Sporting a hard plastic band, the FuelBand SE is small and discreet as a regular - if a bit stiff - wristband. The dot matrix LED display makes for an easy to read digital clock and lights up with rainbow colors whenever you've accomplished your goals.
The FuelBand SE is also one of the most goal-oriented fitness trackers, gamifying the act getting fit with fuel points awarded for every little completed workout. At the end of the day you can see how close you came to your fuel point target as well as your total calories burned and steps taken. Beyond traditional exercises like running, you can also set the Fuel Band SE to quantify activities like yoga and bowling.
3. Basis Carbon Steel
The Basis was one of the first companies to come out with a fitness tracker equipped with a massive array of sensors in order to track heart rate, perspiration and even skin temperature. While Basis has since introduced an all-new Peak smartwatch, it's still a bit of a mess, which is why we've included the older generation: the Carbon Steel Smartwatch.
One of the best features of the Basis Carbon Steel is that it can tell when you start exercising - completely on its own. This smartwatch will intuitively start tracking your activity whenever you start a run, set off on a long trek or take a nap then record all the data as soon as you finish. It's a seamless process in comparison with most fitness trackers where you have to press a button to mark the beginning and end of a session.
4. Samsung Gear Fit
Samsung has introduced plenty of smartwatches into the wearable world and now it has a fitness tracker with the Gear Fit. Despite a much more band shaped design, the Gear Fit still carries over many of the same features from Samsung's smartwatches including a beautiful AMOLED display and notifications.
Of course as an fitness tracker, the Gear Fit is also equipped with an accelerometer and gyroscope a to track your movements. Unfortunately it also comes with a very finicky heart rate sensor that picks up some rather unreliable data. It's not perfect, but the Samsung Gear Fit is one of the few wearables that tows the line between activity tracking and smartwatch features.
5. Garmin Vivofit
On the complete opposite spectrum of the Samsung Gear Fit, is Garmin's Vivofit fitness tracker. It doesn't do notifications, nor does it have GPS or a light up screen. In fact you won't even need to plug it in at night because the Vivofit comes with a battery rated to last an entire year.
For the most part, it does little more than act as a digital watch with a pedometer that counts your steps to estimate how many calories you've burned. There's also a little red growing line on the screen to remind you to get up when it's full and some very basic sleep tracking. Simplicity is the Vivofit's strength and its affordable $75 (about £47, AU$91) price also makes this a perfect way to get into fitness trackers on the ground floor.
Best fitness trackers 6-9
6. Misfit Flash
While most wearables can often look like cheap digital watch or a wrist-mounted computer, the Misfit Flash is a bit more stylish and fashioned as a piece of jewelry. On first blush the Flash does not even look like an electronic device. However, underneath this deceivingly plain plastic face there's a set of LEDs that light up to show you the time. This little quarter-sized puck also contains sensors for activity and sleep tracking, a six-month battery and it's entirely waterproof to boot.
We've yet to fully review the Flash, but given it's packing the same internals as the Shine it should be another home run device from Misfit. Currently priced at $49 (about £38, AU$73) on Amazon, the Misfit is another very affordable fitness tracker like the Garmin Vivofit.
7. Microsoft Smart Band
If you thought the Basis Carbon Steel had a lot of sensors, wait until you get a load of the Microsoft Smart Band. It has a whopping 10 biometric sensors: an optical heart rate sensor, 3-axis accelerometer, gyroscope, GPS, ambient light sensor, skin temperature sensor, UV sensor, capacitive sensor, microphone and a galvanic skin response sensor.
Microsoft is pulling out all the stops for its inaugural wearable with Cortana integration on Windows Phone 8.1 devices. Outside of the Redmond camp, users will also be able to pair the device and get notifications from both Android as well as iOS devices.
8. Samsung Gear S
The Samsung Gear S wins the award for being the biggest smartwatch or bracelet depending on how you look at it. Knock it for its excessive size, but the Gear S is one of the first self-sufficient wearables thanks to its built-in cellular radio. Add in the built-in GPS and this is one of the very few smartwatches that makes it possible to go on a run and not worry about leaving the smartphone at home.
The standalone smartwatch comes with the S Health app and a Nike+ Running app that work quite well when coupled with the smartwatch's own plethora of sensors - seven to be exact.
9. Fitbit Surge
The Surge is by far the biggest wearable Fitbit has ever made. It comes with a new watch-shaped design, a runner-friendly GPS feature and heart-rate monitor. The Surge also brings a few smartwatch features such as notifications for caller ID and SMS messages. Overall the Surge looks to be a beefed up version of the Fitbit Flex and its successor, the Fitbit Charge.
Honorable mention: Apple Watch
It had to happen eventually and Apple is finally getting into the wearable game with the Apple Watch. It's slated for an early 2015 release but we went hands on with it and felt like it will be a worthy fitness device. Though it might be classified as a smartwatch, there's a Sport model made specifically for athletes with a lightweight aluminum body and fluoroelastomer band (soft but durable plastic made to stand up to the rigors of a active life style).
Like many other smartwatches, Apple's has an optical heart rate sensor on the back and an accelerometer to count your steps. The smartwatch then shares these metrics with the companion Health app on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus that then can be shared with third-party health and fitness apps.
- Now that you've got the gear, check out the best fitness apps on Android
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