How To Choose The Best Fitness Tracker

How To Choose The Best Fitness Tracker

For choosing the best fitness tracker you need to figure out why you actually want it.

Are you looking for a lifestyle tracker that you would wear all day like a wristwatch, or a tracker to help you train for your next health goal or achieve a faster five kilometer run?

Lifestyle all-day trackers are simpler devices that show the number of steps you have walked or run, or the stairs you have climbed. These can show you information comparing the number of active minutes in a day, or even the quality of your sleep by comparing your regular and rapid eye movement (REM) during sleep. Most of the current ones also have software features that let you compare yourself to a group of friends and set up some healthy competition throughout the day.

The training trackers have much more sophisticated features like sensors to detect heart rate, speed, pace, lap times and more.

These features are in addition to everything that an all-day lifestyle tracker can offer.

Features To Look for While Choosing a Fitness Tracker

Once you decide on what kind of tracker you need, it is time to choose one from the various options the market offers. Fortunately, the competition has become so strong today that you have multiple good options to choose from.

Accuracy

It is very difficult to get constantly accurate readings once the device is taken out of an ideal environment. Unfortunately for some fitness trackers, these get one of the most difficult places to work on – a sweaty, flexing, human wrist that always seems to find a way to band into something. So check whether the device you are considering works as well during a run as it does during your sleep.

Battery Life

In most cases, the training tracker would have much shorter battery life than an all-day tracker because of the increased functions and more precise sensors that run in it. While devices like the Jawbone UP24 feature a two-week battery life ( it initially came with a one-week battery life that doubled after firmware update), the Fitbit Charger HR has a four-day battery life, and teh Mino Link can muster only six to eight hours of battery life. Are you prepared to charge your tracker frequently?

Compatibility

Not all tackers are created equal. Some trackers might have very good apps, for iOs, but not so good ones for Android, and their Windows and BlackBerry OS support might even be non-existent. Brands like Fitbit have a wireless sync dongle, which is a small universal serial bus (USB) device that can be plugged into your computer to link your tracker with Fitbit Connect. Some trackers like the Jawbone UP24 require a smartphone with Bluetooth Low Energy. So check compatibility with the operating system and smartphone you use.

Durability

Trackers come in a variety of materials and shapes. While some are designed for pure aesthetic reasons, others may have been designed with the aim to maximize functionality. So if looks alone aren’t your thing, go for a tracker that can stand the test of time. Trackers like Jawbone UP24 come with a removable cap that you could lose in a few months. Trackers with displays usually feature plastic screens that can scratch easily, while expensive models like the Apple Watch come with Ion-X or sapphire crystal faces that are extremely resistant to scratches.

Water Resistance

This should not have been in this list, because a fitness tacker that is being used in sweaty and moist conditions with a very good chance of getting