Top Features to Check Out When Buying a Fitness Tracker
When shopping for fitness trackers, it's important to review them and chose the best one for you. Monitoring your movements, eating habits, sleeping patterns, as well as heart beat rates has become increasingly significant for the inspection and improvement of personal health. Companies are offering fitness trackers with increased efficiency of self-monitoring. Before you storm in the stores to buy a fitness tracker for yourself, here are valuable features you ought to check out when choosing the best fitness tracker that suits your personal needs.
Battery life
The capacity of the battery in every model of fitness tracker differs. It is imperative to choose a fitness tracker whose battery life will not interfere with its working schedule. For instance, you'd be unjust to yourself when purchasing a fitness tracker whose capacity is 24 hours, yet you'll need it to work for 2 continuous days. Different fitness trackers have different battery life spans. While the battery life of Fitbit Surge is 7 days with continuous heart rate, that of Basis Peak is 4 days. Misfit Flash battery lasts more than 6 months (and only costs $25 on Amazon). If you're using Garmin Vivosmart, expect its battery life to take a week.
Fitness trackers: Best Battery Life
1 - Jawbone Up3 - 7 days
2 - Fitbit Surge - 7 days
3 - Garmin Vivosmart HR - 5 days
4 - Fitbit Charge HR - 5 days
5 - Basis Peak - 4 days
Form factor
Fitness trackers have been designed in different forms namely: watches, bracelets and clip-ons. Depending on your preference, you can choose the fitness tracker whose form factor suits you best. You can hardly lose watches or bracelets since you tie them on your hands. Clip-ons are easy to lose since they can fall-off. Therefore, if your occupation requires a lot of bending and movements, fitness trackers in bracelets or watches are preferable.
One advantage of having the fitness tracker on your wrist is being able to take advantage of those having heart rate sensors. However keep in mind the more technology you add like HR and GPS, the larger the device becomes. Without GPS and Heart Rate sensor, some fitness trackers are very small and company — and also have great battery life
Thinnest Fitness Trackers
1 - Misfit Shine 2 (2016 Edition)
2 - Fitbit Alta (release March 2016)
3 - Fitbit Flex
4 - Jawbone UP3
Heart Monitor
Some fitness trackers have heart rate monitors built in while others don't. Others argue the effectiveness of heart rate trackers altogether. Among those with heart rate monitors, some can monitor the heart rate all the time, while others record the heart rate only when you're on exercise. Fitness trackers with built-in heart rate monitors include Fitbit Surge, the Apple Watch, and the Basis Peak. If you want a fitness tracker with a heart rate monitor, specify whether you want it record to your heart beats all the time or solely when working out. Fitness trackers whose heart rate monitors are only functional when working out are Mio Fuse and Mio Alpha 2.
Best Fitness Tracker With Heart Rate
1 - Basis Peak
2 - FitBit Charge HR
3 - Garmin VivoFit HR
4 - Adidas Fit Smart
Display type
Do you desire to own a fitness tracker that has its own display or one that depends on a smartphone to display your tracked body activities? Clip-ons do not have a screen; therefore, you must connect them to a smartphone to read the statistics. You may also want a fitness tracker that uses a monochrome LCD or one with dot-matrix LCD. Fitness trackers with monochrome LCDs include Fitbit Surge, Basis Peak, and Mio Alpha 2. Fitness trackers with dot-matrix LCDs include Mio Fuse, Vivoactive.
Cost of the fitness tracker
Your budget limit is a considerable factor when purchasing a fitness tracker. Note that a higher budget attracts fitness trackers with features such as built in GPS and optical heart rate monitors. The standard price range of quality fitness trackers ranges from $150 to $250. Workout lovers and athletes should allocate higher budgets starting at $150 to afford trackers that have suitable features such as heart rate monitors. On the other hand, users whose activities are relatively less intense can find devices in their budgets range between $50 and $130.
If you're under a tight budget, quality affordable fitness trackers include Misfit Flash and Jawbone Up Move. Outstanding features in these trackers include long battery life, swim-proof, monitoring of steps and sleep tracking. On the flipside, the Apple Watch is a device meant for fashion lovers and big spenders. You'll have to part with a high amount of cash to acquire it.
Most Cost Effective Fitness Trackers
1 - Misfit Flash Link - $18 on Amazon w/ Prime
2 - Misfit Flash - $25 on Amazon w/ Prime
3 - Jawbone Up Move - Amazon w/ Prime $24
4 - Fitbit Zip - $49 Amazon w/ Prime
5 - Fitbug Org - Amazon w/ Prime $58
Sleep tracking
Most fitness trackers have been designed to monitor your sleep. Numerous reviews indicate that Jawbone Up3 has the best sleep tracker. On the Apple Watch, it will require you to download a sleep tracking app. These devices can differentiate statistics from light and deep sleep. Some can also record the body temperature, bpm rate, respiration rate and galvanic skin response.
Before you commit your money to buying a fitness tracker, consider all these factors and base your purchasing decision on a concrete reasoning that won't make you regret later. It would be a waste of time and money if you bought a fitness tracker that doesn't suit your activity needs. User reviews from the internet are a good source of information regarding fitness trackers and their outstanding features.
Best Fitness Trackers with Sleep Tracking
1 - Jawbone Up3
2 - Misfit Shine
3 - Beddit Smart 2.0
4 - Withings Aura
5 - Basis Peak
