FITNESSBANDS
ISSUE387|COMPUTER SHOPPER|MAY2020 81
physicalcontrolsarethereforeideal,though
admittedlyrareonsmallbands.
Thegoodnewsisthatevenifyourtracker
gets wet, aslippery touchscreen is probably
the most ofyour worries. All ofthe fitness
bandswe’re lookingatinthe followingpages
are waterprooftoadepth of 50m, so they’ll all
be fine with some lengths of the pool.APPYOUR HANDS
With such small screens, the best wayto
actually review your tracking data is with a
mobile app.For the most part you’ll likely be
using the official app of whichever
manufacturer produced your band –Fitbit,
Huawei and so on –but you cansometimes
also sync your data with third-party fitness
apps such as Strava andRunkeeper.
As with the devices themselves, each app
will vary significantly,but the best ones will be
able to balance the need fordetailed feedback
(vague or inaccuratedata won’t help you
improve your fitness or help you sleep better)
with the need to present this information in
understandable,user-friendly formats.Fitbit’s app is particularly well made,and
makes it easy to compare your progress with
other Fitbit users, which could be asource of
motivation if you’re the competitive type.GETALIFE
Another advantage of fitness bands over
smartwatches is that their lower-spec
displays (among other size limitations) often
translatesintolongerbattery life. This is a
rare area in which Fitbit devices are relatively
weak –the otherwise excellent Fitbit Inspire
HR lasts about five days –but even very
cheap models can keep going fortwo weeks
or more between charges.
Having to charge less often is convenient in
any case,although it’s particularly handy for
trackers. Running out halfwaythrough a
workout would render any data collected up to
that point almost worthless, and if you want
to track your sleep,you obviously can’t take
the opportunity to remove the band to charge
overnight. Therefore,adevice that can go for
days and days at atimewillmaximisethe
number of nights you can track.functionality that all will share –pedometers
come as standard, forinstance,soany device
will be able to handle simple step counting
–but beyond that, theycan vary.
We recommend having aheart-ratesensor,
as this can give you abetter understanding of
your general health and fitness than most
other measuring tools, although some cheaper
bands omit this. Swim tracking, conversely,
has become much more widely supported
recently,and since this requires waterproofing,
swim-tracking support will herald better
physical durability.Sleep tracking has become
alot less niche as well.
TAKE POSITION
Integrated pedometers are useful forrecording
howmany steps you take in aday,but if
you’re akeenrunner,you’ll want to keep track
of distance travelled as well. GPS support is
ideal forthis, or at the very least more
accuratethan using step counts to estimateit.
There are two forms of GPS support to
look out for: onboard and connected.
Onboard/integrated GPS means the requisite
chip is inside the band itself,whereas
connected GPS needs aGPS-enabled
smartphone to be connected over Bluetooth;
the band essentially piggybacks off the
phone’s GPS signal to record movement data.
The benefit of onboard GPS is that you
don’t need to carry aphone with you while
exercising, aboon if you don’t want it
bouncing around in your pocket the whole
time.However,wegenerally find connected
GPS can produce more accurateresults.
We test this by performing precisely 5km-long
runs, and seeing how close to 5km each band’s
distance tracking comes. You’ll be dependent
on the reliability of your phone’s GPS chip,of
course,sothat’s another potential variable,
though again, it’s likely to be more accurate
than the chips used inside fitness bands.
Either of these alternatives are better than
having no GPS at all, though it’s up to you
whether you’d preferthe convenience of
onboard GPS or the superior accuracy of
using aconnected smartphone.
STAY INTOUCH
If having unobtrusive hardware is important to
you, afitness band is definitely preferable to a
fitness watch. These are designed to be as
small and as light as possible,eschewing
traditional round watch faces and heavy
construction materials such as metal.
This unavoidably means smaller display
sizes, and more often thannot, touchscreen
controls in place of any physical buttons. Be
warned, however,that this can adversely affect
usability: small displays have trouble displaying
more than small snippets of text, so when
you’re in the middle of aworkout,you might
not be able to keep all the tracking data you
want visible at aglance.
Touchscreens can also be trickytouse with
wet fingers: an obvious problem should you be
tracking apoolswim, or if you’re caught in the
rain while running. Amix of touchscreenand
FiguresoffitnessWhatmetricscanafitnessbandmeasure,
andhowdotheyhelpyoustayhealthy?HEARTRATE
Heart-ratetracking is very nearly astandard featureonall fitness trackers,
with only very basic models (such as the Fitbit Inspire) going without
them. That’s because forsuch asimplemetric, it can tell you alot
about how healthy you are.
The better your cardiovascular fitness, the lower your heart rate
will be,soyou’ll be able to tell quickly if your exercise routine is
working, as both your resting and active pulse will get slower over
time.Ifyou know the ideal rates foryour weight and age (most
adults, forinstance,should have aresting heart rateofbetween
60 and 100 beats per minute), you can also tell immediately if you’re
not as healthy as you should be.VO2MAX
This is the maximum amount of oxygen that is transferred intoyour blood when
exercising. It’s amore complex calculation than heart rate–your VO2Max is expressed
as millilitres of oxygen transferred per kilogram of body weight, per minute–but it
serves asimilar purpose.The healthier you are,the moreoxygen gets pumped in, so
improving your VO2Max means you’re improving your overall fitness.
At the same time,it’s not quiteasreliable when calculated on afitness band, as
something on your wrist can’t measure what’s going in and out of your lungs.
Instead, devices that provide VO2Max data work out an estimateusing your age,sex
and heart rate.DISTANCE/STEPSTRAVELLED
This isn’t technically ameasure of bodily health –afitperson could
certainly run further than an unfit person –but, unlike heart rate
or VO2Max, you won’t be trying to plateau your highest step
count every time you go forawalk.
Even so,suchabasic metric can be useful forgetting and
keeping fit: all you have to do is take an initial measure of steps
or distance,and go further the next time.Dothis on repeat, and
you gradually build up your endurance while also burning more
calories each time.