record your steps and even how
many calories you have burned.
There is also an option to track
your walks with GPS.
The app runs in the background
and does not need to be active to
record. It is free with a single
banner ad appearing at the bottom
of each screen, which is quite
tolerable.
WALK WITH MAP MY WALK
If you’d like more guidance, Map
My Walk can provide a variety of
suggested walks of varying
distance, or can plan walks to
preferred destinations. You can
connect devices like smart shoes
and watches too. You need to
create an account, but the
requested info is fairly minimal so
it’s not too intrusive.
HOME WORKOUT
- NO EQUIPMENT
We opted out of investigating the
multiplicity of Gym apps, but we
like this home-focussed option. It
provides a wide range of exercises
while encouraging you to set goals
and record your progress towards
achieving them. Essentially, this
app becomes your personal
trainer and can really help in
achieving your fitness goals.
Sleep
After all that exercise you are
probably feeling tired, and getting
a good night’s sleep is essential for
your health and wellbeing! We
looked at a few sleep trackers, and
here’s our favourite:
SLEEP AS ANDROID SLEEP
CYCLE SMART ALARM
Sleep as Android helps you set
optimum sleep duration, monitors
the quality of your sleep, can
interact with smart devices, and
has a host of alarm options. It’s
intuitive to navigate and seems to
work well.
Sleep as Android provides a trial
of the full version for two weeks,
then brings in limitations if you
do not upgrade to the US$9.99
Sleep as Android Unlock version.
This gives you a good opportunity
to see how well it works for you
before buying.
Another app - Sleep Cycle: Sleep
analysis & Smart alarm clock- also looks promising but is more
expensive and reportedly not as
reliable. We liked the interesting
global sleep information on their
website though, at:www.
sleepcycle.com
Foodandweight
We are what we eat, and the
Australian Calorie Counter - Easy
Diet Diary app is a food tracking
assistant designed for Australia
and New Zealand. It is free and
does not run ads, but does require
creating an account. If you want or
need to keep a record of the food
you are eating this is a great app,
and it can also track your exercise
programme. Get it for free from
the Google Play Store.
If you find that you need a bit
more assistance in managing your
food and weight you could try The
Weight Loss Mindset: Lose Weight
With Hypnosis. It costs US$14.99
upfront, but users report that its
simple sessions are very good at
psyching you into changed
behaviours.Generalhealthtracking
If you have a need to track health
events and symptoms over timeUpdoc: Health diary might well do
the job. The basic app is free, but you
need to create an account and
authorise the upload of your data.
As with any account-based apps, it
is a good idea to create a non-
personalised email address to use
with these accounts, and to limit
the amount of personal information
that you enter into the app.
For a more basic symptom
tracking app with no account
required you could download
Health Log by AR Productions from
the Google Play Store.
We also tried the interesting
Yolife and Habinator - Health and
Life-Coach apps but ran into some
compatibility issues on our test
Samsung Galaxy Note 8. They are
worth checking out to see how they
run on your Android device.Pollution
And finally, if you are getting all
health and fitness conscious it pays
to know your local air quality
before you go for a run and inhale
lots of it.
We found the Air Quality, Air
Visual app to be easy to use and it
provides localised information for
almost anywhere in the world –
you can look up any location. Plus
the app is free and does not run ads,
so it’s a logical addition to anyone’s
health toolkit.RIGHT:Sleep as
Android is
simple yet
sophisticated.
FAR RIGHT:
AirVisual gives
good local air
quality info.Home Workout
provides a
comprehensive
range of
personalised
workout guides.