MAY 2020 T3 55Fitness watches
The Apple Watch Series 5 already offers peerless heart-rate, blood oxygen
and step tracking but download a few third-party apps to make it better still
lthough it’s not explicitly a fitness device,
Apple Watch must presumably be the world’s
most popular fitness wearable by now. Some
people buy it specifically to track steps, runs
and more; others buy it as smartwatch and then may or
may not use the exercise features.
The latest incarnation adds very little over the Series 4- the main non-aesthetic addition is the option of an
always-on screen. For workouts, this is actually quite the
boon, as it means you can immediately view your heart
rate and other metrics, without having to activate the
screen by turning your wrist.
The down side is that battery life is reduced, but then
the device’s battery life has always been quite poor
compared to Fitbit or Garmin. That’s why it doesn’t
incorporate sleep tracking; it’s expected that you’ll be
charging your Watch overnight.
Apple’s fitness game remains very strong, so long as
you keep its battery topped up. Of course it does step
counting, but there is also an excellent heart-rate tracker,
as well as one for blood oxygen measuring. There are some
moans about the pulse sensor online – everyone seems to
A
Its fitness game remains
strong, so long as you
keep its battery topped up
get different results from wrist heart tracking – but we’ve
always found it to be excellent. Calorie burn estimates
seem consistently accurate, where most fitness trackers’
seem rather fanciful at times. In fact, we’ve done a bit of
lab testing and found the Apple Watch’s calorie burn
estimates to be remarkably similar to those shown by
proper sports-medicine equipment, which you have to
concede is quite impressive.
Accurate GPS, consistently good exercise detection and
the ability to stream music via Bluetooth make it a great
running and workout watch. Of course, if you are not on
Wi-Fi, you will need to use a 4G connection to stream, but
there is also the option to store playlists on the Watch, if
you don’t want to use up your data allowance.
Apple’s own workout app doesn’t have some of the more
advanced training metrics that Garmin offers, but via
third party apps and sensors, the Watch can rival even the
best fitness watches for sophistication, handling running,
gym workouts and swimming with aplomb. One for the
sporty type who likes to mix their activities, then.APPLE
:$7&+
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