Fitness bracelets are not rocket science: you can count steps, measure your pulse, such as time and draw part of lines and meters with the help of GPS and a Barometer.
The last two Features are often found only in the case of GPS sports watches, or Smartwatches.
With these devices, the personal motion or sports performance to Fitness or health purposes, keep track of, which is why they are often called a fitness tracker.
Usually there is the opportunity to – or even forced – to connect the Tracker with the Smartphone or a computer. The collected data will then be transferred to, and stored in the rule will be evaluated.
These analyses often take place directly in the App must be able to see you but also on a site of the manufacturer, to transfer its Server, the data from the mobile device have been.
Step counter, stopwatch and heart rate monitor is important
“These basic functions – step counter, stopwatch and heart rate monitor should have a fitness bracelet, in my opinion,” says the mathematician Thomas Camminady, one of the researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute for technology (KIT), to machine Learning, and even GPS watches when running uses.
The step counter is a simple fitness tracker without a GPS function on a motion or acceleration sensor. Therefore, such equipment costs in the first category, also the least – on average between 100 and 150 Euro. This is also our winner of the test from the step counter Test 2020: the Fitbit Charge 3.
Very cheap Tracker with pedometer and heart rate measurement but have also been around 30 euros (for example, the Honor Band 5) and without a user account, or the paired Smartphone to use.
GPS helps with the orientation
“For someone like me who runs regularly, is the navigation Feature is very important, which is why I decided to go for a GPS watch”, says Camminady. The map helps you to Orientate. Smartwatches with GPS are, for example, the Apple Watch Series 5 or the Garmin Vivoactive 4S.
And: “If I have uploaded before running a course, buzzing-the-clock at the intersection if I need to turn.” Tracker or watch with a GPS start around 150 euros and prices range up to 900 euros.
Before buying it find out what you want to achieve with the device and which functions are necessary. Otherwise, the Tracker ends up as fast in the corner, as are the good intentions.
“You should ask yourself, why is it that – with a longer – term perspective-at all sports, or want to do, and what supportive role could take on a Smartwatch or a fitness tracker,” advises sports scientist prof Lars Donath of the German sport University (DSHS) in Cologne, Germany.
How can a fitness tracker?
You should think about how you enjoy sports. Enough for me in the basement with gym equipment, or do I need the social interaction during the sport?
What are the goals I have in practice? How can I reward myself if I have achieved something? What are the functions of a fitness tracker can support me in the everyday life of a really?
It is going to accompany the individual process of training with a suitable device, and monitors, according to Donath.
“At the lower exercise intensities of a fitness bracelet is usually sufficient,” says Donath. “With a regular fitness bracelet, you will always know how much and how intensively you moved in about. In combination with Apps the is often sufficient.”
Sports watches and Smartwatches can often bracelets a lot more than Fitness: you can manage training plans, identify the unit exercises, or remind you via Vibration to the next training session.
“You have to love it,” says Donath. Because not all people want to be constantly accompanied.
Privacy is in many of the fitness trackers be a Problem
The paired App, the data will be synchronized with the manufacturer’s Server or at other locations to be stored. “The data outflow in the case of paired devices is of course a big Problem,” says Donath.
Even if hardly anyone is doing, it is actually essential that the Terms and conditions of manufacturers and service providers to read. Because then many would be aware of the fact that completely non-transparent is where the data is flowing.
With the data services in terms of users, however, can make. Some providers allow for Training courses or walking and bike trails with photos to document the map material and other information, and to share with friends or training partners, says Thomas Camminady.
“So the Training on the Software in a kind of social framework. If you want to compare, or, for example, ideas for new collecting lines.”
Fitness tracker as a lifestyle product
“A Smartwatch is definitely a Lifestyle product,” says Prof. Lars Donath of the German sport University in Cologne. “Should you like to wear, not only for the Sport.”
The devices look like watches, and could of course also show all of the time.
In addition, the Charging of the battery flap faster and faster, and the accuracy of the Sensors will be continually improved.
“The future will be watches that have a Sim card, and thus, like an Autonomous cell work,” says Donath. On the market there are also such models already.
Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa)
*The article “fitness trackers: What features should a Smartwatch?” is published by FitForFun. Contact with the executives here.