Fitness Trackers: Are they Worth It? Which one should I get?

Introduction

There has been a massive increase in wearable fitness trackers recently, the main ones are Fitbit and the Apple Watch. The question that gets asked a lot is, Are they worth it? Well in this blog we aim to answer that question for you.

You see, the price of wearable electronics has come down a lot in the last 2 years, so now they are more affordable than ever to buy. Fitbit being the most reasonable. Even at the lowest price are they still worth it? What can I expect to gain with one? Well, to start off we need to say that we do like a fitness tracker. Now for this article, I’m going to ignore the other features like Speech to text, music control, remote photo taking because we think all that is just gimmicky. We are going to focus purely on the fitness side of things.

Why do we like them?

The first reason we like fitness trackers is due to the main function, tracking. As the old phrase goes if you can’t measure it you can’t improve it. So having these wearable trackers on your wrist make it a lot easier to track a lot of things, and boy! There a lot of things that you can track. Steps being the main one but you can also track Sleep patterns, Food intake how long you sit down, speed, altitude and everything in-between. So you will be able to track everything, thus you will be able to improve.

The most popular thing people use Fitness Trackers for is too count steps. It is important to get your steps in! How many is up to you, The government recommend 10,000, but this is said by the same person that said every man needs to eat 2500 calories a day. I always say do as many as you can and each day tries to match it or even beat it. Tracking steps is good because it stops you sitting around too much and gets you moving and exercising. Almost puts you in competition with yourself. Along with Steps most of these trackers will also track altitude and tell you how many floors or how much height you have travelled. Personally, I have always enjoyed seeing how many floors I have travelled up.

Anything Else

The other important factory to health that you should at least keep an eye on is sleep! Most people don’t know how long they have slept for or even how good that sleep was. We are not going to go too much into the human sleep pattern, the perfect time to wake up and all that, we will save that for another blog post. All you have got to remember is that the two factors to track are length and quality. You want to make sure you are getting good quality sleep, and enough of it. Fitness trackers can now measure how long you are asleep for, and also how well you slept, They track your movement and heart rate to measure this. This can help you improve or maintain good quality sleep.

There are other options

There are also many apps that work with fitness trackers. For example, the Apple Watch will support everyone’s favourite macro track MyFitnessPal so you can easily track your macros. Which if you don’t know you can calculate them using our free Macro and Calorie calculator. Which you can download here. Every tracker is different and each one will have its stand out features, but almost all of them will track, Steps, Height, Play music, make calls and make texts. Which makes them useful even outside of the fitness. You are now asking us which one do we recommend?

The two fitness trackers we are going to suggest are what we would call the current market leaders. They are The Apple Watch and the Fit Bit, Now on their websites, these are classed as “Smart Watches” but they do all the functions talked about above. Now we are not going to tell you which one is better because that is a call for you to make, we will give you the pros of each.

Apple Watch

Fitness Trackers - Apple Watch

Apple Watch was the first big SmartWatch/Fitness Trackers. Straight of the bat this is the one to get if you want app functionality! There are hundreds of apps made for the Apple watch, and because of apples strict app design policy (Something we know about ourselves) they are all high quality and trustworthy. So if you want the apple watch to do something, there is most likely an app to do it. From Facebook to remote camera asset, tracking, phone calls music it does it all. The apple watch it also filled with some clever tech, the way it measures your heart rate, Breathing everything is been thought through so carefully, and the build quality of them is second to none.

It also integrates with iPhones flawlessly, now this is also a negative because if you don’t have an iPhone it will work just not as well, some of the functionality is missing, the apps won’t work. Everyone I have ever met that owns an Apple watch has an iPhone. So if you own an Android of any kind, think before you purchase an Apple Watch. 

The last point is the Materials that it comes in, because you can get some pretty high quality and flashy materials, for example, they so a Stainless steel case, they do an Aluminium case, and they also do a Gold and Silver case, They also do some really nice bands, and with all the aftermarket bands out there the possibilities are endless. Now, with all these nice things it comes with a nice price. The Apple Watch isn’t cheap, The standard model with a “Basic” band will set you back around £400, while some of the higher end models will go for £500-£1200. So it is not a cheap bit of kit.

Fitbit

Fitness Trackers - Fitbit Versa

The Fitbit has taken the world by storm, mainly due to their compatibility and price. Lets kick straight with the price, These are a lot cheaper than the apple watch, with the highest spec watch coming in around £250 but they are always on offers somewhere so you will be able to get a brand new Fit Bit for around £199, now they also do cheaper options with low specs, If you were to get rid of the screen and just get the basic fitness tracker, you can pick them up for around £70-£100 depending on where you shop. As said above there are many models all with various features and functions so no matter what your budget and need there will be a Fitbit for you. 

The Fitbit comes in various colours to suit anyone. As with the apple watch, you can buy various bands for the fit bit to make it your own. Fitbit can also track various activities and show you stats based on those exercises, so if you are running, it will take into consideration that you are running, same with walking, swimming.

Speaking of Swimming, both these watches are waterproof but what you have to be careful with is that the older generations of the Apple watch are not waterproof, so if you are going to buy a second-hand apple watch just be careful and check if it is waterproof. Same with the Fitbit older and lower spec models may not be water proof. So when buying any of them, just check the features.

Conclusion

So in conclusion whichever one you chose to buy just make sure that it has all the features that you want, and that you might have to pay a bit more to get the features that you want. Try both out and think about if you are going to connect them to a device, what device do you have? Both can also be used on their own now. Let us know over on our Instagram which ones you have or are going to get.

Before we go we are also going to mention Mobile Phones. Everyone has a smartphone now a day, and they always have it with them, Most smartphones will track for us either with a stock app or there will be an app you can download from the store, Maybe we should put some tracking Features in our App? What do you all think? Anyway, If you are only interested in Sleep and Step (As well as Floors and Altitude) This might be the way to go, If you already have a smartphone then you can download a free app to track and get started. Have a shop around and see what suits your needs, but if you are after more (Heart Rate, Calorie expenditure, Music Control etc) a fitness tracker might be the way to go. 

What fitness trackers have you owned? Do you have a favourite? Let us know over on Instagram.

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Written by Kieran Blacker

Kieran is the CEO and Founder of Sets & Reps. He decided to make an application that helped people get a gym workout when not at the gym. He designed, Coded and built the application himself.

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