Introduction to the best fitness trackers
If you're currently a little, shall we say, sedentary, and are looking to get fit in 2015, a fitness tracker (aka a fitness band, aka "those things you wear that count your steps") is the best place to start.
This year is another big one for wearable fitness, with new offerings from Fitbit,Jawbone and Misfit, while the arrival of the Apple Watch and ongoing improvements to Android Wear mean trackers and bands have plenty of competition.
They can make a real difference to how you look and feel, without the need for a gym or massive exertion. Prices range from around £20 to £150+. More importantly, the best of these offer context and tips on how to improve your fitness. They also offer sleep tracking of variable usefulness, and most will have a stab at tracking running, too. Although usually not very well - most fitness trackers are really all about walking and sleeping.
As noted, these are not for super-serious fitness regimes. They also don't really have the accuracy and wealth of data that "proper" athletes require. However, they are cheap, and great if you're a couch potato wanting to get in shape, or someone who works out regularly but also wants an easy fitness boost by increasing the number of steps you take daily.
With the likes of the Withings Activité range, they're even, whisper it, getting quite stylish.
Do wearables actually make a difference? According to research conducted by Phillips Health, 9-percent of British adults track their health with a connected device. And 36-percent of healthcare professionals believe the data gives them an invaluable insight into their patients, allowing them to offer more personalised advice.
But right now, these are our favourite fitness bands:
Best overall - Fitbit Charge HR
Fitbit is market leader for a reason, and the Charge HR remains the best pure fitness tracker out there.
The Fitbit Charge HR’s small OLED screen will tell you how many steps you’ve taken, how many stairs you’ve climbed, distance travelled and heart rate. It’s useful that you don’t need an app to access this information, but Fitbit's app happens to present fitness info very well.
Our testing found the Fitbit was slightly inaccurate, and its attempts to track running and cycling verge on bizarre, but it was at least consistent in the way it was inaccurate, so you can track your progress over time with confidence.
One of the great things about Fitbit is the company’s eco system - with so many users it’s more fun to compete in world rankings.
Battery life is around five days for the HR models, while the standard Charge, which does away with heart rate tracking can manage seven days. The heart-rate monitoring is worth the extra in our opinion, as it makes for more accurate sleep tracking and calorie counting. It's not really any use for zone training on this model.
With its good looks, discreet profile and handy screen, the Charge HR beats out the Jawbone UP3 and Garmin Vivosmart to be our favourite "classic" step and fitness tracker.
Rating: 4/5
£119.99 (£99.99 for the Charge) | Fitbit
Best band/watch hybrid - Microsoft Band 2 • £200
The Microsoft Band 2 is an unusual product for T3 to recommend. It's not the most attractive, with an odd handcuff-like clasp. The three-day battery life isn't amazing either.
However, the way that it straddles the line between running watch, fitness tracker and (especially if you've got a Windows Phone) smartwatch, is seriously impressive.
The Microsoft Band 2 has a whopping 11 biometric sensors including an optical heart rate sensor, 3-axis accelerometer, gyroscope, GPS, ambient light sensor, skin temperature sensor, UV sensor, capacitive sensor, microphone and a galvanic skin response sensor. It's not clear that all of these are even used, so far, but the roll call of sensors makes Band a device with a lot of potential.
The device can also display text messages, emails, in fact any phone-based notifications, on a bright and crisp screen. That works on iOS and Android too, but if you’re a Windows Phone user, it becomes almost a full on smartwatch, with Cortana integration meaning you can respond to alerts easily as well.
As a step counter it's perfectly effective, but it really comes into its own tracking runs and cycle rides using its own GPS and app, or through integration with Strava. It can even track more advanced sports, such as golf or gym sessions.
Best of all, Band can guide you through interval-style workouts, vibrating when it's time to move on to the next set of reps.
Microsoft Band's look and feel are slightly off-putting (although, not as bad as the previous model's), but stick with it and Band is a very powerful device. It packs in even more functionality than the Fitbit Surge, but is much more compact - it really is a band as opposed to a watch - and has a notably brighter (though admittedly also much smaller) screen.
Of course, Microsoft Band 2 is the newest iteration of the device, which also means it's more expensive. If you can put up with the less attractive and more uncomfortable original Band, you can pick one of those up for around £80 with near-identical functionality.
Rating: 4/5
Best for coaching - Moov Now • £60
A lot of these fitness bands are great at telling you what you're doing wrong, but not how to improve.
Enter Moov Now, which has been dubbed the Siri of sweat. Moov was launched by ex-Apple employees and raised $1 million in two weeks. The second generation is smaller, sleeker and more comfortable. It features a six-month battery life from a standard watch battery, and a choice of wrist and ankle straps.
The wearable syncs with an app which takes you through workouts, actively telling you when to slow down, lengthen your stride or speed up. It'll also track and, to greater and lesser degrees, coach you through swimming, cycling, running, cardio boxing and seven-minute HIT workouts. When we say coaching varies, for instance cardio boxing is almost like Guitar Hero but with punching, with lots of voice input, seven-minute workouts do encourage you to "feel the burn", but cycling is rather lacking, just giving vague tips on cadence and rather surprisingly inaccurate data on RPM and power, considering it's strapped to your ankle.
However, given that the Moov Now also handles day-to-day step tracking and is also decidedly cheap compared to many of the gadgets here, it is definitely worthy of your consideration.
Rating: 4/5
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