Choosing the right smartwatch or fitness tracker is important if you want to make your workout more effective, track your physical activity and various health parameters (sleep quality, heart rate, stress level), establish goals, and motivate yourself. Depending on the number of features fitness trackers and smartwatches may range in price from $15 to $1000. While some wearables are just simply bracelets counting steps, other fitness trackers are higher-end devices and are called smartwatches. Some smartwatches even support a SIM card, then you can use it to make calls or access the Internet without being connected to a phone. Who knows, maybe one-day smartwatches will be able to operate as real smartphones and provide you the opportunity to gamble online black jack games on them.
To better understand all the differences between smartwatches and fitness trackers, let’s take a look at the different categories of smartwatches. Fitness trackers and smartwatches can be roughly divided into several groups: simple everyday wearables with common functions, higher-end devices with advanced functionality, and highly specialized professional watches for sports orienteering, tourism, swimming, scuba diving, racing, flying, or golfing. Fitness trackers usually only have basic features such as. Smartwatches provide more features, including some smartphone features and activity, sleep, and health trackers. Smartwatches work even without synchronization with your smartphone, with all the features and GPS will hold up to several days of charge, with economical use – up to a week, while the fitness trackers have a shorter battery life. Modern smartwatches allow you to receive notifications of SMS and call your smartphone, count calories, and monitor your sleep quality and heart rate. In each model, there are standard functions of work with time: timer, stopwatch, alarm clock, calculator, and notification system of scheduled activities.
Some smartwatches are real swim-tracking fitness bracelets: they are waterproof and have additional features related to swimming (they measure heart rate, average speed, and strokes per minute in water). Of course, very important factors to consider are the size, weight, and thickness of the smartwatch. Smartwatches equipped with many functions can be bulkier than light fitness bracelets.
Given that the smartwatch has become an improved version of a fitness tracker, all smartwatches have built-in physical activity monitoring: a pedometer, heart rate monitor, and calorie counter. More expensive models have more accurate sensors and counters, as well as built-in more functions: from monitoring sleep quality and stress levels to calculating the level of oxygen in the blood. The smartwatch displays all the alerts on your smartphone. In the basic models, you can just read the information or reset the call, in the advanced watches you can answer calls and messages. Some smartwatches can be even synchronized with the smartphone and provide the function of finding the smartphone. In budget devices, you can switch tunes on your smartphone, pause and restart them, adjust the volume, and create track lists. Premium gadgets connect directly to wireless headphones via Bluetooth.
Whether you need a smartwatch or can get by with a fitness tracker depends on your pace of life. For beginning athletes, a fitness bracelet will be enough to track their progress. It is cheaper, although it cannot be considered a full-fledged replacement for a smartphone. If you need a highly functional and autonomous gadget, it is better to look at smartwatches. They are also useful for professional training because they are more accurate in reading sports performance and can even track step frequency, time of foot contact with the ground, the strength of the stroke when swimming, and other nuances. So, there are many factors to keep in mind when purchasing a fitness tracker or smartwatch.
Once you have purchased the smartwatch, it is important to charge your device, set fitness goals and start measuring your activities. Sophisticated smartwatches have a lot of specs to figure out, so don’t wait until your next training. There are many benefits of using smartwatches if you have purchased the right one for you and use it in the right way: you can easier achieve goals and stay motivated and even encourage your friends. Modern smartwatches even visualize your achievements with achievement maps and leaderboards. If you want to get the most out of your fitness tracker or smartwatch, make your device to a part of your everyday routine. From counting steps to setting goals, your new wearable will improve your well-being. If you aren’t sure whether you need a new fitness tracker or smartwatch or not try using your smartphone with the in-built accelerometer as the activity tracker. Do you like it? Then it is time to purchase a new fitness wearable!
