Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Fitness Tracking Devices

I love data.  I track meals, sleep, weight, fitness activities and am always on the lookout to add new metrics/gadgets to the fold.

My latest interest is in wristband style fitness trackers.  This is more applicable to work at home individuals and those who do a lot of walking and other activities during their jobs.  As a fairly sedentary cubicle guy, I am not sure what there is for me to gain.

I was originally interested in the fitbit as it comes in at a very reasonable price point ($129) and tracks sleep in addition to other activities.  Battery life also seems to be pretty good at 7-10 days.  I can order this device today.

Recently I saw the new Atlas Fitness Tracker on Indiegogo.  This device offered some perks in that you could swim with it and it tracked strength workouts through a series of algorithms.  The battery life was shorter, but the functionality was much higher.  The downside is that it did not seem to monitor sleep patterns, which is a big issue for me.  The device will not be available until December 2014.


During some brief research into these two, I also came across the Amigo.  This combines the best of both worlds.  I could not find any battery life information, but it does track sleep in addition to other activities and is roughly at the same price point as fitbit.  They seem to be having delivery issues.

2 comments:

Philip Wang said...

Check out the Polar Loop, I got one a couple months ago. The price is about right $99 and it is waterproof, so you can take it with you to log your swim workouts. It also pairs with a HRM, so you can track your cycling workouts (provided you don't track your HR with a GPS watch.)

The web interface and app are going through some growing pains and could use some work, but I'm pretty happy with mine overall!

Sanjiv Gupta said...

Thanks for the recommendation.