Wearable tech has taken the world by storm, giving everyone the ability to access and keep track of a wide range of information right from their wrist. If you’re sure an activity tracker is the right wearable for you there’s still much to consider when choosing the right activity tracker for your needs. To help you pick the best activity tracker for your fitness needs here’s our guide to buying an activity tracker in South Africa.
Wearable tech has changed the way we exercise. Activity trackers can help you measure various aspects of your health and fitness, including your heart rate, calories burned, distance covered, and sometimes even sleep quality, giving you more insight into your health goals. Fitness goals can be difficult to set, track, and measure. Even if you watch your weight, time your workouts, and keep track of how you feel overall, you’ll still end up guestimating much of your progress. But, with the help of the right technology, you can set more realistic fitness goals and accurately assess your progress, helping you stay motivated.
Much like a personal trainer in your pocket, an activity tracker is ideal for keeping track of your fitness goals and workouts and are best suited for those wanting to lead a healthy lifestyle and perhaps lose weight or gain muscle. While a sports watch provides extensive insight into your training sessions and is the best choice for athletes, a fitness tracker is a more general health and fitness tracking tool.
Consider these key points when choosing which activity tracker to buy:
Which features do you need?
Offering users the ability to track everything from sleep quality and the number of steps taken in a day to calories consumed and activity level, a fitness tracker is a great overall health and fitness tool. Many high-end activity trackers offer as many as 11 separate sensors, to track everything from your steps and heart rate to your exact location and even your sleep cycles. Having a variety of accurate, consistent sensors gives you more detailed and, in some cases, more accurate, data. But, not every device has accurate sensors and having too many sensors can also reduce the battery life of your device or make it more complicated to use.
Before buying an activity tracker carefully consider the features you will need and actually use. Features like step tracking with a pedometer, a built-in GPS, heart-rate monitoring, sleep monitoring, and music playback functionality are perhaps the most common and sought-after features on top-of-the-range activity trackers these days but other devices also offer features like sunlight exposure tracking, calorie burn, and rep counters.
Accuracy:
Of course, it’s no good having all these fancy features if they’re not accurate. Depending on how seriously you’re taking your exercise regime, accuracy may be quite high on your list of priorities when buying an activity tracker. Some trackers are better than others at accurately measuring steps, distance, calories, and heart rate. It’s also important to take consistency into account. If a tracker is accurate on some days but not on others, you won’t know whether you’re improving.
Battery life:
One of the most important factors to consider when buying an activity tracker is battery life. Using your wearable could become irritating if you need to charge it too frequently. Generally, activity trackers have the advantage over smartwatches here, largely due to the lack of a large screen, and additional features like pairing with a smartphone to monitor notifications. Most activity trackers have a battery life that ranges from a couple of days to a couple of weeks but feature-rich activity trackers may need charging every day with heavy use.
Which activity tracker to buy:
Once you know which features are the most important to you it’s time to shop for an activity tracker. Fitbit is arguably the most well-known brand of activity tracker on the market but there are loads of other brands on the market with equally impressive trackers. Here’s a look at our picks for the best activity trackers available in South Africa:
Fitbit Charge3
Track your steps, gym workouts, heart rate, sleep and more with the Fitbit Charge 3 activity tracker. Get a great overall view of your health with this advanced fitness tracker designed to help you reach your health goals. There’s no onboard GPS but it’s waterproof and offers a full fitness suite including a heart rate tracker. You can track GPS by pairing your phone with the tracker too. This device, of course, also offers Fitbit’s fantastic sleep tracking and is one of the company’s best trackers yet. You’ll get about 6 days of battery life on a full charge, giving you ample time to utilise the watch in between charging days.
Find the best prices on the Fitbit Charge 3 online with PriceCheck now:
Garmin Vivosmart 4
This high-end health band isn’t made for serious athletes like most of other products from the Garmin wearables range, but offers an impressive option for health-conscious types looking to track the odd bit of exercise and have an attractive band to do it. The battery should last around a week depending on how much exercise you’re doing. One of the most interesting features has got to be the ‘Body Battery’ feature which helps you track your recovery time and learn when exactly is the best time for you to exercise depending on how much energy you have.
Find the best prices on the Garmin Vivosmart 4 online with PriceCheck now:
With a wide variety of fitness accessories, PriceCheck is your first port of call to find the best offers on activity trackers in South Africa.