Tag: fitness trackers

I Screwed Up My 5K Time by Training With the Pixel Watch 3’s AI Running Coach

[ad_1]

Like every athletic endeavor, running is complicated. We’re not all professional athletes, with every minute dedicated to improving and preserving our physical performance. We have small children and dogs and sometimes don’t get a lot of sleep. We have work schedules and sometimes drink alcohol and squeeze in a run before lunch. Everything can interfere with our training plans.

Even on an extremely granular level, heart rate training can go wildly awry. High temperatures, stress at work, or even the wrong song on my playlist can make my heart rate spike. Training via tracking your heart rate (also called “zone training,” which refers to different heart rate zones) is universally popular, but it’s also tricky. As Baker pointed out, even stressing about being in the wrong heart rate zone can spike you out of the right one.

I asked Baker if the Pixel Watch 3 had perhaps picked up on indicators that I’d been overtraining, and that’s why it had recommended extremely slow runs. “Possibly,” she said, dubiously. “If you’re not feeling hungry, or you’re lethargic, or you’ve lost your period—those are all signs of overtraining. But recreational runners don’t really overtrain unless something is really wrong.”

That was two weeks of wasted training. I had been running my fast runs at a barely-jogging 14-minute pace when I should’ve been running my tempo intervals at an 8-minute pace—something I probably would’ve done if Fitbit hadn’t been telling me otherwise. I can build custom runs in the app, but I wish it was easier to plug in my desired pace into Fitbit’s suggested workouts rather than build runs from scratch. After all, the point is that the AI coach makes running easier, not harder.

At this point, as with most things AI-related, the AI coach is more of a fun toy than anything else. It gave me structure and motivation. But it’s very easy to be led astray. “It’s another tool that people have in their toolbox, and that’s great!” Baker says. “But now you’ve been playing with a computer and you’re confused. It’s a good starting point, but maybe you should also consult a professional.” Good news for us all—artificial intelligence won’t replace human coaches yet. It still takes another human to point out that maybe all you needed was a nap and a snack.

[ad_2]

Source link

September 9, 2024
The Best Smart Rings, Tested and Reviewed (2024)

[ad_1]

There is plenty to consider when buying a smart ring, so use these tips to help you narrow your choice and get the best from it.

Size: Some smart rings come in standard sizes, but there is some variation, and half sizes are rare. Most manufacturers will send you a free sizing kit, enabling you to wear a dummy ring for 24 hours to ensure you get the right fit. (You may have to buy the ring directly from the manufacturer to get this kit for free.) You should absolutely do this. Bear in mind that your fingers swell and shrink over the day. Your smart ring should be snug to enable the sensors to measure accurately, and it will work best on your index finger (though the middle or ring finger can work).

Finish: All the smart rings we tested combined tough titanium with a sensor array on the inside, but the coatings and colors vary. If you are hard on rings, a silver or gold finish will likely suit you best, as there is less risk of damage. My Oura and Ultrahuman rings with black finishes have visible scratches and chips after a few months. The Oura and Amazfit rings have tiny dimples to help you align the sensors. While I prefer the smooth finish of the Ultrahuman, I suspect correct placement aids accuracy enormously.

Care: If you want to avoid damage, you should remove your ring when working with tools, weight lifting, washing pots and pans, or even cleaning the sink. If your ring is likely to rub against a surface, take it off. I found this was a bigger problem wearing a ring on my index finger than with the middle or ring finger. I scratched the Oura and Ultrahuman rings when gardening, moving boxes, and using a dumbbell. Titanium is also tough enough to damage surfaces in your home. I gouged the porcelain of my sink and marked the inside of a mug with the angular Ringconn. All the smart rings we tested are water resistant, so you can swim or shower without taking them off.

Charging: Smart rings come with a charger and cable, but you will generally have to provide your own wall adapter. From dead, they take anywhere from an hour and a half to three hours to fully charge, but you should avoid letting the battery run down completely, or you run the risk of losing data. We tested the smart rings above with all the bells and whistles turned on, so our battery life estimates are lower than the manufacturers claim.

Features: Most smart rings will track your sleep, heart rate, and temperature. If you want to keep an eye on your sleep and health unobtrusively and comfortably, smart rings are ideal. Fitness tracking varies, with most smart rings offering basic step counts and movement, some offering manual workout tracking, and only the Oura and Galaxy Ring offering automatic workout recognition. But you can expect more depth and accuracy from a traditional fitness tracker or smartwatch. Combining a smart ring with an Apple Watch or Fitbit makes for a seamless experience, allowing you to take off the watch and let it charge at night without gaps in your tracking.

[ad_2]

Source link

September 2, 2024
Samsung Galaxy Ring Review: One Ring to Rule Them All

[ad_1]

Like most fitness tracking rings, Samsung’s Galaxy Ring has been positioned as a minimalist health wearable for people who don’t want the pings and buzzes of a wrist-worn smartwatch or fitness tracker. But that’s only part of its appeal. Its real appeal is that it’s a supplemental wearable if you already have a Galaxy Watch and a Galaxy phone.

When I received my tester, I immediately charged it and added it to Samsung’s Health app, where it joined my Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra. You can elect to send battery-intensive tasks to either the watch or the ring to save battery life on one or the other. I delegated heart-rate monitoring to the watch, and after two days, the ring’s battery life was still at 97 percent.

I can’t think of any other devices that work together that seamlessly for such an immediate, quantifiable improvement. I did compare the Ring’s measurements to an Apple Watch Ultra, which I will discuss later, but after a few days, I switched back to the Galaxy Watch. This is what the ring was made for, so this is the most appropriate testing scenario.

Box It Out

Even from the first unboxing, the Galaxy Ring compared favorably to the Oura Ring. It arrives in an awesome clear charging case with a USB-C connector that snaps shut with a cover. I love this cover. You would not believe how often I manage to knock the Oura Ring off its charger when it’s sitting on my desk. You can also check the battery level by putting the ring on the charger. An LED around the perimeter shows the ring’s battery level, unlike the Oura, whose light just shows if the battery is full or not.

Photograph: Adrienne So

The Ring is titanium and comes in three finishes; I tested the titanium silver. Samsung has a sizing guide consistent with other fitness tracker rings as I was bucketed into my usual size 8. Like most other rings of this type, it has an array of sensors on the inside; a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor with three LEDs to track changes in blood volume, an accelerometer, and a skin temperature sensor.

I can’t feel any of these sensors when wearing the ring. I don’t mind wearing the Oura Ring, but the Galaxy Ring is more than a gram lighter and is noticeably thinner and lightweight. As a bonus, you can go into your Health app on your Samsung phone and click Find My Ring and the LEDs will start flickering! You can’t see them in daylight, but at least the company has acknowledged that one of the major problems with smart rings is how often you lose the darn things. I keep taking mine off mindlessly to wash dishes, lift something heavy, or play the violin. It’s also rated at 10 ATM and IP68, and I have kept mine on while swimming and paddling with my kids.

The battery life depends on how many tasks you want to outsource to your watch. If I’m wearing my Galaxy Watch, the Galaxy Ring lasts over a week. Without it, it lasted a standard three to five days of continuous tracking.

On Period

The Galaxy Ring measures a fairly similar set of metrics to the Oura Ring. For example, it offers an Energy Score, which is similar to Oura’s Readiness Score in that it takes in several factors, like your sleep time and consistency and the previous day’s activity, and spits out an easy-to-understand number to show you how ready you are to tackle the day.

To do that, it tracks your sleep. You can click through the Samsung Health app to check your sleep stages, including how long you’ve been awake, your blood oxygen, and whether you’re snoring. It usually records more sleep time than my Apple Watch Ultra; I’m guessing it’s easier for the watch to tell that I’m reading in bed instead of sleeping when my arm is holding my Kindle up to my face.

[ad_2]

Source link

August 18, 2024
Fitbit Ace LTE Review: The Best Kid’s Smartwatch

[ad_1]

As an adult, we’ve all become inured to fitness tracker gamification—all the funny little incentives to up your step count and get moving. It’s wild to see a child experience fitness gamification for the first time, especially since most children have too much energy to begin with.

The Ace LTE, Fitbit’s new smartwatch for kids, incentivizes children between the ages of 7 and 14 to wear their combination fitness tracker, location sharer, and communication device with a proprietary games studio called Fitbit Arcade. The child can unlock activity-based games with a certain number of steps, and it’s time-limited, so they can play for only a few minutes at a time.

It also has an eSIM with built-in LTE connectivity, so you and your child can text and call each other, and you can locate them in Google Maps. Tap to Pay via Google Wallet is also coming soon. This watch solves a lot of problems for me and my elementary-school-aged children. However, I’m not sure that Google’s beta testers have adequately prepared their software engineers for my two kids, who, if they see that they need 1,500 more steps to unlock a game, will sprint around the house at top speed for 20 minutes until they get them.

Mild or Spicy Sauce

The Ace LTE smartwatch comes in two colorways: Spicy Pebble and Mild Pebble. Both have a stainless steel case with plastic buttons and a polyester woven strap with a plastic clasp. It’s about 41 by 45 mm across—so, it’s sizable, but nothing that my 7-year-old and 9-year-old feel is unwieldy. The only time my son wants to take it off is when he’s playing violin. It’s a Fitbit, so it works with both Android and Apple phones.

Photograph: Adrienne So

It has a 5 ATM rating, which means it can withstand the pressure exerted by 50 meters of water. However, while it offers some protection, it doesn’t have a dustproof rating. The screen is made from Corning Gorilla Glass 3 with an OLED panel that is plenty bright enough to see in natural daylight. It also comes with a protective plastic bumper; I asked my daughter whether she wanted to take it off so her watch would look a little more grown-up, and she said no.

It may be a child’s smartwatch, but it is a Fitbit, and it does have the full suite of sensors—an accelerometer, optical heart rate sensor, magnetometer, ambient light sensor, and gyroscope. Multiple people have asked me, incredulously, whether I think it’s accurate when it says that my son is racking up between 16,000 to 20,000 steps a day. All I have to say is, you wouldn’t ask me that question if you could see him on our trampoline.

At the end of a full day—from 6:30 am to around 7:30 pm for my kids—the battery is down to around 13 or 20 percent, which is a little less than the 16-plus hours that Google advertises, but it works for us. Every night, I put it on the charger after they go to bed at 8 pm, and they’re always fully charged by the time I go to bed at around 10 pm.

[ad_2]

Source link

June 11, 2024
Fitbit Ace LTE Kids Smartwatch: Specs, Features, Release Date, Price

[ad_1]

For parents, their child’s safety is paramount, so Google says it has taken extra precautions with the Fitbit Ace LTE. Rather than trying to protect the data, Google adopted a policy of data minimization. Unlike the Fitbits for adults, Google will not take health data to improve products or do research; it will simply delete it all. Location history will be deleted after 24 hours and health data is deleted after 30 days. There are no third-party apps and no ads allowed.

Does Your Kid Need a Device?

When I told my kids about the new watches they were going to get to test, my 9-year-old frowned and said, “Sounds … distracting.” (Yes, she is a gadget reviewer’s kid.) This device launches into an atmosphere of profound ambivalence about the effects of smart devices on our children. Children are getting phones at younger and younger ages. According to Common Sense Media, about half of the children in the US already own a smartphone by age 11; my children are already starting to rely on mine to log in to their school’s set of proprietary apps.

At the same time, acknowledging the grim effects of social media on adolescent mental health, the schools in our city of Portland, Oregon, have started to ban phones and smartwatches from schools entirely. Organizations like Wait Until 8th ask parents to sign pledges to not give their child a smartphone until the eighth grade. My husband and I are not planning on giving our children smartphones until they’re 14.

I have been pretty happy with Apple’s Family Setup and the limited functionality on my children’s Apple Watches. The only problem is that my children are not motivated to keep them charged and wear them often and are often not wearing them when they need them.

The Fitbit Ace LTE could change that, motivating them to keep it charged and on their wrists, even if the idea of a 24/7 wearable gaming device makes me a little nervous. I also don’t want to keep buying bands every six months; my bank account and I already have enough trouble managing their Animal Crossing and Squishmallow habits.

Courtesy of Fitbit and Google

“All we need to do is build a great product and schools will respond accordingly,” says Anil Sabharwal, Google’s vice president of product management for health and wearables. “We’re working with school boards to talk about what mechanisms we can install so that the watches can be used in schools. But even so, there’s a lot of time before school, when parents want to make sure their kids get to school safely. The kids have after-school activities. We see a tremendous amount of value there.”

The solutions are imperfect, but at least they’re there. Giving my children smartwatches may sometimes be a distraction, but it also lets my kid move more freely around her neighborhood, get exercise, and socialize in person with her friends. If a device can help further those goals, I’m all for it. And maybe walking around more will help improve her sense of direction, just a little bit.

Special offer for Gear readers: Get WIRED for just $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com, full Gear coverage, and subscriber-only newsletters. Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

[ad_2]

Source link

May 29, 2024
Movano Evie Ring Review: Running Out of Time

[ad_1]

No one was more excited than I was to try the Movano Evie ring. When it was first announced, I added it to our list of the Best of CES in 2023. I was excited to finally find a fitness tracker that solved an actual problem for an underserved population! It is really hard for many women to track their menstrual cycles, and this is especially relevant if you’re a woman in perimenopause. The 10-15 years before your period ends are typically characterized by health conditions like hot flashes and lack of sleep. Monitoring these conditions would be the first step to treating them effectively.

However, in the intervening year, almost every fitness tracker has come out with a similar cycle tracking feature. Apple debuted skin temperature sensing and automatic ovulation detection with the Series 8 (8/10, WIRED Recommends), and so did the Samsung Galaxy Watch and the Withings ScanWatch (7/10, WIRED Recommends). Several months ago, the period tracking app Clue introduced a new feature set, Clue Perimenopause, where you can manually track perimenopausal symptoms.

Most significantly for biological women in the United States, Roe v. Wade was overturned. Depending on where you live, you might not even want to track your period online at all. Assuming that you still want to track your period in an app, and don’t have menstrual cycle features on your existing fitness tracker, is the Movano Evie ring worth buying? Right now, it’s probably not.

Affordable Price

The Evie ring has a number of great features. At $269, it’s relatively affordable (as far as smart rings go), and it doesn’t require an additional subscription fee. I used the free sizing kit and got my usual size 8, and the tester came in a gold finish (there is also silver and rose gold).

The ring itself is injection-molded and has a titanium finish that feels high-quality and comfortable, with tiny sensors packed into the inside. There is a notch cut into it, which makes the sizing a little more flexible than it might be otherwise. It can accommodate your hands changing size when you work out or have hormonal fluctuations, but the downside is that the notch gets caught in my hair.

The ring’s sensors include red and green LEDs, infrared PPG sensors, skin temperature sensors, photodiodes, and a 3D accelerometer. It also comes with a tiny portable charging case that holds up to ten additional charges and itself charges via USB-C. When I first got the ring, I had multiple charging issues that were only resolved with frequent app and ring updates.

Right now, I get a little less than 3 days of battery life, which is not that much, especially compared to the Oura ring’s 5 days. I also don’t get any notification that the battery is dead, so I miss a lot of data if I don’t check the app every morning. It takes between 2-3 hours to recharge.

The app itself looks pretty perfunctory. It’s currently only available on iOS 16 or above, and does not sync with Apple Health. The Daily Summary shows your day as a circle, but that circle doesn’t seem to correlate with your activities for that day. For example, half of the circle is sleeping, even though I only sleep 6-7 hours per night and not 12. A 40-minute run shows up as almost half of my daytime hours. You also have to log workouts manually in the app and can’t note what type of workout it was, only the duration.

It’s also pretty disappointing that the vaunted skin temperature sensor only shows you deviations from the average, and not a monthly graph. A monthly graph is the only way to see the minute temperature drop that occurs at the end of your cycle. You can see and record the drop on an Oura ring, but not with the Evie.

[ad_2]

Source link

May 14, 2024
3 Best Smart Scales (2024): Luxe, Budget, and All App-Connected

[ad_1]

The humble bathroom scale has long been overdue to learn some new tricks. After all, who needs to devote precious real estate to a device whose purpose is merely to tell you your weight? The “smart scale” category sprung to life in the early days of the internet of things, but early models weren’t always the best, hampered by connectivity issues and general usability problems. As such, the category has largely stagnated; only a handful of companies are now making the devices, and some haven’t updated their product line in years.

Only recently has that started to change, as newer, faster, and all-around better products have begun to hit the market again. Not only can newer smart scales track a bevy of health metrics for multiple members of your household via sophisticated mobile apps, but they’ve also ironed out all the kinks, so it’s easier than ever to track your weight.

Just how smart can a scale be? And which should you buy? If an accurate weight is what’s most important to you, don’t sweat the decision too much. All of these scales I’ve tested are quite accurate. My highest and lowest weight never varied by more than 0.6 pounds across all of them—that means getting one of the cheaper models will suffice. But if you’re serious about weight loss or physical training, you’ll probably want to get further into the weeds and consider the accuracy of the additional body metrics, the wireless format, and the overall usability and robustness of the hardware and software. It’s here where I’ve spent the bulk of my testing time to find the best smart scale. With all that in mind, I have some thoughts.

How Do Smart Scales Work?

Smart scales come in two basic flavors: Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The former connects directly to your phone to sync its readings. The latter uses your home’s wireless network to sync readings straight to the cloud, which your phone’s app can then access. Wi-Fi scales are more expensive but more versatile. While older scales often featured erratic wireless connections, newer models have had many of their kinks worked out—and firmware updates have improved connectivity.

Virtually all smart scales use the same type of system to gauge your additional vitals: bioelectrical impedance analysis, which involves sending a minuscule electric current up one leg and measuring what happens when it comes down the other side. Some mathematical magic converts all of this into any number of derived measurements about things like your body’s percentage of fat, water, and bone; body-mass index; and, sometimes, arcana like your basal metabolic rate, a measure of your body’s energy consumption at rest. All the scales I tested can sync data with Apple Health and Google Fit or Health Connect, either directly or by passing data via the app.

Special offer for Gear readers: Get WIRED for just $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com, full Gear coverage, and subscriber-only newsletters. Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

[ad_2]

Source link

May 11, 2024
9 Best Smartwatches (2024): Apple Watch, Wear OS, Hybrid Watches

[ad_1]

The number of smartwatches on the market is staggering. I’ve tested models from Tag Heuer, Citizen, Montblanc, and many other fashion brands, but most of them are simply too expensive for what you get. Here are a few options I like.

Apple Watch Series 8 for $329: If you can find the 2022 Apple Watch Series 8 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) for a good deal less than the Series 9 (under $300), you should snag it. It’s nearly identical to the latest model, especially the health features. Save your cash!

Samsung Galaxy Watch5 for $229 and Watch5 Pro for $380: The 2022 Galaxy Watch5 and Watch5 Pro (7/10, WIRED Recommends) are still great, just make sure you pay less than the price of the new Galaxy Watch6 models. They match the Apple Watch’s accuracy in several health and fitness metrics, from SpO₂, sleep, and heart-rate tracking to electrocardiogram measurements (though the latter is exclusive to Samsung phones). The Watch5 Pro is larger and has a battery that lasts roughly two full days, whereas the Watch5 lasts around a day and a morning. The Pro also adds GPX, meaning you can download hiking routes to the watch. They have sapphire crystals protecting the screen, but the Watch5 Pro’s crystal is even more durable, and it has a stronger titanium case versus the standard Watch5’s aluminum.

Casio G-Shock Move DW-H5600 for $299: Want a G-Shock with a heart rate monitor? The DW-H5600’s measurements lined up well with the Apple Watch, but if you’re serious about tracking your health, I think you’re better off buying something from our Best Fitness Trackers guide. The buttons are a bit tough to press, and there aren’t a ton of workouts you can track (running, walking, gym workouts). You can sift through a good amount of data in the app, though I was left wanting more, and battery life lasted me roughly three days with continuous monitoring. It can recharge via solar, but you will need to use the bulky charging clip every few days. I still enjoyed wearing it, even if I didn’t find it as useful as our above picks. You can use it to track different time zones, your movements via the GPS during a workout, and even sleep.

[ad_2]

Source link

April 14, 2024
7 Best Garmin Watches (2024): Which Is Best for Running, Cycling, and More

[ad_1]

In certain circles, the word “Garmin” is less a brand name than a category definer, like Q-Tip or Band-Aid. From casual hikers to nationally ranked professional athletes, anyone who loves outdoor sports can glean useful information from the bevy of sensors, safety features, and sophisticated software that come with every Garmin watch. A few other fitness trackers have come close to replicating Garmin’s durability, wearability, and reliability, but the company remains the industry standard. Unlike, say, an Apple Watch, Garmins also work with both iPhones and Android phones. (Also unlike an Apple Watch, Garmin watches still have a blood oxygen sensor.)

Many features that only recently debuted on other fitness trackers, like sleep tracking, blood oxygen measurements, and fall detection, have been on Garmin watches for years. Over a half-dozen years, the WIRED team has tested dozens of Garmin watches. Let us help you decide which Garmin is best for you.

Once you’re set up with your Garmin, check out our other buying guides, like the Best Barefoot Shoes, the Best Workout Headphones, and the Best Hiking Gear.

Updated April 2024: We added the Forerunner 165, the Lily 2, and the Index S2 and added more information about Garmin Connect and the Apple Watch. We also updated links and pricing throughout.

Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you’d like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

[ad_2]

Source link

April 2, 2024
Garmin Forerunner 165 Review: Better Sensors, Same Great Training

[ad_1]

Even the most advanced fitness trackers can’t catch everything. While testing the Garmin Forerunner 165 Music, I got a severe case of food poisoning and spent two days in bed. There’s nothing more irritating than your cheery fitness tracker notifying you that you’ve gotten tons of sleep and your Body Battery is at 100 as you’re struggling not to throw up water. It’s almost as irritating as your children shouting to ask if you’re still trapped in the bathroom.

When I finally got back to working out, the watch counseled me to build up my base with long, slow runs. This pace is insanely slow, particularly since I live next to a college campus full of long-legged teenagers, humiliating me with their vigorous strides, youthfulness, and hope. Nevertheless, I persist. My legs feel great. The Forerunner has allowed me to graduate to tempo runs, and my heart rate is lower than ever. Amazing!

The Forerunner 165 is the latest entry in Garmin’s Forerunner series, but there are no duds in the Forerunner lineup. If you’re a beginner runner who can find the barebones Forerunner 55 for under $200, that one is perfectly fine! However, the Forerunner 165 has enough additional features that, to me, it justifies the extra cash.

A Few More Features

The Forerunner 165 looks like your standard technical Garmin. It has the familiar five-button layout—three on the left and two on the right—with a chemically reinforced screen, a polymer bezel, and a silicone strap. Note: You will need to wash the strap every two to three days if you don’t want to get a wrist rash. It now also has a new, bright AMOLED display that I had no problem seeing in bright, direct sunlight.

Photograph: Adrienne So

It’s also a touchscreen, so instances where I spectacularly fail at navigating the button system have decreased dramatically. Same with times where I accidentally call my emergency contacts from holding the wrong button down for too long. (It’s the Up button on the left side. Don’t hold that button unless you’re in trouble.)

The higher-end Forerunner models are aimed at multisport athletes, but the Forerunner 165 is pretty explicitly aimed at runners. In addition to personalized, adaptive training plans, you can also now see metrics like running power and cadence on the screen on your wrist, as well as some of Garmin’s more esoteric proprietary metrics, like Training Effect, which helps you determine how impactful each workout was on your overall performance.

The reason you get a Forerunner 165 over a Forerunner 55 is that in addition to a nicer display, you also get more sensors. In addition to the now-standard multiband GPS positioning systems—GPS, Glonass, and Galileo, which lets you position yourself precisely for accurate workout metrics—the Forerunner 165 has the pulse oximetry blood oxygen sensor, as well as a barometric altimeter, compass, and ambient light sensor.

Photograph: Adrienne So

[ad_2]

Source link

April 1, 2024