Fitness Trackers

Hold Up You Guys, Obama Has a Fitbit Surge

Maybe Tim Cook lost his address? Of all the public figures sporting shiny new Apple Watches this week, the leader of the free world is not one of them. Our president is a Fitbit guy. Fitbit Surge, to be exact. Wall Street Journal tech reporter Joanna Stern identified the black band on Obama’s wrist during…

Screw Wearables—Now Wi-Fi Will Monitor Your Body

The business of tracking your health with smartwatches or fitness trackers is oppressively hardware-heavy—all those wires, charging docks, and batteries. But that’s poised to change. Soon, it might be the space around you that do the monitoring. For the past few years, we’ve been sold a vision of the future based on wearable computing. Your…

Jawbone’s New Fitness Tracker Brings Mobile Payments to Your Wrist

I’ve wanted a fitness tracker for years. Something discreet with crazy good battery life that not only quantifies my movement but also packages the data in a way I can understand. The UP3 promised that and more last fall, and now it’s finally ready to ship this week—but it’s bringing along two new friends. The…

Spire Fitness Tracker Review: Keep Calm And Keep On Walking

The Spire is a fitness tracker that also measures your breathing, so you can keep tabs on your lungs as well as your steps. Why would you want to do that? Creators Jonathan Palley and Neema Moraveji, of the Stanford’s Calming Technology Lab, claim it can help make you a calmer person. As soon as…

You’d Never Know This Stylish Helvetica Watch Is a Fitness Tracker

Athletes were among the first to adopt and wear fitness trackers, which is why they’re all styled to look like an athletic accessory. But since everyone can benefit from a little motivation to stay active, especially those stuck behind a desk, we’re starting to see fitness trackers that look more like classically-styled watches. Withings’ Activité…

The Basis Peak Fitness Tracker Won’t Replace Your Smartwatch

This February, the Basis Peak got a new ability to display smartwatch notifications in a new firmware update. Does that make it a great smartwatch, too? Ehhh… not so much. I just spent the last couple weeks trying it out, and here are my findings. Generally speaking, when the phone is connected, the notifications are…

Are We Doomed to Get Rashes from Our Fitness Trackers?

Constant 24/7 fitness tracking can have itchy, scratchy consequences. Those would be wrist rashes, as Fitbit users have been learning. But rashes aren’t just a Fitbit problem—any wristband can leave you red, thanks to some basic biology. There may be no miracle cure for this malady of the quantified self. Our skin has the thankless…

Under Armour Just Bought 100 Million Users Worth of Fitness Data

If you track your fitness on your smartphone—and are serious about results—chances are pretty decent you’ve tried MyFitnessPal, MapMyFitness or Endomondo. Guess what? All three of them belong to sportswear company Under Armour as of right now. Or rather, a company that used to be about sportswear… and is now trying to build “the world’s…

Fitbit Charge HR Review: This Is The One You Want

Fitbit is such a tease. In October, the company announced three new fitness trackers just in time for the holiday gift-giving season—but decided not to ship two of them till 2015. Well, having now spent time with the Charge, Charge HR, and Surge, we believe the Charge HR is the one you want. The $150…

Fitbit Surge Review: If Only This Was Actually a Smartwatch

I have a dream, a dream about the perfect piece of wearable tech. It would be a band with all the simple notification powers of the best smartwatches and all the health tracking powers of a full-on fitness tracker. The Fitbit Surge is so close that it hurts. What Is It? The most premium tracker…

Keeping the company’s “early 2015” promise, the handsome new Fitbit Charge HR and Fitbit Surge fitness trackers are now shipping for $150 and $250. This, just two weeks after Christmas, when so many fitness-loving family members would’ve loved a new Fitbit.

Watches Are the Next Fitness Trackers

This year’s CES is flooded with fitness trackers, and there are hundreds more waiting in the wings. But what’s set the most interesting ones apart isn’t price. It’s design. The fitness tracker and the watch are converging, in the best possible way. And faster than you might have thought. A lot of fitness trackers don’t…

Razer’s Hard-To-Find Nabu Fitness Band Now Comes In a Cheaper $50 Model

The $100 Razer Nabu smartband never quite made it to market—unless you count a few thousand early adopter pre-orders here and there. But Razer’s already taking the wraps off a cheaper alternative: the $50 Nabu X. Long story short, the Nabu X ditches the screens for three red, green and blue LEDs, and the fancy…

Sony Smart B-Trainer: A Walkman That Tracks Your Every Move

Sony’s showing off a new sports and training headset prototype that’s basically the waterproof, head-mounted Walkman the company’s beentrying to sell for a few years crammed with a heartrate monitor, GPS radio, and an accelerometer for counting your steps. The “B” in Sony Smart B-Trainer stands for “beat” and that’s intended in two ways. First…

Misfit and Swarovski Have Created the First Solar-Powered Wearable

A wearable fitness tracker is no good to you if you don’t actually want to wear it. So to ensure its Shine appropriately matches any outfit—whether you’re dressed up or dressed down—Misfit and Swarovski are introducing the Swarovski Shine Collection featuring a crystal face and new accessories. The collection also features an upgraded solar-powered version…

Garmin’s vívofit 2 Fitness Band Shames Your Laziness With Audible Alerts

What really set Garmin’s original vívofit apart from the myriad of other fitness trackers already on the market at the time wasn’t its always-on screen or its battery that was good for an entire year. It was the use of a thin red bar on the display that grew longer and longer while you were…

Garmin’s Slim vívoactive Bridges Smartwatches and Fitness Trackers

At one time we all carried separate cellphones and MP3 players because there just wasn’t a single device that did both well—and then the iPhone arrived. The same problem exists between fitness trackers and smartwatches. Neither does the other one’s job particularly well, but it doesn’t have to be that way. At least according to…

Withings Activité Pop Fitness Tracker: Looks Nice, Right Price

Withings has been making some of the best fitness trackers for a couple years now. So when we first saw the Withings Activité—a lovely analog watch that was secretly an activity tracker—we were excited. That excitement waned, somewhat, when we found it it costs $450. Oh but hello, here comes the new Activité Pop, which…

Polar’s A300 Is a Solid Fitness Tracker You Shouldn’t Buy

Polar has come a long way since its first fitness tracker, the Polar Loop, launched in 2013. Just months ago the Finnish company released the Polar M400, a lovely and capable GPS running watch with 24/7 fitness tracking capabilities. It was sweet enough to earn a coveted spot on our Best Fitness Trackers list. Today,…

SMS BioSport: Earbuds That Read Your Heartbeat But Don’t Make It Thump

Sensors are everywhere—in our phones, watches, and shoes. And now our earphones, too. The SMS BioSport heart rate-sensing earbuds aim to be the audio companion of choice for all you marathon runners, mountain bikers, and other hardcore athlete types who need to know your beats per minute on a daily basis. But jamming health sensors…