Activity trackers

An activity tracker is like a sports watch, which tells you more about your health than a normal watch, but less than a super deluxe sports watch that analyses your daily activities in detail. An activity tracker measures:

• how many steps you take
• how many calories you burn
• your heart rate
• your sleeping pattern

And because an activity tracker collects all this data for you, you can set yourself a daily activity target. 10,000 steps per day? If you sit still for too long, you tracker will happily give you a signal that it’s time to get moving!

Did you reach 10,000 steps today or was it actually only 8,000? Did you run three or four miles? Not all activity trackers are equally accurate. But you trust the small device with (measuring) your health. 

If you want an activity tracker just to gain a general impression of your activity levels, it makes little difference which one you buy. A cheap, simple tracker is fine and reliable enough. If you want to gain insights into your lifestyle or are really aiming to improve your sporting performance, you should choose a more expensive tracker with more features. 

An activity tracker is an armband with sensors that take measurements all day long. You can use these results to monitor your health. A simple tracker will only measure your steps and heart rate. But a more advanced device also measures how long you spend being active, your speed, your sleep rhythm and even how many calories you burn. People who want a very accurate picture of their heart rate or activity can connect their tracker to a chest strap which measures their heart rate.

Not all activity trackers have a screen. So its handy that you can connect them with their associated app on your smartphone, where you can view and compare all the measured data!