“We can rebuild him; we have the technology”. In my case, I hope this is true, and no longer just applies to the “Six Million Dollar Man”. It is hard not to be impressed by the rate of change that has taken place in personal computing technology since it began to be adopted in earnest in 1984. We have gone from having an enormous expensive box and tiny monochromatic monitor sitting on our desks, through laptops, tablets, smart phones, and now wearable technology. Being a very serious geek, I could not have picked a better time to arrive on the planet.
I have to admit, as you may have read in my self-flagellating article about my own fitness failure, that I am kind of counting on my wearable technology to drive my return to fitness and prosperity. Okay, maybe not prosperity.
The two types of wearable technology commonly in use, when it comes to tracking health and fitness, are the smart watch and the fitness dedicated wrist-band. Most of what I will discuss here will focus on the fitness aspect, rather than the health piece.
This post provides a brief overview of two currently popular devices; the Apple Watch that I wear, and the Fitbit that the Love-goddess wears. The basic difference between the two of these is that the fitness bands primarily track exercise and physical activity, with a few extra bells and whistles thrown in. Smart watches, on the other hand, tend to also provide a broad range of computer-like functions.
Smart Watches – Apple Watch
I bought the first Apple watch more out of interest than need. In truth, I still don’t think that I need a smart watch, but I find it does have several useful purposes — the main one being, I don’t have to pull my iPhone out of my pocket to read emails or text messages when they arrive. So, it is not life changing. Yes, you can answer phone calls on it a la Dick Tracy, but it is virtually impossible to hear the voice on the other end if you are somewhere noisy. So, I don’t use it as an auxiliary phone.
Recently, I have begun to more fully explore its use as a fitness tracker. I have to say, that I do find it motivating to be able to track and analyze both my regular daily physical activity and my workouts.
Apple Watch – Fitness Tracking
The Apple watch has two built-in fitness related apps. One is the Activity App which is represented by three coloured rings, as seen in the image above, and the second is the Workout App, represented by a green circle with a small running individual in the center, also pictured above. Apple provides a general overview of both on their website on the following page http://www.apple.com/ca/watch/fitness/. I’ll provide you with a quick look at the features of both.
But, before I begin, I should point out that the image on the accompanying photo for this post shows the Love-goddesses’ Fitbit and the normal face of my own Apple Watch. As you can see, I have my watch set up so that it provides not only the time and date but whatever features I choose to have available at a quick glance … my current choices being the outside temperature, the stock market index, the ability to set my timer, and what’s up next in my calendar.
Having said that, what I really want to point out is that I was not going on a pub crawl with Jon Walter and Nick at 8 AM on the day I took this screenshot. It was just a reminder to myself to send out a message about an upcoming pub crawl on a Friday night later in the month … honest. Not that there’s anything wrong with starting to pub crawl at eight in the morning if you are retired and visiting a country where such a thing is possible …. I guess.
Apple Watch – Activity App
The Activity App measures three simple metrics, Stand, Move, and Exercise. These are presented as three circles, or rings as they are referred to by Apple. Throughout the day the rings move towards closure as you build up activity related data.
Stand –encourages you to stand up and move around for at least one minute in 12 different hours during the day. No other stat is presented for this metric, and it cannot be reconfigured.
Move – suggests a goal each week for how many active calories you should be burning throughout the day. You can manually reset the goal if you so choose.
Exercise – tracks the amount of exercise you get each day; exercise being defined as any activity resembling a brisk walk or greater. It self-sets a basic goal of 30 minutes of exercise per day, which cannot be modified.
The Activity App attempts to motivate wearers by providing feedback during the day on how you are doing in comparison to the set goals, and by periodically awarding achievement medals for making or exceeding goals. All of this daily and weekly tracking is accumulated on an ongoing basis on the connected iPhone in its own related Activity App.
Additional information about the Activity App can be found on Apple’s support page https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204517.
Apple Watch – Workout App
The Workout App provides an opportunity for much more specific and detailed tracking of your workout activities than is afforded by the Activity App. It gives you the choice of individually tracking 10 different workout activities. These include; Rower, Indoor Walk, Other, Outdoor Walk, Stair Stepper, Elliptical, Outdoor Run, Outdoor Cycle, Indoor Run, and Indoor Cycle. Most of these are self-explanatory; however, the “Other” option can be used to track other workout activities like Yoga, Pilates, Cross-fit, etc.
As you work out, individual screens show: Elapsed Time, Current Pace, Distance, Active Calories, Total calories, and Heart Rate. The default screen after you begin is the heart rate data. You can move to the other screens by swiping through them on the watch face.
After you have finished an individual workout you have the option of saving the data after you have viewed it on your watch. It is accumulated in the Activity App on your iPhone.
Additional information about the Workout app can be found on Apple’s support page https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204523.
Apple Watch Support
For even more detailed information about the Apple watch, or the health and fitness aspects of the watch go to Apple website – Support section – Apple Watch (https://www.apple.com/ca/support/watch/health/ ). Look under “Health & Fitness” section under the Featured Topics. Or, go to an Apple store to check it out.
iPhone – Accumulated Fitness Tracking
As you may have already heard, to make an Apple Watch fully functional it must be paired with an Apple iPhone. This pairing does allow for a more detailed examination of the data collected by your watch.
iPhone – Activity App
The iPhone Activity App allows you to see the accumulated range of data collected from both your day-to-day activities and your workouts by your Apple Watch. These are permanently saved so that you can review previous days, weeks, months, and years, as you can see in the images above. It also tracks all of your achievement awards … woo-hoo!
An iPhone by itself will also track many of your physical activities without a paired Apple Watch, and present the data to you in the Activity App. But of course, you don’t get the complete range of tracking that the watch provides by having built in sensors that are touching your skin as you wear it (e.g. heart rate).
iPhone – Health App
There is a third Health and Fitness related app on the iPhone, and on the iPod touch, that facilitates the tracking of an enormous amount of health and fitness related data, as you can see in the two screenshots above. Full details about what this app can be used for can be reviewed at Apple’s own support page ( https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT203037 ). I really haven’t begun to explore the use of this application, so I cannot really speak to its use, or the health tracking attributes of the Apple Watch-iPhone combo.
Do I need to carry my iPhone with me when I work out wearing my Apple Watch?
No, not necessarily, but Apple recommends “For GPS accuracy when you walk, run, or cycle outdoors, select the appropriate Workout and bring your iPhone.* For indoor and outdoor walking and running, this will also help calibrate the accelerometer in Apple Watch for times when you don’t have GPS.”
Fitness Dedicated Devices – Fitbit
Interested in tracking your general activity and workouts, but don’t want to spend on an Apple Watch? Or, if you don’t need all of the computer-like features it offers, try a dedicated fitness device like a Fitbit.
The Love-goddess uses a Fitbit Charge HR and is very happy with how it performs. Much like the Apple Watch, it tracks health and fitness related metrics like heart rate, steps taken, flights of stairs climbed, calories burned and others related to your exercise workouts and your day-to-day physical activities.
It can be synced with a web-based tracking dashboard via your computer, or the Fitbit app on your smart phone. As you can see in the phone screenshot below.
Fitbit Support
Because what it tracks and organizes for you is very similar to the features I discussed for the Apple Watch I will not belabour them here in any detail. You can find information about the full range of Fitbit products at their website: (https://www.fitbit.com/ca/chargehr?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=20160101_F_CA_A_DR_FT_00_2016DTASSEM_NA&gclid=CJHx2vbdzcwCFYGFaQodmjEJsg#dashboard)
Do they work?
So, the big question; do they help you get fit?
In my case, I certainly hope so. I will let you know!
