Fitness is by far one of the biggest concerns any human being will encounter during his entire lifetime. Be it being obese, malnourished, or simply inactive, these will deteriorate your health in the long run. And how most people overcome this as well is through exercise. While most people settle for just having a smartphone with them for both music and to function as a tracker. But what is a fitness tracker?
An activity tracker or fitness tracker, by common folk, is a device or application for monitoring and tracking movement/displacement related metrics like distance walked or run, calories consumption, and sometimes heartbeat. Most trackers are used in jogging, cycling and day to day walking. Some people also wear them casually to monitor if they need additional exercise for the day.
Now most trackers are often used in dry contact. However, there are some cases that you might need waterproofing, swimming for example, or when you are exercising and you sweat a lot. Most often when trackers get wet, as they are also electronic, they can be prone to short circuiting. Which is one advantage of having your tracker waterproofed?
The Perks
- Most waterproof trackers can be in use into the pool and monitor your swimming session.
- There are some that can track your distance covered
- Some can also count calories burned
- There are also trackers that count strokes
- Most waterproof trackers are unable to detect heart beat underwater but it really isn’t necessary when doing aquatic sports
- Waterproof is different from water resistant
- Most waterproof trackers can go up to 5ATM (atmospheric pressure)
- A lot of Waterproof trackers are also sleek and stylish
The Best Brands of Waterproof Fitness Trackers
- Fitbit Flex 2 – Water opposed to 50m in the pool, ocean, and shower and lasts up to 5 days also has function in recognizing swim stroke: freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly
- Misfit Shine 2 – can be wear on the wrist or your costume, so it’s flexible it also carry a 5 ATM score, which means it will stay alive continued immersion at depths up to 50 meters.
- Apple Watch Series 2 – Built-in GPS and waterproofing be the other headline characteristic for the Series 2, gives a host of metrics including reserve covered, lengths, standard pace and it be able to distinguish stroke style as well.
- TomTom Spark 3 – miles, speed, lengths plus SWOLF scores. You can decide pool sizes to guarantee lap counting is accurate, record tear times and pick from a bunch of preparation modes including intervals.
There are more choices of waterproof fitness trackers in the market that provide quality functions. Most of them are sleek and stylish with a lot of functions as well. Although these also translate into hefty prices.
Criteria on which Tracker to get
- Heart rate tech – while most often trackers will be unable to get your heart rate underwater, there are still some that offer heart rate functions when worn out of water
- Screen Options – some trackers have a picture display and some only have the simple display for showing your metrics.
- Data – it depends on which metrics you want to measure. Getting a 10 metric tracker for tracking distance traveled is not really that good of a purchase, even if it’s waterproof.
- App – Both the app and the band is important, they will always work alongside each other. A user-friendly app is also a good selling point
- Battery – Longer lasting trackers and chargeable trackers always have a better edge especially if you do long term and continuous activities
Conclusion
Functionality is always going to be your main criteria in choosing a tracker, but going waterproof always goes a long way. You’ll never know when you get a chance to go swimming in a jiffy. And being able to track your metrics without having to change trackers is a good thing. Keep in mind that waterproofing is also a function, it doesn’t mean that being waterproof a tracker has limited uses. Try and explore what each product has to offer as well.