Which should you buy? Should you buy all of them? 2014 has been a hot mess of competitive products. Let's make this easy and break it down in terms of smartwatches and fitness bands/watches. For now, we're skipping face-based wearable like Google Glass and Oculus Rift. And while action cameras like GoPro could be considered "wearable," we have that category well covered elsewhere.
wearable can be useful in some cases, fun in others, but it's a category that's still largely superfluous and unnecessary. A lot of this has to do with a lack of killer apps, or hardware limitations, or functions that end up feeling a little redundant compared to what your phone can already do. Better gadgets will come in 2015, for both fitness tech and watches. The technology and the app landscape is at a point of transition. But, if you feel like you have to get one now, there are some decent options.
What to look for in a smartwatch or fitness band:
- Design: Does it actually appeal to you? This is a personal question.
- Phone support: You'll need Bluetooth 4.0; also, your phone and OS need to be supported.
- Is it waterproof, or swim-friendly? Do you shower with your watch on?
- Battery life: Our baseline is an average of three days for a smartwatch, seven days average for a fitness band -- but very few current products meet those expectations.
- What apps does it run? Pebble, Android Wear, and Samsung Gear all use different apps.
- Color screen, or black and white, or something else, or none at all? Some screens are always on.
- Can it recognize your voice, and can it act as a speakerphone? Do you want that?
- Is there a heart-rate monitor? How does it track fitness? Heart-rate monitors vary greatly, too.
- What apps and ecosystems is it compatible with? For fitness bands, this is a big deal.
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