HTC first wearable, the HTC Re Grip

HTC and Under Armour at Mobile World Congress 2015 announced the HTC Grip fitness tracking wearable. It's a rubberized bracelet that connects to the UA Record app to help track, analyze and share your workout routine.

HTC, a global leader in innovation and design, today unveiled its first high-performance, smart fitness tracker, the GPS-enabled HTC Grip™.

Powered by UA Record, the new health and fitness network from Under Armour designed for athletes and fitness enthusiasts, Grip fuses HTC’s renowned design with powerful, accurate tracking across a range of sports and activities, allowing athletes to set personal goals, then smash them.

Best Fitness Trackers and Smart Watches of 2015

Fitness lovers can find plenty of familiar brand names in the market: Jawbone, Nike, Fitbit and Samsung, as well as new entries from the likes of Microsoft and Garmin. Her is a comparison between them to show you a clear picture. All of them count calories burned and tally up your total steps, and an increasing number of fitness bands keep an eye on your heart rate.

There's no shortage of metrics tracked via your wrist movement. It comes down to performance. That's why we took every literal step to find out which tracker lives up to the hype of giving you that extra nudge for jogging or even walking - you've got to start somewhere.

Fitbit Charge HR Review

The Fitbit Charge HR adds continuous heart-rate tracking to all of the other features already available in the step down Fitbit Charge for just a bit more money. Resting heart-rate readings reasonably accurate. Design and fit aren't ideal for glancing at heart rate; active exercise causes accuracy drop-offs; not shower or swim-friendly.

OLED display turns off after a few seconds, which gets annoying. Heart-rate coaching and goal-setting isn't intuitive. Fitbit's Charge HR adds heart-rate tracking to an already solid fitness band at a great price, but all the kinks don't feel fully ironed out yet.

Fitness band and smartwatch buying guide

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.

 

Smartwatch and fitness tracker buying guide

As the technology advancement, wearable tech has become the trend these days. It's a swamp, go to any store or browse any website and you'll find fitness bands, smart watches, and even the occasional smart glasses to buy.

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.

Fitbit Charge Wireless Activity Wristband Review

FitBit Charge is a high-performance wristband that delivers all-day activity tracking, real-time fitness stats and Caller ID right on the wrist for people who want to step up their everyday activities to improve their overall health.

Fitbit Force, reinvented, Charge is ideal for people looking to track everyday activity to take their fitness to the next level, displaying all the most important stats in real-time on your wrist.

Microsoft Fitness Band Available For Sale Online

Microsoft band is available at Amazon Online Stores, I purchased it about a week after it released and it has been everything advertised. The steps tracker is phenomenal, tracking literally every step in several tests in which I counted my steps up to 500.

Unlike most other trackers, including my two FitBits (One and Flex), it doesn't count random arm swings or driving as steps. It's actually pretty hard to fool, even if you try. Steps even are counted when carrying something or when you have your hands in your hoodie pocket. Impressive.