How to Choose the Perfect Fitness Watch for the Athlete in Your Life
A fitness watch is a natural gift for a fitness-minded person, but choosing one can be tricky. Here are some guidelines for athletes who prefer a watch.
Fitbit is a good all-round fitness watch
If you’re unsure of what to buy, chances are your fitness friend will be happy with Fitbit . The company makes a range of watches from the $ 99 Alta to the $ 269 Ionic, making them the most fuel efficient in this guide.
- The Alta tracks workouts, steps and sleep, and has a simplified display that shows time or a single workout metric. The Alta HR also reads your heart rate.
- The Charge 3’s display provides additional information and can track multiple sports, including swimming.
- The Versa has a larger color display and behaves like a smartwatch, with more elements to touch and swipe. It can also launch apps from the Fitbit app store. If you’re looking for a low-cost or Android-friendly alternative to the Apple Watch, the Versa is the way to go.
- The Ionic can do everything the Versa can, but it also has GPS, which allows for more accurate tracking of distance-based workouts such as running and cycling.
Fitbit also has an app-related community where people can chat and challenge each other. If your fitness friend likes the social dimension, this should be considered.
Apple Watch is more than just fitness
If the athlete in your life loves your iPhone and wants to carry something pretty all day, the Apple Watch ($ 399 and up) is perfect. It can track almost any type of workout, as well as sleep , as well as track your steps and heart rate. It has GPS and can store music, and the LTE version ($ 100 more) lets you make calls and text messages even without a phone.
Unlike Fitbits, Apple Watch needs to be charged once a day. But its strength lies in the fact that it works great not only for fitness, but also for other purposes. It has Siri (or Alexa ), and many of your favorite iPhone apps have a companion for the Apple Watch.
Runners love Garmins
For everyday running, any smartwatch can track steps and estimate mileage. But statistic runners prefer the more specialized Garmin watches.
Garmin also has physical buttons that let you know the exact times for intervals or races. Touchscreens are fussy and unreliable when you’re just trying to hit the circle button … wait … now .
Garmin watches have built-in GPS, and they tend to track and display more running-related metrics than other fitness watches. The Forerunner series is popular with 235 units for $ 249. In addition to distance and pace, it monitors cadence, heart rate, and some more specialized metrics such as “training effect” and recommended recovery.
The Fenix series is the top of the line, with the base 5S model costing $ 699 on Garmin’s website. (You can pay more for a scratch-resistant sapphire face or a blood oxygen saturation sensor.) Fenix can also download topographic maps and help you navigate as you run. On the other hand, the Vivoactive series is cheaper, but still has most of the features that runners love.