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Xiaomi's Mi Band series has won fans by offering a lot of fitness features for not a lot of money. That formula isn't changing with the latest entry, the Mi Band 5. It looks almost identical to its predecessors but makes some notable improvements: There's finally magnetic charging so you don't have to pry the device out of the band anymore, the screen is a little bigger, and the tracking is a bit more accurate.The Mi Band 5 might not compete with high-end trackers and smartwatches from Garmin or Fitbit, but it doesn’t have to. At €40/$50, it gives you a chance to try continuous fitness tracking and notification mirroring without breaking the bank.
Fitbit Charge 4 review, one month later: All the fitness tracking you could ask for, plus some smartwatch goodies
Some smaller omissions taint the otherwise great product, though
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For many people, Fitbit is synonymous with fitness trackers, but the company has faced new challenges from smartwatches in recent years. The Fitbit Charge 4 signifies a change, even if it doesn't look too different from its predecessor. The tracker packs everything you could want from a fitness tracker, and you get basic smartwatch capabilities like notification management, Spotify controls, NFC payments, alarms, and more. However, its $150 price tag may make it a tough sell when a smartwatch like Fitbit's own Versa 2 often goes on sale for the same price.
Xiaomi Mi Band 5 is official, comes with a bigger screen and more convenient charging
One of the most affordable fitness trackers receives thoughtful enhancements
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Xiaomi managed to impress everybody with its low-cost $30 Mi Band 4 that easily kept up with much costlier products from Fitbit, Garmin, and Co. (as long as you're not a swimmer, that is). Exactly a year after its introduction, the company has released a follow-up in the form of the Mi Band 5, packing a slightly bigger screen, a much-improved charger, more tracking capabilities, and a ton of new animated watchfaces.
It's never too late to shed that winter belly, and what better way to start doing it than with a little extra help? Garmin has you covered, with its Vivofit 4 fitness tracker. You can grab one for $20 off at just $60 on Amazon to start working on your beach bod.
Hello, and welcome to the first installment of our midweek deals roundup for 2020. Now that the holiday season is behind us and the barrage of pre-Christmas sales has subsided, we're turning our attention to the latest batch of discounts that have popped up around the internet. This week, we found some great sales on the Fitbit Charge 3, wireless earbuds, charging accessories, and security cameras.
If you're looking for a full-featured fitness tracker that can also act as a smartwatch, Garmin's Vívosport is the right device for you. It offers a variety of fitness-focused features while letting you check your notifications and control your music. The tracker traditionally sells for $170, but it's dropped to just $112 on Amazon.
Affordable activity trackers are getting better and better. Xiaomi's Mi Band 4 offers a lot of value for its price, and so does Honor's Band 5. Huawei is getting ready to join their ranks with its new Band 4 Pro, which was just leaked in a render.
As a swimmer and a techie, every time a new activity tracker is announced, my first reaction is to skim its official page trying to find if it supports my favorite sport. What follows is an extensive research into what exactly it tracks about the swim because that can be anything from just the total time and distance to a detailed account of every lap. More often than not, none of that information is readily available and I just have to buy the device to test for myself.When I saw Form's swimming goggles, I knew what I was getting into. They're purpose-built for swimmers and no one else, and the app clearly showed a great amount of tracking details. What most appealed to me, though, was the idea of having my stats in front of my eyes as I swim: no more lifting my wrist to check where I'm at and no more water drag with each stroke, I could just swim. In practice, Form met all those expectations.
In the world of activity trackers, nothing comes close to the Mi Band's value. Cheaper than any Garmin or Fitbit tracker, even the most basic vivofit4 and Inspire, but still packing enough functionality, it also benefits from Xiaomi's name recognition and is considered a serious choice, not a cheap knock-off no-name tracker.The most recent Mi Band 4 pushes the value-for-money envelop even further thanks to a colored AMOLED screen, swim tracking, and music controls, which get added on top of the previous generation's all-day activity, sleep, and heart rate tracking. Overall, the package is very attractive, but cracks are inevitably hiding below the surface, especially if you like spending your time in a pool.
If you're looking for a low-maintenance fitness tracker to simply help you count your daily steps as part of your personal fitness goals in 2018, it's probably difficult to justify shelling out for some of the fancier options out there today. The Garmin vivofit 3 is far from fancy, but it offers great battery life and can track your steps and sleep patterns. Amazon is selling it for just $41.49 today as part of its Deal of the Day.Maybe the most appealing feature of Garmin's third-generation vivofit fitness tracker is its promised one year of battery life (it has a user-replaceable lithium coin battery). Other than that, the water-resistant vivofit 3 can track your steps, distance traveled, and calories burned. It can also set personalized daily step goals based on your activity levels. When you're not on the move, the device can tell you the time and date on its 0.39" x 0.39" always-on display and monitor your sleep patterns.If you've been inactive for an hour, the vivofit 3 will show a red "move bar" and sound an alert to let you know that it notices your sluggish ways. The move bar grows every 15 minutes until you get some steps in, which can be a motivating source of mild anxiety.Amazon is selling the regular fit version in black or white, and the extra large version in black. The $41.49 price reflects a 48% discount and an all-time low, according to CamelCamelCamel.If you're looking for a slightly upgraded option, the Garmin vivosmart 3 is also part of this Amazon deal. It's going for $72.49, which is also a 48% discount ($67.50 off) and an all-time low. This tracker features a heart rate sensor, barometric altimeter to track steps climbed, and an OLED screen. It can also display some notifications from your phone.These are solid deals if you're looking for a straightforward tracker on the cheap. Since this is a Deal of the Day, time to act is limited. At the time of publishing, there are fewer than 15 hours remaining.Source: Amazon (1), (2), (3), (4)
We know how much of a tease many of our Deal Alert posts can be for our readers outside the US and Canada, so let's end the year on a more inclusive note, shall we? Misfit is giving folks in the UK, Germany, Italy, and France 30% off of its Vapor smartwatch and other products via a promo code. If you live elsewhere, there's a separate promo code to get the same discount on a more limited set of products.
Misfit's Vapor smartwatch has been the butt of many jokes since it was announced. The delays combined with the product's name almost too aptly, with many crying "vaporware!" each time it made it into the news. Turns out we'll all have to eat a generous portion of humble pie, as Misfit's latest Android Wear-powered smartwatch is now listed as in stock on Amazon, and you can grab one for just $140.It's a bit later than the original October 23rd release date Amazon had listed, but better late than never. The Vapor looks like an excellent value for the price, with Android Wear 2.0, a round flat-tire-less AMOLED display, heart rate sensor, 50m water resistance, and alleged 2-day battery life. It might not have the integrated GPS originally promised, but for $140 it doesn't sound disappointing in the least.
I'm the resident Fitbit fan at Android Police - I had the One for more than 3 years before I switched on to the Flex 2 and Alta HR for the past year. I love the automatic tracking and the nerd in me appreciates all the stats and graphs about my habits. I also enjoy the community around it. For me, the idea behind activity trackers isn't that they will make you more active - that's the mistake everyone makes and why many give up on their trackers after using them a while - but it's that they will help you if you already made the decision to be more active. They can gamify the experience and add a more concrete proof of your progression, whether you're just playing against yourself and trying to improve your numbers, or you're competing against friends or family or strangers.With that in mind, if you want to get an activity tracker for yourself or as a gift, now's a good time to do so. Three of Fitbit's current trackers are discounted $50. If you want a do-it all, I recommend the Charge 2: it was the best all-around tracker when I reviewed it a year ago and at $99, I still think it is. If you prefer a more streamlined look with better battery life and don't mind some compromises, the $99 Alta HR is fantastic and it's the one I'm still wearing now since reviewing it in April. And if you really, really, really want something that looks like a smartwatch, there's the $149 Blaze. Value for dineros, I personally think your money is better spent on the Charge 2 with $50 to spare, but the Blaze is good and has improved a lot since I reviewed it last year.You can grab any of these from Fitbit's site or through the links below. Keep in mind that all trackers come in different colors and band sizes, so please choose the correct one.
You might remember how excited we got for this smartwatch earlier this year, just after it was announced. Since then our enthusiasm fell just as our suspicions rose. But on paper, the Vapor still sounds like the best smartwatch deal out there. Unfortunately for anyone interested in picking one up, you'll have to wait a bit longer, as the release has been pushed back from the "end of summer" to October.
When things do look too good to be true, they might actually turn out to be just that. The Misfit Vapor was announced in January with what seemed to be a proprietary OS, but when it was later revealed that the smartwatch/activity tracker would run Android Wear 2.0, we were very excited. It suddenly became one of the best value-for-money Wear watches (well, if you don't care about NFC for payments) thanks to its activity tracker roots, big screen with ambient light sensor and no flat tire, interesting touch bezel for controls, 50m water resistance, $199.99 price tag, and integrated GPS to boot... Oops, sorry, that last part doesn't seem to be true anymore.
The Fitbit Alta may not be the coolest trendy kid on the block — that's the Alta HR now — but it's certainly still a good option for all-day activity tracking. It logs your steps, distance, and calories, automatically recognizes your exercise and sleep, and reminds you to move every hour if you've been sitting for a while. It comes with a small screen that shows the time, your daily stats, plus call and text and calendar notifications. And it has a very elegant and slim profile with plenty of designer accessories just in case you want it to look better on your wrist.I can speak from experience (I've been wearing the Alta HR daily for a few months and it's the same aside from the HR monitor) when I say that the Alta is comfy, easy to wear and forget, and useful to have when you're trying to be more active or stay active throughout the day. The problem with the Alta, though, has always been its price. At $129.95, it's expensive and way too close to the more powerful Charge 2 to even be considered by some. But now Amazon is dropping its price by almost half to $69.99.At the time of writing, that discount is only available on the small sized band in either the black or plum colors (all the other configurations appear to be over $100). But the band is removable and you can easily find good third-party replacements in other colors and sizes for a few bucks. So this is still a nice deal, regardless of whether you need a small or large band. Plus, according to CamelCamelCamel, this is the lowest price ever for the Alta on Amazon. The one main caveat though is that it seems you have to be a Prime member to benefit from the discount. If that's the case for you and you want one of these, head over to the links below.Source: Fitbit Alta Small black/silver, plum/silver
The Misfit Vapor was announced in January at CES 2017 as the wearable company's first touchscreen smartwatch. But the specs left many of us scratching our heads: Snapdragon Wear 2100, 4GB of memory, heart rate sensor, GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, microphone, 2-day battery life... those looked an awful lot like other Android Wear watches. But Misfit was mum. It didn't demo the watch a lot and the few hands-on we saw depicted an OS that didn't look like Wear. So we moved on.
The Polar M600, which was announced in August of 2016, is on the list of smartwatches slated to get the Android Wear 2.0 update. But there's more to look forward to when the update rolls if you own the GPS fitness watch or were planning on buying it.
For the past 4 years, I've been wearing a Fitbit device of some sort. I started with the One, which stuck with me for the better part of 3 years, then I tried the Blaze, the Alta, and the Charge 2. My main complaint with each of these trackers was the lack of water-resistance, which meant that I couldn't wear them in the pool or track my swims with them. I've tried several swim trackers including the Misfit Shine 2 Swim Edition and Amiigo, looking for something that could replace Fitbit, but the best that I found was the Garmin vivoactive, which has excellent swim tracking and can send the main stats to Fitbit through MyFitnessPal. It's not an elegant solution, but it worked for me for the past year or so.So you can imagine my joy — better yet, you can read it — when Fitbit announced the Flex 2 with water-resistance and swim tracking. At last, I wouldn't have to go through workarounds to get all of my swims to show up in the Fitbit app, and I could keep it on in the shower and the pool without worrying about it.I've been wearing the Fitbit Flex 2 for the past month or so, and using it exclusively for over two weeks. The result is a little mitigated. Several compromises had to be made with the Flex 2, and that's understandable but only to a certain point. The Flex line is one of the most basic Fitbit models, so you expect it not to come anywhere near the capability of the Alta, Charge, or Blaze line, but in some respects, the Flex 2 even feels like a step back from my 4 year-old Fitbit One, which is slightly disheartening.
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Want to get a jump-start on your New Year's resolutions? Or maybe you want to help a friend or family member do so? What about just providing them with more incentive to stay active? Or, you know, they could already have an activity tracker that is getting a bit long in the tooth. Now's a good time to jump on the Fitbit bandwagon as there are deals for different models all over the web.I've been wearing Fitbits for almost 4 years now, so I am a bit partial toward the brand. I love the social aspect, I love gamifying activities by just trying to surpass my own performance each time, and I love using it to entice myself to move a little bit more than I would have each day. I've already reviewed the Blaze and Charge 2 if you want to check those out for a more informed opinion, and my Flex 2 review should be out next week.Back to the deals now. You'll find a lot of them on Fitbit's own store, but the better discounts are on Amazon.