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Google Fit: How to track your fitness goals and stay healthy
It's time to burn those summer calories
Google Fit is one of the easiest ways to track your physical activity, whether you exercise regularly or want to check how active you are. The service helps you track workouts and physical activities, including walks, bike rides, strolls, and step counts.
How to track your steps with just an Android phone
Who needs a smartwatch when you have a smartphone?
Being healthy is a constant goal of many people, but it's often easier said than done. Whether you're trying to eat better, be more active, or have another goal, everyone is striving for something. One common agreed-upon way to be healthier is to walk more, but there's no easy way to track it. There are some great fitness trackers, but they cost money and are not the best step-tracking solution for everyone. Most people have a smartphone in their pocket, which is a free way to track your steps and build a new habit. This guide discusses how to use your Android phone to track your steps.
Getting fit doesn’t have to be a decision made only at the beginning of a new year. With a fitness tracker's help, a commitment to fitness can easily be made every day. The average fitness tracker monitors health vitals, like heart rate and blood oxygen saturation level, and also records other important health markers like sleep and the amount of calories burnt during physical activities.
Fitbit Charge 6 renders leak ahead of official launch
The fitness tracker looks more like its predecessors, coming in three colors
Fitbit was a pioneer in the fitness tracker space, and it's trying to maintain its edge. Rivals can't seem to decipher why Fitbit’s products reverberate throughout the wearables world months and even years after their release. Case in point, the Fitbit Charge 5 is still our top premium pick among the best fitness trackers in 2023 despite originally releasing in August 2021. Here we are more than two years later, and the rumor mill is finally heating up in earnest for its predecessor, the Fitbit Charge 6.
Google purchased fitness tracker legend Fitbit in 2019. In September 2022, Google announced that beginning in 2023, standalone Fitbit accounts will be phased out. This means Fitbit users eventually need to transfer their data to Google accounts to continue using Fitbit services. If you have a legacy Fitbit account, you still have time before you have to make the switch. But you can do it now. If you intend to use Fitbit in the future, you might as well get a head start. Here's how to transfer your Fitbit data into your Google account.
The Honor Band 6 looks more like a smartwatch but for a fraction of the cost
Get ready for fitness bands with bigger OLED displays
Honor’s range of fitness trackers probably receives the most attention in the budget segment, topped only by Xiaomi's Mi Bands. Until the Band 5, Honor stuck to a pretty traditional design, but that changes this year. The all-new Band 6 comes with a bigger casing that looks more like a smartwatch than a discreet fitness tracker. That radical facelift also means you’ll have to shell out more money this year, but it's still a steal given the bigger display.
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Rumors of OnePlus releasing a smartwatch in Q1 were finally put to rest when the company took to Twitter to confirm that they would be announcing one alongside the OnePlus 9 series. While it did a good job of keeping details about the wearable under wraps, a new leak tells us almost everything we'd like to know.
Get Eufy's Smart Scale P1 for just $25, its lowest price ever ($20 off)
Health tracking is easier than ever at a price that's lower than ever
Keeping track of your health without having precise and accurate data is difficult to do. Eufy's Smart Scale P1 promises to make the job easier by taking 14 different measurements of your health for a holistic view. And right now, the Bluetooth enabled scale is on sale at Amazon for just $25.49 — a savings of $19.50 andthe lowest price we've seen.The Smart Scale P1 calculates a total of 14 essential body measurements including BMI, muscle mass, and body fat percentage. It works with the EufyLife app to track your measurements over time, but it also supports integration with third-party apps such as Google Fit and Fitbit. And since it can automatically support up to 16 users on a single account, it's great for monitoring the whole family's health.
Amazon's weird Halo band is now available if you want to pay $4/month for fitness tracking
This Halo does not seem very angelic
Fitness trackers have been around for a while now, but Amazon started testing its first fitness-focused wearable earlier this year. It can measure body fat percentage, analyze the tone of your voice, and it's available now for an initial $99.99 along with a $3.99 monthly fee — but the real cost might be your privacy.Halo calculates body fat percentage rather than weight or BMI because Amazon says it's a better indicator of health than those stats alone. But how it goes about computing that might not sit well with some folks: Amazon asks you to strip down to your underwear or other similar skintight clothes and capture photographs of your body in 360° to send to its cloud servers. (Perhaps not the best look for a company run by the guy who got his phone hacked by a Saudi prince.)
Google Fit now details pace per mile, helping you better judge your running performance (APK download)
Also re-adding elevation for some
Google Fit helps you keep an eye on your fitness, be it via a smartwatch or just via your phone's own sensors. To make it even easier to parse how you did during your latest run, the company has added a pace per mile/km bar graph to a workout's details. The disappearing and re-appearing elevation map has also returned for some with this release, though not for everyone.
Samsung Health to go on a diet and lose weight and calorie management
You'll need to look for another app to judge when you reach your calorie deficit goal
People relying on Samsung Health as their one-stop solution for tracking their health may have to look elsewhere soon. As SamMobile found out, German Samsung Health users are currently receiving end-of-service notices, telling them that the app will lose support for caffeine intake tracking and weight and calorie management, starting with version 6.11 on Android and 4.1 on smartwatches. This update will almost certainly reach people in other territories soon enough, too. Note that you'll still be able to track calories and weight individually — you just won't be able to compare the stats against each other.
How to get fit with Android and Wear OS, part one: Choosing your hardware
Spring is nearly here so what's your excuse?
Every year, there are two resolutions that top lists all around the globe: get fit and lead a healthier lifestyle. Unfortunately, without the proper motivation and guidance, these resolutions can often fizzle by right around now in mid-March, leaving plenty of expectant do-gooders with no viable way forward. To help you stay on track, we’re launching a limited series that will show you how to get physically and mentally fit with just an Android phone and a Wear OS smartwatch.
When you hear the word ”smartwatch,” the last name that probably comes to mind is PUMA. Despite all other major athletic brands having thrown their weight behind wearable tech — like the Under Armour Samsung Galaxy Watch, Nike Apple Watch, and Adidas Fitbit Ionic — PUMA has remained out of the wearables race… that is until the PUMA Smartwatch made its debut at IFA 2019 as the newest Fossil partner. I’ve been wearing the PUMA-branded Wear OS device for the last two weeks, and there are some things you should know before strapping one around your wrist.
Smartwatches aren't quite the product category that some thought (or hoped) they would be, but that hasn't stopped some companies from continuing to expand and improve their offerings. Take Mobvoi, the makers of the TicWatch line, for example, which has just announced pricing and immediate availability for its new TicWatch E2 and TicWatch S2.Powered by the Snapdragon Wear 2100 and Wear OS, both watches share quite a bit in common. They have the same sensors, GPS capabilities, batteries, water-resistance rating, and the newly-announced TicMotion suite of AI-powered fitness features. They both sport a 5 ATM water-resistance rating, which means that the watches can survive underwater up to 50m. Neither has NFC for use with Google Pay.Left: TicWatch E2; Right: TicWatch S2
Although its watches don't run Wear OS, we've followed Withings closely for a few reasons. For one, it makes beautiful minimalist watches with some smart fitness tracking features added in (I own an Activité Steel and I love it). The French company has also been in the news a lot due to Nokia acquiring it, turning it into its Digital Health Division, and then selling it back to its co-founder.
I've been using Runkeeper to track my cycling activity for the last eight months or so, and it has never really let me down. That said, I'm always on the lookout for new (or improved) ways to monitor my rides outside of my bike's cyclometer, so when Runtastic reached out to me about taking its new fitness tracking band Orbit for a spin, I was down for the challenge. I've had it for the last few weeks, and so far I think it's a good start. It's a new product so there are a few quirks here and there, but for the most part it does what Runtastic designed it to do: track stuff. What stuff, you ask? This stuff: