My Smart Watch Experience

Wearable technologies are more and more “in” our lives as the technology develops and their features serve us into a healthier life. After tracking the steps I have taken by my cell phone for almost three years, I looked for a better alternative which I can pair with my android phone. I surfed and searched for the better alternatives with long life and accurate tracking, watched videos to compare and decided to buy Fitbit Charge 2 from MediaMarkt where I can find the best offer.

Upgrading to Fitbit Charge 2 affected my attitude towards a more active life and doing more exercises. Let me explain how it contributes to my daily choices. In the early morning, I wake up with its vibration, this is a feature which makes my wife happy because she no longer wakes up with me because of the ringing alarm of my cell phone. Then I check how many hours I sleep and the quality of my sleep (as the hours in REM increase, I feel more productive). During the day, I have a goal of 250 steps from 9 am to 6 pm. My Fitbit Charge 2 vibrates 10 minutes before each hour if I haven’t stepped 250 steps during that hour. This makes me stand up and give a break (especially for taking water or going to toilet) while I am working on an Excel sheet at work. Such short breaks are really useful for better concentration, true-story! What I like most about Fitbit is it automatically understands when I start a sport activity. During the lunch-break at work, I usually go to gym. Sometimes I use treadmill but generally I prefer ecliptic and after I finish my exercise, I see that it logs my exercise to its user-friendly application. The calories burned are so close to the given calories in the treadmill or ecliptic cycle so it makes me trust more. (break for a walk because Fitbit says I need 133 more steps this hour) Similarly I track my heart rate and compare it with the scores in the machines, there is +/- 4 points difference in the cardio or fat-burn heart rate zones, which is fair for me. Besides I use automatic heart rate tracking and the app gives me insights about my heart rate logs. I prefer going to gym at work instead of doing sport outside because I prefer having time with my family in my spare time so I do not have that much experience with Fitbit on outside activities. I only tested its bicycle tracking once. My Fitbit Charge 2 does not have a built in GPS but it can use the GPS in my cell phone. After starting a bicycle exercise on the app, it starts tracking the GPS info and records it. When you finish your exercise, you can share it on social platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Additionally, in the app you may see your friends using Fitbit and ask them for challenges. While I am not that much a “challenger” this feature may increase the motivation of the friends who aims to burn more calories with duellos. Weekly, Fitbit sends a report which summarizes your last week and compares it with the earlier week in terms of calories burned, active hours, sleep times and your weight. I also need to add that one more feature; while your smart watch is connected to your phone with Bluetooth, you receive the call (cannot talk but you can see sho is calling) and read the whole SMS body.

For those who want to learn the benefits of a smart watch like Fitbit, let me provide an executive summary:

-        It tracks the daily heart rate, hours of sleep and hours of exercise with the type of exercise and calories burned

-        It provides you weekly reports, it notifies you within the day and all these lead you to a more active life

So if you are interested in living a healthy life and take more inputs about what you do on daily bases, a smart watch may be useful for you. After using my phone as a pedometer for three years, I am upgraded to Fitbit Charge 2 and I am more than satisfied with it after one month. There are more expensive models with colourful screens under the brands Fitbit, Apple and Samsung and there are various cheaper models on Aliexpress.com. If you are aiming a more active life, the smart watch you will choose may increase your motivation towards your goal.

For questions, you may directly mail me volkanyorulmaz@gmail.com

For other contents in English, you may visit http://volkanyorulmaz.blogspot.com/search/label/in%20English

My first book “Sadece Hakkımı Aradım” is available on Google Books: https://books.google.com.tr/books?id=WV1mDwAAQBAJ&dq=volkan+yorulmaz&hl=tr&source=gbs_navlinks_s