any of you are using bracelets that show the time and think they are merely watching. But we confuse Fitness tracker and smartwatch. On the surface, it is also difficult to distinguish the names and how they differ. Don’t worry, we’ll explain to you why.
What is Fitness Tracker?
Referring to the Fitness tracker obviously you will understand that it is related to human health. True to their names, this device is used to track your health indicators such as:
- Health monitoring: heart rate measurement, sleep monitoring, health indicators, etc.
- Track movement, support exercise: count your steps, calculate your walk, calculate your calories, etc.
- Exercise reminder: remind you to be active when you sit for too long, tell you to drink enough water every day, etc.
Receive notification messages, calls, find the phone, etc. - Performance criteria and quality of Fitness tracker are mostly lightweight, durable, stainless, and lightweight. Currently, on the fitness tracker market, there are two main categories that you may be confused with:
Band Fitness Tracker (Smartband)
The primary function of a smart band type fitness tracker is health monitoring. They often do not have intelligent features such as music control/storage, application operations of third-party software vendors, etc. In return, because only focus on health features, its advantages battery life is long, the price is low, and most importantly, high accuracy.
Smart bands usually come in a compact and compact bracelet shape like the Garmin Vivosmart 4 model below. The current trend of fitness tracker products is more convenient, more beautiful that suits your daily wear needs. Of course, they are also becoming more and more accurate.
GPS Sports Watch
In this category, they are sports watches or GPS Running Watch. This type was primarily created to improve the fitness tracker’s features, besides being a part of the smartwatch’s features into it. Depending on the group of users, the manufacturer will add or remove its functions.
Like the Garmin Vivo Series, both focus on the needs of fitness monitoring and fashion. And Garmin Forerunner focuses on the basic exercises until the advanced exercises demonstrate professionalism. Also, some versions have advanced smartwatch features, such as Forerunner 645 music.
Hybrid Smartwatches
Hybrid smartwatches are a combination of smartwatches, traditional mechanical watches. These watches are usually in the form of an automatic watch with a luxurious design, with some smart features such as health monitoring, receiving notification messages, etc.
With this hybrid smartwatch, the style is the essential part. However, because it is a combination of both types of watches, so its function will not be equal to a regular smartwatch. However, the current trend of hybrid smartwatches is sacred to health with essential features such as ECG integration (Withings Move ECG), sleep tracking, etc.
What Functions Does a Smartwatch Usually Own?
Smartwatches have a different design and function than fitness trackers. The vast majority of smartwatches are created to support users’ lives in terms of technology and connect users with others. Fitness Tracker is focused on personal use only by tracking everything for users. Some advanced smartwatch features include:
Get Notifications
This must be a must-have function for every watch I have listed above. But this function on the smartwatch is slightly upgraded with the ability to display more messages, reply directly on the watch, etc. With the current high-end fitness tracker like Fitbit Charge 3, you pay direct messages that are no longer strange.
Use a Separate Application
With the smartwatch, you can freely change and use the same applications as a regular phone. Fitness trackers often focus on fitness and fitness indicators like apps, such as Google’s Map, Strava, RunKeeper, etc. While smartwatches also support viewing photos, words, pdf, watch youtube, etc.
Control Music
Most smartwatches connected to phones can control music. Some even more advanced smartwatches have their music storage.
There Microphone Communication
This feature is integrated so you can communicate with the virtual assistant on the watch. Typically, Google Assistant on smartwatch Wear OS, Bixby on Samsung Galaxy Watch, or Siri of Apple Watch. Of course, you can also take advantage of them to answer calls on the watch too.
Sports tracking, built-in GPS
Fitness tracker supports tracking of many different sports, but only high-end fitness tracker models have GPS built-in. Because of that, these smart bracelet models must have a high battery life. With the smartwatch, you only need to own common types like Ticwatch to possess this feature already. However, these functions on smartwatches are not highly accurate.
Battery Life
As I connected Smartwatch, it is difficult to “surpass” fitness tracker in this element. Because the fitness tracker’s needs and 24/24 tracking features require a big battery, it’s usually measured in weeks. As for smartwatches, we can only use a few days.
For example, the Ticwatch C2 smartwatch has a battery life of about one and a half days, the Apple Watch Series 4 has about 18 hours of battery life, or the Samsung Galaxy Watch can “survive” in 2-3 days.
At present, high-end smartwatches are being paid more attention to manufacturers. For example, the Huawei Watch GT model, the battery life can last up to 2 weeks.
Other Features
The competition of smartwatch manufacturers is so fierce that it makes them create advantageous features. As on the Apple Watch Series 4, it’s the “fall detection” feature. With Ticwatch Pro, it’s 2-screen technology to save battery power. Huawei Watch 2 has its 4G sim slot.
Should Choose Smartwatch or Fitness Tracker
Choose fitness tracker if you have the following needs:
- A person who cares about his health.
- Find out what you want, whether your sleep is excellent.
- Need to summarize what has done, exercises, diet, etc.
- Passionate about sports activities.
- You want to support the exercises and the training regime appropriate to the training needs.
- You want to interact with the sports community around the world.
And choose smartwatch, because they are suitable for people:
- You love technology and do not want to ignore items that are both fashionable and modern.
- It takes motivation to be more active every day.
- You just need your exercises to be average and want to track your workouts.
- Want to receive, see notifications without having to unplug the phone because it’s quite inconvenient in 1 case.
- Want to manipulate music, call, guide without having to depend on the phone.
- Or just because you like them.
Conclude
As you can see, it is not difficult to distinguish, but it is not so easy to identify. But whatever they are, what matters is the features and benefits they bring us.
