The smartwatch hasn’t swallowed up the fitness tracker yet. While many consumers are intrigued by the Apple Watch, Android Wear devices, and the like, old-school fitness trackers can still be useful and available for the right price. The main goal of these devices remains simply tracking activity: from daily movement to intense exercise to steps, heart rate, and sleep. Most of today’s fitness trackers haven’t changed much aesthetically, either. They’re still, by and large, wristbands.
Most modern fitness trackers are meant to be worn all day long. And many now have basic “smartwatch” features, so you don’t have to fully sacrifice if you’re primarily looking for a wearable to help you get in shape.
With so many devices sharing the same basic goals and set of features, it can be hard to decipher which tracker is right for you. But from our testing, there are some fitness trackers that stand out among the rest.
Something has changed inside Apple Retail stores. On a recent trip to my local Apple Store on a Sunday afternoon, it was actually difficult to get up close to the Apple Watch tables. People were looking at and buying various Apple Watch models and bands. It brought back memories of the early hoopla found when trying out iPad for the first time. … My recent Apple Store observation is not an isolated incident. More people are buying Apple Watches these days.
Over the last few days Suunto has announced another new device this year (beyond the Suunto 3 Fitness from CES), this time adding a further model to the Spartan series. This new model is in many ways exactly like the previous models, except…well…it’s barely different
But what’s more interesting than this traffic-cone colored variant, is the changes they’re rolling out to all existing Suunto Spartan users, including finally having both displayable and customizable heart rate zones, even per sport. And while that by itself may sound relatively mundane (since most other platforms have had it for years), where they want to go next with it is more interesting.
Nokia wants its fitness eco-system to one day become as useful as your friends or a personal trainer when you’re working out.
Head of Nokia Digital Health Rob Le Bras-Brown told TechRadar exclusively for our Fitness Week, “Our app is called Mate… it should be your mate. You could say, ‘I want to lose five pounds, get a six-pack and add 10 years to my life’. Each time you go back to it, I want it to get more sticky and more bespoke to you.
Here’s how to cheat at the Apple Watch Stand goal: dangle your wrist by your side while you sit in a chair. I discovered this by accident — I dangle my arm during meetings — but once I found it out, I did it on purpose. I cheated while watching Thor: Ragnarok, in meetings, at brunch.
Cheating the calorie-based Move goal is harder, but doing restorative yoga while also turning the “yoga” setting on did the trick. I wasn’t doing the hard work I do during my Ashtanga classes, but it still “counted” as exercise, as far as the Watch was concerned. (Restorative yoga is mainly very nice stretching. There are pillows.) The idea of failing at my goal was so abhorrent, I’d devised ways to cheat.
So yes, I’d say the Apple Watch changed my behavior. I just don’t know if Apple intended for it to happen this way.
… I have an RFID, or radio frequency ID, microchip implanted in my hand. Now with a wave, I can unlock doors, fire off texts, login to my computer, and even make credit card payments.
There are others like me: The majority of employees at the Wisconsin tech company Three Square Market (or 32M) have RFID implants, too. Last summer, with the help of Andy “Gonzo” Whitehead, a local body piercer with 17 years of experience, the company hosted a “chipping party” for employees who’d volunteered to test the technology in the workplace.
“We first presented the concept of being chipped to the employees, thinking we might get a few people interested,” CEO Todd Westby, who has implants in both hands, told me. “Literally out of the box, we had 40 people out of close to 90 that were here that said, within 10 minutes, ‘I would like to be chipped.’”
Contemporary cardiac and heart rate monitoring devices capture physiological signals using optical and electrode-based sensors. However, these devices generally lack the form factor and mechanical flexibility necessary for use in ambulatory and home environments. Here, we report an ultrathin (~1 mm average thickness) and highly flexible wearable cardiac sensor (WiSP) designed to be minimal in cost (disposable), light weight (1.2 g), water resistant, and capable of wireless energy harvesting. Theoretical analyses of system-level bending mechanics show the advantages of WiSP’s flexible electronics, soft encapsulation layers and bioadhesives, enabling intimate skin coupling. A clinical feasibility study conducted in atrial fibrillation patients demonstrates that the WiSP device effectively measures cardiac signals matching the Holter monitor, and is more comfortable. WiSP’s physical attributes and performance results demonstrate its utility for monitoring cardiac signals during daily activity, exertion and sleep, with implications for home-based care. [full text]
… researchers led by Jihun Park, a materials scientist at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea, designed a set of components out of soft and flexible electronic materials that—wherever possible—were also transparent. They included two devices, an antenna and a rectifier, that capture radiofrequency signals from a nearby transmitter and convert them to a small amount of electricity. That charge powers a glucose sensor and a tiny green light-emitting diode (LED), which shines outward so it’s visible in a mirror but doesn’t interfere with the wearer’s vision. If the glucose sensor registers elevated levels, the LED turns off, warning a wearer that they may need to adjust their insulin levels.
… “What we want to do – and what we think is more valuable – is to allow all people to share, no matter what their device, whether you’re an Apple fan or an Android fan, Garmin fan or Fitbit fan.
“It’d be a real bummer if you had one of those and we couldn’t share our activities to motivate each other.”
Integration is clearly much more important to Strava, and that’s partly how the app has become a household name when it comes to sharing your fitness data.
Social fitness app Strava is making a run for Denver and announced plans Tuesday to open an engineering office in downtown this year.
The San Francisco tech company started by leasing space at the Galvanize facility on Platte Street and plans to hunt for its own office as it expands its software programming team to about 15 this year, and up to 90 people — mostly software programmers — within three years. Denver’s main attraction? The talent, said CEO James Quarles, who joined Strava from Instagram Business last year.
“Looking between Denver and Boulder, there’s a lot of great technical talent,” Quarles said, also noting the state’s commitment to outdoor activities and improving transportation for commuters, cyclists and runners. “The proximity as far as time zones when doing software development was also important. We certainly considered Austin, Salt Lake City, Portland, Bend and Los Angeles and places that were in Mountain or Western (time zones).
… ebble – “Pebble Reborn” – is now in a race against the clock. Its leader, who asks to stay under the pseudonym “Ish Ot Jr”, has been working on the project since the day Pebble announced it was going down. He had backed every Pebble Kickstarter, and when the announcement came that Pebble was shutting down, he and a handful of Pebble’s loyal supporters hoarded as many pieces as they could, unsure whether the servers would be switched off that very night.
“Being part of the Pebble community has been a big part of my life,” he tells Wareable. The project has been running for more than a year now with about a dozen core members, but it was this last December where things started to really pick up, according to the Rebble leader.
… Sam Cook, president of Tecnica USA, said the label made the decision to pull back because while it was satisfied with the quality of its ski boots, the outdoor footwear collection was underwhelming.
So in 2014, the company opted to temporarily move away from the category.
“We said, ‘Let’s focus on our alpine ski boot program and build a strong foundation. And when we felt we had outdoor product that was able to represent the brand position of fit, innovation and performance, we’d bring that category back to the U.S. market,” Cook told FN.
… Especially in the sports industry, cooperation with non-subject industries can mean real leaps in dimensions. On the one hand, new technologies play an important role in the depth of innovation, as Prof. Andreas Hohmann knows. He maintains the Chair of Sports Technology at the University of Bayreuth. “Immediately after a new sport or product group has established itself on the market, manufacturers will start competing for the best material, the most sophisticated technology, or the most aerodynamic design. Non-specialist technologies and materials can be a decisive competitive advantage here.” Beyond that, of course, there’s also competition for customers. But these days that isn’t a primarily intra-industry, it’s cross-sector. “The customer doesn’t really care whether a fitness application comes from a technology provider like Google or is launched by a sports brand like Nike. What’s crucial is who’s present on the market first.
Ralph Lauren and the United States Olympic Committee today unveiled the Opening Ceremony parade uniforms for the 2018 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams, introducing a unique wearable heat concept, seamlessly integrating fashion and the latest in apparel innovation.
Continuing to explore wearable technology, Ralph Lauren’s limited-edition opening ceremony parka and limited-edition closing ceremony bomber jacket include a streamlined heating component, designed with the intent to keep Team USA’s athletes warm in PyeongChang’s cold temperatures.
“Ralph Lauren is excited by the convergence of fashion and function, and we are committed to supporting Team USA athletes by outfitting them with the latest innovative technology,” said David Lauren, chief innovation officer for Ralph Lauren.
New graphene printing technology can produce electronic circuits that are low-cost, flexible, highly conductive and water repellent.
The nanotechnology “would lend enormous value to self-cleaning wearable/washable electronics that are resistant to stains, or ice and biofilm formation,” according to a recent paper describing the discovery.
“We’re taking low-cost, inkjet-printed graphene and tuning it with a laser to make functional materials,” said Jonathan Claussen, an Iowa State University assistant professor of mechanical engineering, an associate of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and the corresponding author of the paper recently featured on the cover of the journal Nanoscale.
When Nike asked runners what they wanted out of their running shoes, they got very specific answers: They said they wanted better cushioning. They also said they wanted better energy return. And they needed their shoes to be lightweight, of course. Oh, and they had to last too. In a way, they wanted everything. The tricky thing is that these four qualities are incredibly difficult to deliver in one material because they’re opposites.
See, materials are soft because they absorb energy. “Think about your pillow — when you’re laying your head down to go to sleep, you don’t want it to bounce back up after it hits the pillow,” says Ernest Kim, Director of Advanced Footwear, Nike Running. “Instead, you want that pillow to absorb all of the force of you laying your head down so that you can get a good night’s sleep. That’s what we mean when we talk about great cushioning.”
If words like fresh powder and newly-groomed corduroy make your heart race, there’s even more good news coming. Science has recently confirmed what ski bunnies have long suspected. As Time reports, skiing is an insanely good workout.
Not only do you get the heady rush of adrenaline from whooshing down the slopes, heart pounding, but you are also pushing your core and your legs hard.
“Alpine skiing is a mix of endurance and resistance training,” says Dr. Josef Niebauer, a professor of sports medicine and cardiology and director of the Institute for Molecular Sports and Rehabilitation Medicine at Paracelsus Medical University in Salzburg, Austria to Time. “It has positive effects on the heart and circulation, as well as peripheral muscles—predominately the legs.”
On Jan. 12, a few days after registration opened at Yale for Psyc 157, Psychology and the Good Life, roughly 300 people had signed up. Within three days, the figure had more than doubled. After three more days, about 1,200 students, or nearly one-fourth of Yale undergraduates, were enrolled.
The course, taught by Laurie Santos, 42, a psychology professor and the head of one of Yale’s residential colleges, tries to teach students how to lead a happier, more satisfying life in twice-weekly lectures.
“Students want to change, to be happier themselves, and to change the culture here on campus,” Dr. Santos said in an interview. “With one in four students at Yale taking it, if we see good habits, things like students showing more gratitude, procrastinating less, increasing social connections, we’re actually seeding change in the school’s culture.”
A method for studying the temperature-regulating abilities of clothes using a model of a human torso to simulate sweating will be made a global standard by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
The standard is based on a previous invention by researchers at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA) dubbed the “sweat torso”, which consists of a column equipped with several nozzles for dispensing controlled quantities of liquid.
When the column is placed inside a climate-controlled chamber, where temperature and humidity can be regulated during experiments, the torso “sweats” in response to the changes in conditions. Researchers can “dress” the torso in a firefighter’s jacket, for example, and then test how the imitation sweat evaporates or accumulates in response to heat.
Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise journal from
PURPOSE:
Commonly used physical activity metrics tell us little about the intensity distribution across the activity profile. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a metric, the intensity gradient, which can be used in combination with average acceleration (overall activity level) to fully describe the activity profile. METHODS:
1669 adolescent girls (sample 1) and 295 adults with type 2 diabetes (sample 2) wore a GENEActiv accelerometer on their non-dominant wrist for up to 7-days. Body mass index and percent body fat were assessed in both samples and physical function (grip strength, Short Physical Performance Battery, sit-to-stand repetitions) in sample 2. Physical activity metrics were: average acceleration (AccelAV); the intensity gradient (IntensityGRAD from the log-log regression line: 25 mg intensity bins (x)/time accumulated in each bin (y)); total moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA); and bouted MVPA (sample 2 only). RESULTS:
Correlations between AccelAV and the IntensityGRAD (r=0.39-0.51) were similar to correlations between AccelAV and bouted MVPA (r=0.48), and substantially lower than between AccelAV and total MVPA (r>0.93). The IntensityGRAD was negatively associated with body fatness in sample 1 (p<0.05) and positively associated with physical function in sample 2 (p<0.05); associations were independent of AccelAV and potential co-variates. In contrast, MVPA was not independently associated with body fatness or physical function.
CONCLUSION:
AccelAV and the IntensityGRAD provide a complementary description of a person’s activity profile, each explaining unique variance, and independently associated with body fatness and/or physical function. Both metrics are appropriate for reporting as standardised measures and suitable for comparison across studies using raw acceleration accelerometers. Concurrent use will facilitate investigation of the relative importance of intensity and volume of activity for a given outcome.
Strava is a fitness app that records you activities, including the routes of your walks, rides and runs. The service also provides an API that allows you to extract all of your data for analysis. University of Melbourne research fellow Marcus Volz created an R package to download and visualize Strava data, and created a chart to visualize all of his runs over six years as a small multiple
… over the weekend military analysts noticed that the map is also detailed enough that it potentially gives away extremely sensitive information about a subset of Strava users: military personnel on active service.
Nathan Ruser, an analyst with the Institute for United Conflict Analysts, first noted the lapse. The heatmap “looks very pretty” he wrote, but is “not amazing for Op-Sec” – short for operational security. “US Bases are clearly identifiable and mappable.”
“If soldiers use the app like normal people do, by turning it on tracking when they go to do exercise, it could be especially dangerous,” Ruser added, highlighting one particular track that “looks like it logs a regular jogging route.”