Not all Wearables are made equal and some are not made for everyone.
Some are made for the serious athlete, some are made for the runners, and there are some that are made for the busy people who want to be updated from their wrist or with a simple flick.
If you are looking for a smartwatch and google for options, you will be given a ton of options which makes you crazy.
So, you’ll go with the most popular one and order it and after a week of wearing it, you realize, it’s not what you needed it for.
There are features that you may have left unused and you feel that you need more features telling yourself, how you wish you could do this and do that with your watch.
Most of the wearables are almost similar in general, with all the details and all and having no idea of its functions, it’s hard to get what’s worth your buck.
A smartwatch or a fitness tracker? For all we know, both can track activities and both may have notifications capabilities which can confuse users which one they would pick.
But let’s go into more detail to find out which one is better for you!
So Smartwatch or Fitness trackers?
Battery Life
Most of the smartwatches have 1-3 days of battery life. Probably because of the smart features that require much processing that eats up the battery faster than usual.
Like the Apple watch, its battery only lasts for a day or 2. Although, it has fitness tracking, but for the serious fitness enthusiast, the battery wouldn’t suffice a more accurate fitness tracking.
Why? Because the accurate distance will require a GPS, although you can track step counting, but it will not be as accurate.
Smartwatches will need to be charged every day or every other night. Therefore, if you wish to track your sleep, this will not be possible unless you want to charge your smartwatch during the day.
While fitness trackers usually have 1 week of battery life or more. Enough battery at least 4 -8 hours of GPS tracking.
1 week of battery life for fitness tracking can suffice a sleep data of at least 5-7 days will give you a good idea of your sleeping pattern.
Accept Calls
Both Fitness trackers and Smartwatch may have notification feature while connected to your phone through Bluetooth, but fitness trackers can’t accept calls through the wearable.
To accept calls through your watch, it has to have a mic and speaker to talk and listen through your watch. Although, not all smartwatch have this capability, especially those smartwatches that can be immersed under water.
There are smartwatches that are standalone – meaning, you don’t have to pair the watch to your smartphone and it can make and receive calls through your watch.
Reply Text
Yeah, how you wish you can reply to your text messages with your watch. Unfortunately, because the screen is too small, you can’t type your reply.
While, for instance, with the apple watch, you can set canned replies and I saw one cheap smartwatch that has a messaging capability and has a keyboard like a keypad phone.
Accuracy
While some smartwatch offers health tracking like the apple watch 4’s ECG sensor, movement motivation may be a lot of help.
For a fitness enthusiast, runner, gym attendee or a serious athlete, they will need something more than that.
Step counting may not be enough to track your activity like running or swimming. GPS is required to measure your exact distance and your pace.
Some entry-level fitness tracker may have of the same level activity tracking accuracy of some smartwatch that can track steps, heart rate, and sleep. But once you understand the importance of these data, maybe you want to upgrade to a higher-end fitness tracker.
High-end fitness trackers can track more than step counting, heart rate, and sleep. There are other fitness data that it can track like Stress, VO2max, body battery, Blood oxygen, and health age.
There are activity data that can translate to you like, steps, pace, cadence, training loads, lactate threshold and training effect – which translates how effective your activity is to your fitness goals.
But if you don’t want to complicate your fitness routine and you just want to jog or run and it’s enough for you to time and count your steps, then, either a smartwatch or an entry-level fitness tracker can do that for you.
Price
Smartwatches usually are more expensive and usually comes with extra storage for additional apps that you wish to install.
The Apple watch 4 costs around $400, and the galaxy watch cost around $300, while luxury smartwatches reach up to $1000 or more.
Entry level fitness trackers may cost around $30 up to $200 which has the basic fitness or activity tracking only. For fitness trackers that have GPS built in, may start at $200 and above, while multi-sport fitness trackers may start around $300 up to $700.
So which one is for me?
Smartwatches and fitness trackers give us the convenience of being able to see notifications or fitness data on our wrist.
First, you have to know what do you want to see on your wearable.
Do you want to see your message notifications, accept calls? Make sure the smartwatch you want to get has this capability, of course.
Here are some smartwatches selected from our fitness Pros that you can accept calls:
- Samsung Gear S3
- Apple Watch 4
- LG Watch Urbane LTE
- Samsung Gear S
- Ticwatch E
- Omate Rise
- Huawei Watch 2
If you are a fitness enthusiast who does runs and gets motivated to move during the day and just wants to track your daily steps and don’t want to miss any messages.
All you need is an entry-level fitness tracker that does some basic smart functions. Here are some we can recommend.
- Fitbit Versa
- Garmin Vivosmart 4
- Samsung Gear S3
- Fitbit 3
- Garmin Forerunner 35
There are smartwatches that have unique features that can be useful to the kind of lifestyle you may have or may conform with your fashion. They are considered luxury smartwatches, they are expensive that the functions they offer, but some find it worthy on their wrist.
- Mont Blanc Summit 2
- Casio Edifice ECB-800
- Louis Vuitton Tambour Horizon Connected
- Tag Heuer Connected
- Bulgari Diagono Magnesium
- Alpina Horological
- Mondaine Helvetica 1
Related Article: How to Lose Weight Fast & Safe in 1 Week
Best Smartwatches & Fitness Trackers for Women
Women also use fitness trackers or smartwatches, but not all want to look geeky or sporty.
There are smartwatches that are also designed to fit a woman’s day. Here are some Best Smartwatches for Women.
For the serious runners, athletes, marathoners, there are fitness trackers that are also dedicated to their needs. A multi-sport fitness tracker suits you if you are an active person.
If physical and performance improvements matter to you, then get a high-end fitness tracker that tracks not only your steps but also collects data on about your physical capacity such as, pace, cadence, VO2 max, training effect.
- Garmin forerunner 935
- Polar A370 Strapless HR
- Garmin forerunner 45
- Polar Vantage M
- Garmin Fenix 5
Do I need more than step counting? Does it matter?
Both fitness trackers and smartwatch have a Pedometer that tracks your steps, this will help you monitor how much walking you have done for the day.
You can set goals on how many steps you have to achieve to motivate yourself to move. Some smartwatches or fitness trackers have move reminder feature that reminds you to move after being sedentary for an hour.
If you are a person who is preoccupied with office work, maybe you need more of the smart features than the advance activity tracking.
Perhaps for you, step counting can be enough to motivate you and doesn’t need much to complicate things with your busy schedule.
An office person may also make use of fitness trackers that can track your stress levels, this helps you manage your stress through your day.
Fitness trackers like Fitbit charge 3, Garmin, Vivosmart 4, and other Garmin fitness trackers offer this feature that may be helpful in an office setting.
With entry level and high end, fitness trackers offer more than just stop counting. If you are aiming to improve with your physical fitness, you are going to need more than just a step count.
These types of fitness trackers can track, your heart rate, actual distance, pace, cadence, lactate threshold, training effect, which tells you how much effective is your activity to your fitness goal.
Usually, these data are offered by Garmin, Polar and Fitbit fitness trackers.
Is heart rate important during a fitness activity?
Yes, definitely! Heart rate is a crucial part of your fitness activity.
A good exercise will require a balance of between frequency, intensity, duration, and the type of exercise you are executing.
Your heart rate is an indicator of the intensity of effort that you exert during an exercise.
Does Waterproofing Matter?
Busy people who work at the office, usually prefer to use smartwatches instead of fitness trackers. It the kinds of people who do not want to get their outfit wet in the rain.
At least, a water-resistant watch is enough to survive splashes in the rain just in case you get caught up. Water resistant rating at least IP56 is enough to survive high-pressure water.
If you are into water sports, a fitness tracker can have a waterproof rating of 10 ATM(Atmosphere Unit) which means you can swim with it up to 50 to 100 meters deep.
But always remember, at this rating, it is not for scuba diving.
If you make your watch as your daily driver and your daily activity includes rugged activities, it is always best to get the right protection rating for your watch for it to survive.
Is there any watch that has best of both?
Maybe, but, there always be one thing that is missing.
For example, the Apple watch 4, it can track activity, it has a great heart rate monitor, ECG monitor, and has GPS.
Unfortunately, its battery can’t last a day when using the GPS.
A fitness tracker may have some smart features, but most of the time, you can’t answer calls or send text messages with it.
It may be avoiding any entry point for water to come in through the mic and speaker holes to keep the watch as waterproof as possible.
Having too many features can be useful, but having too many features can also be a disadvantage. It may make your watch laggy, bloated, and very inconvenient to navigate scrolling down to the feature you want to use.
It is better to use a dedicated watch for what it is best for, either for smart features or for its Activity tracking. Rather than get everything in one which may compromise, quality, price, and accuracy of data, like the Jack of all trades, master of none.
Get the best out of your buck with the feature of the device, to what it does best.
After reading this article, know yourself and what is an important feature and the purpose of getting one. By now, you know what you want to get.
James is the Founder & CEO of GurusWay.com. Majoring in Business and other life-changing sectors, James covers helpful content and shares his experience with the targeted audience.