Sunday
In his weekly column, our senior wearables and fitness editor Michael Hicks discusses the world of smartwatches, apps, and fitness technology as it relates to running and health, looking for faster and more Get fit (and help you too).
As someone who reviews both smartwatches and dedicated fitness watches, it’s nearly impossible to find one that excels in performance, UI, health data, and fitness tracking all at once. Fitness wearables can’t compete for apps and phone connectivity, while smartwatches don’t offer proper training guidance and batteries run out too quickly.
My time as wearables editor at 2023 has shown me a clear trend across all major brands on both sides of the industry: smartwatches want to be fitness trackers, fitness watches want to be smartwatches, and they’re all fast. Be the first to arrive. Center … for better or worse.
Google struck a balance this year by buying Fitbit and porting all of its high-end sensors and fitness recommendations to the Pixel Watch 2. You get quick performance and all the apps a fitness watch could never support, but also recommendations for how hard to work that day based on your fitness level and fatigue.
The main issue is that you have to pay a premium to get these watches, and the Fitbit brand has lost some of its luster over the past few years. This leaves the door wide open for competitors to take their shot.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is another watch that tries to strike the smart/fitness balance. It may be too expensive for everyday users, and its fitness software is not powerful enough for professional athletes. But watchOS 9 and 10 release clearly targeted runners, cyclists, hikers and divers, while Apple’s Fitness Plus has a lock on at-home exercise.
It’s interesting to see how close Apple seems to be to a fitness development that will appeal to serious gamers while at the same time failing to combat its major weak point – the Series 9’s 18-hour battery – This will stop the same athletes. I love seeing this fitness push, while also wondering if the company is wasting its time courting fitness enthusiasts.
Samsung, meanwhile, is finally playing catch-up on fitness with the Galaxy Watch 6, adding heart rate zones for VO2 Max, fall detection, and other fitness tools while still Leads with health sensor data readings of your body composition and blood. stress
With the Galaxy Fit 3 and Galaxy Ring rumored to launch next year, it’s clear that Samsung has a serious interest in tapping into the affluent fitness tracking market. It has the brand recognition to succeed, but Samsung has a long way to go to make its fitness software stand out in its own right.
As for other Wear OS watches, it’s clear that they recognize that Google is doing its thing and therefore should make its own fitness efforts. Case in point, with the 2023 Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 5, you get 100 sports modes, VO2 Max data, and even recovery time recommendations based on how hard you worked out. Only specialty brands like Garmin and COROS typically tell you how long to rest, so seeing it on a traditional smartwatch was a nice surprise.
On the dedicated fitness watch side, more and more watches are starting to offer AMOLED displays instead of the slow, battery-saving MIPs we’ve seen for years. Small fitness trackers have used AMOLEDs for years, but fitness watches with built-in GPS can’t be used without sacrificing battery; Now, they’re getting the weeks of battery life we’ve come to expect.
We see too boundaries What a fitness watch can do to target core users.
Check out the Garmin Venu 3. After years of a bland UI and limited health sensors, Garmin has met athletes halfway with its thin-bordered AMOLED, Bluetooth calling, a UI switch to display its “apps” like sports modes, ECG and skin. Temperature sensors to match competing brands, and a sleep coach. It easily claimed the top spot for our best fitness-focused smartwatch.
Meanwhile, some of its other new smarts, such as the QWERTY keyboard and images in notifications, only work for Android users. And it certainly can’t offer apps, only third-party features like Strava Live segments.
Garmin could continue down this path, but it knows that half or more of its customers use iPhones, which prevents third-party brands from accessing specific smartwatch features, which limits its efforts.
Then you have this year’s Fitbit Charge 6, which essentially keeps the same design and tech as the Charge 5 while adding a bunch of Google apps. The brand has lost market share in recent years, and its response has essentially been to throw Google Maps and YouTube music at its customers instead of focusing on the fitness side of things.
What’s interesting is if you look at the latest wearable sales reports from IDC or Counterpoint, you’ll find that brands like Imagine Marketing (boAt), Noise and Xiaomi claim the top spots by selling $50 trackers that Getting smarter day by day but still focused. More about health and fitness. Fitbit is nowhere on this list.
Looking back on this year, I find myself in a bit of a conflicted headspace, where I’m excited about all of these fitness improvements, but I also don’t know what they’re going to be.
I wanted Samsung, Apple, and other mainstream smartwatch brands to pay more attention to fitness, and 2023 saw it do it! But with them prioritizing so many different moving parts, they may always be playing catch-up to “dumber” fitness trends that keep adding new training tools in the interim.
On the fitness side, I’m glad they’re putting more effort into features that mainstream watches have had for years. However, I don’t think they will ever close the gap: aside from Apple’s intervention, brands like Garmin will always focus on battery life and lightweight design over “smart”. Even if some of their loyal customers appreciate third-party apps, they appreciate the battery life and lightweight designs.
As Ansheel Sag, principal analyst at Mother Insights & Strategy, told me when looking at sales numbers for 2023, “Fitness trackers are becoming more popular because some people are just focusing on the health aspect… instead of to try to add imaginable features to something like a smartwatch.
So, will the fitness efforts of smartwatches or the IQ upgrades of fitness watches amount to anything, or just diminish what made them popular with their audience? Only time will tell, but I suspect it may be the latter.
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Image Source : www.androidcentral.com