Best wearable fitness/activity tracker?

tmh106

Hi all.

I want to buy my wife a fitness tracker. She runs about 10-15 miles a week, swims 2-3 times a week, walks a lot and is generally interested in logging her fitness/activity levels, but to date does all this manually.

I'd like something that could do basic running watch stuff - stop watch, lap times, split time, etc. But also that can track steps walked, heart rate, etc.

From research I've done so far I'm looking at the Fitbit Charge HR. I've also looked at the surge, and would pay the extra to get GPS but have read some mixed reviews of its GPS accuracy. there is a huge amount of change in this area, so wondering are there brands other then Fitbit that i should consider?

I'm interested in hearing recommendations good or bad from others on here who have tried wearable tech. If it was for myself, I'd go with something a Garmin or a Polar, but I do a lot more running than my wife and i am happy to wear a chest strap in order to get betetr accuracy whereas i don't think my wife would want to wear one.

Thanks in advance for any advice offered.

Krusty_Clown

I guess it kind of depends on your budget, but would something like the Garmin Vivoactive fit the bill? It does activity tracking, has a swim mode, also does GPS (pretty well). Here's a review from DC Rainmaker. It'll interface with a Garmin HR strap, but you don't have to use one (but it's the only way you'll get HR data). If you want HR data without a strap, you could look at the FR235 which has an optical HR sensor, but it doesn't do swim modes.

Alternatively, there's the Polar A360, which, while it doesn't have a GPS sensor, does have an optical HR monitor. Review here. But based on the price, the Vivoactive looks a little better value for money (and has a GPS chipset). Actualy, the review of the A360 is pretty damning. Best to give it a miss.

uvox

Garmin 10. To be honest, running 10-15 miles weekly isn't a GPS requirement.