Nowadays, there's hardly an excuse not to maintain a healthy lifestyle with a surge in bracelets, watches, and clip-on monitors all aiming to keep you motivated and possibly publicly humiliated if you decide to share your results via social media platforms. The idea behind the many [somewhat expensive] devices is to keep you active throughout the day, tracking your every move, monitoring your rest time, then relaying the stats right to your smartphone.
For instance, the Jawbone's popular rubber Up band, retailing at $130, goes a week without a battery charge, quietly measures your movements, and displays results right to your iPhone or Android phone. Its downfall: You have to remove the bracelet, pull off a metal cap, connect it to your smartphone, and transfer the data yourself. No wireless feature. Next!
Fitbit and Nike both entered the market with the clear advantage: bluetooth. The Flex band and NikeFuel band instantly communicate with your phone, without any extra push [irony anyone?] from the user. But the Flex band has one major downfall: while it can track your sleep, it cannot sense when you're hitting the hay. It has to be tapped, six times to be exact, until the light goes out. And make sure you tell it when you rise, or else it won't know the difference.
In retrospect, they all achieve the same goal: record your physical activity, or lack thereof. But up close, some of these gadgets may require some babysitting and may actually be more trouble than they're worth.
