Getting back in shape with a digital wrist trainer is fun and easy. Here are the best smart bands for playing sports and monitoring exercises. The sector dedicated to smart bands, activity trackers, and sports watches has been particularly prolific in recent years with the arrival of increasingly advanced devices for all budgets.
With a handful of euros, it is possible to take home one of the many models available on the market and start training with a digital assistant, ready to monitor each exercise. Xiaomi, Fitbit, Huawei, and Amazfit are manufacturers constantly proposing new bands to stay fit. Before purchasing your waist trainer, however, it is good to shed light on some of the peculiarities of these devices, which differ in functionality, type of use, and course price.
Sport Mode
Smart bands were initially created to monitor sports activities and fulfill daily goals. And this is where they express their full potential. Walking, running, cycling, trekking, spinning, and many other types of training are recognized without problems by the devices simply by being on the wrist, recording kilometers traveled, calories burned, and exercise duration.
Waterproofing is one of the most popular features and allows you to wear the Band in the water, so you can also monitor activities such as swimming. The goals achieved and the progress made daily are transferred to a proprietary platform, usually accessible directly from a smartphone. An overall picture of the sport practiced is always available.
Functions Dedicated To Health
Smart bands are an excellent tool for monitoring specific aspects of health, both when playing sports and at rest. In addition to tracking the heart rate, with some models, it is possible to track blood oxygen levels, monitor the quality of sleep and the level of stress.
The Band alerts you with vibration by signaling on the display when something is wrong if it is time to get up and stretch your legs because you have been stationary for too long or if you need to interrupt a workout to catch your breath. The wrist trainer can also help us perform breathing exercises, note the cadence of the female cycle, and keep track of ovulation so that we have everything under control.
Extra Functionality
As anticipated, sport is only one of the vocations of brilliant bands. Over the years, these devices have become authentic fashionable accessories, with colored dials and interchangeable straps. In addition to reporting the time, they can perform the alarm, timer, and reminder function. By connecting to the Bluetooth of the smartphone, they allow you to view incoming notifications on the phone directly from your wrist, read messages, see who is calling us. You can also check your music, read calendar tasks, unlock your phone, check the weather forecast and activate the camera.
How To Choose The Right Smart Band?
In light of what has been said so far, an intelligent band represents a real wrist trainer capable of monitoring the activities carried out throughout the day. Therefore, the final choice must fall on a device with sports functions suited to one’s personality, with an eye to style, and, of course, to the price. Here is our selection of the best intelligent bands to train and keep fit.
OPPO Band
Lightweight, stylish, and packed with features. The Band designed by OPPO packs all the features of a perfect digital wrist trainer into just 10.3 grams. It can recognize up to 12 training modes and record the exercises’ duration and the distance traveled by connecting to the smartphone’s GPS. The bright 1.1-inch AMOLED display is perfectly readable in sunlight and is protected by curved, scratch-resistant glass.
The OPPO Band can go underwater up to 50 meters, so you can also perform water sports without problems. Among the functions dedicated to health, we find the monitoring of the heartbeat, the level of oxygen in the blood (SpO2), and the quality of sleep. Autonomy reaches 12 days so that you can leave the charger in the drawer before a trip.
Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 6
Xiaomi’s Mi Smart Band 6 has conquered millions of users with cutting-edge features and its unmistakable style in its sixth generation. It features a 1.56-inch AMOLED touch display with over 60 watch faces to choose from. It automatically detects six fitness modes and is compatible with 30 different types of sports, including basketball, boxing, Zumba, and pilates. Health-related functions include monitoring heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, and sleep quality. It is water-resistant up to 50 meters, while the autonomy has a declared duration of 14 days with a single charge.
Huawei Band 6
Soft lines, a colored silicone strap, and a large 1.47-inch AMOLED display are the business cards of the new Huawei Band 6. It is among the complete devices in its price range, with 96 different training modes. There is no shortage of heart rate monitoring functions, blood oxygen saturation, and sleep quality.
Among the extra functions is the measurement of the stress level, the menstrual cycle calendar, and, of course, the possibility of managing all the notifications arriving on the smartphone. Huawei has entirely redesigned the dials to match the look of any moment of the day. The battery has 14 days, but 5 minutes of charging are enough to have two days of autonomy.
Amazfit Bip U Pro
Halfway between a fitness tracker and a smartwatch, Amazfit Bip U Pro has all the necessary features to keep daily activities under control. The 1.43-inch square-shaped screen can clearly show smartphone notifications, appointments, and progress during a training session.
Amazfit Bip U Pro includes over 60 sports modes to choose from and integrates high-precision GPS to know specific data on distance traveled and pace. It can check heart rate, blood oxygen level, sleep quality, and stress level. You can choose between three different strap colors and up to 50 different dials to always match your look.
Fitbit Charge 5
Fitbit Charge 5 is the latest addition to the historic brand that has always been dedicated to sports. It is an advanced fitness and wellness tracker, including a heart health ECG as part of its functions. It can evaluate atrial fibrillation and notify the user in case of abnormalities. Present the monitoring of the oxygen level in the blood and respiratory rate, together with the autonomous GPS.
The tracker can detect 20 training modes and can draw up a daily profile of general health, communicating to the user if it is the right time to train or if you need to focus on recovery. There is no shortage of alarm clocks, notification management, and sleep quality monitoring functions. The battery offers up to a week of battery life with heavy use. The purchase gives access to a 6-month premium subscription to the Fitbit platform.