When my sister and I unexpectedly gave one another the identical health tracker over the vacations this previous December, we had been thrilled. This was the 12 months we had been (lastly! actually!) going to get in form. For some time, we had been hooked, counting steps, evaluating high quality sleep minutes, competing to be probably the most energetic. Then, lower than 6 months later, our bands broke inside days of one another—annoying contemplating the value tag, however truthfully not an excessive amount of of a bummer as our curiosity in our knowledge had stalled months earlier.

In April, when the Apple Watch hit the market, I thought of going all in. Maybe this gadget can be the one with sufficient bells and whistles to maintain me motivated. However earlier than I might click on to purchase, the watch hit eBay, as dissatisfied clients chucked it for causes starting from wrist dimension to “It simply wasn’t for me.” (Get the cinched waist you’ve got all the time needed with these 3 super-effective flat stomach exercises.)
 
Which begs the query: Do we actually want these tech toys? Certainly, with 10 million Fitbits alone offered in 2014, these wearable health coaches are motivating quite a lot of us to get transferring, at the very least whereas all that knowledge is shiny and new. However shocking new analysis exhibits that you simply may not should look previous your smartphone for cheaper (less expensive) monitoring that’ll get you transferring.

Here is what to bear in mind earlier than shelling out for a dear wearable:
 
Smartphones win at counting steps.

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Wearables are a data-lover’s dream with all these metrics, however if you happen to’re all concerning the step rely, you may not want something greater than the proper app. In a latest JAMA research by College of Pennsylvania researchers, smartphone apps did a bang-up job of nailing the accuracy of steps taken. And accuracy, say the research authors, is the principle factor to search for.
 
Throughout the research, researchers requested adults to stroll sporting a wide range of wearable trackers together with the Fitbit Flex, Nike Fuelband, and Jawbone Up24, whereas additionally carrying each iPhone 5s and Samsung Galaxy S4 telephones. The iPhone concurrently ran three iOS functions: Fitbit, the Withings Well being Mate, and the ProtoGeo Oy Strikes. (You do not want a Fitbit tracker to make use of the free Fitbit app.) The Galaxy S4 ran the Android software Strikes. 
 
The consequence? Telephones got here out on prime when it got here to accuracy of measuring steps. Smartphone apps had much less variability than wearable units, ranging by about 6%, in line with Mitesh Patel, MD, MBA, assistant professor of drugs on the College of Pennsylvania and senior writer of the research. By comparability, the Fuelband was 22.5% off. That, coupled with the details that many telephone apps to trace steps are free (and trackers most definitely should not!) and that 65% of American adults already carry smartphones, makes a powerful argument for simply following your actions through telephone.

MORE: Your 5-Minute Interval Exercise For All-Day Power
 
You do not want a wearable to trace coronary heart price and sleep.

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Patel says {that a} wearable is extra helpful than a smartphone for conditions which might be smartphone-challenged, like if you’re swimming in a pool or doing cardio exercise. However your smartphone can monitor coronary heart price through the use of its flash and digital camera in a course of known as photoplethysmography (though you will should cease what you are doing to get a studying, and it will not be as correct as sporting a chest strap or one other high-tech wearable). It may well additionally observe sleep with apps like Sleep by MotionX.

If estimated energy burned whereas exercising is what you are on the lookout for, your telephone can cowl that as effectively utilizing the Strikes or Fitbit apps, amongst others. 

“Smartphones, like wearables, ought to have the ability to seize issues like depth and sleep, as these are capabilities of the accelerometer [which both have],” says Patel. It might not be as correct as a wearable, however it may give you a reasonably respectable gauge.

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Think about attempting earlier than shopping for.

O Lumoid/Fb

Lumoid is a try-before-you-buy firm for health tech toys that permits you to test-drive fashionable fashions from Garmin, Jawbone, Fitbit, and even Apple for two weeks. Most wearables are in a bucket of Attempt-5-for-$25 (the Apple Watch is $45). Simply inform them which one you’d prefer to try to when you are going to ship it again, and so they’ll ship it to you with no deposit required typically. There’s even a rent-to-own possibility if you happen to actually get connected.

MORE: 12 Metabolism-Boosting Meals To At all times Maintain On Hand
 
The underside line
Each wearable trackers and smartphone apps can kickstart change. “What issues is the match between the individual and the gadget,” says Lisa Cadmus-Bertram, PhD, an assistant professor of kinesiology on the College of Wisconsin and writer of latest health tracker analysis revealed within the American Journal of Preventive Drugs. Some individuals need the richness of suggestions—depth ranges, temporal patterns, coronary heart price—in addition to goal-setting options. Others need to maintain it easy, and a primary app or perhaps a pedometer will suffice.