Best all-round device
Fitbit Charge 2 Price: £112 from fave.co/2IzQHl7
Fitbit redesigned its popular Charge fitness tracker, adding a larger touchscreen OLED display, interchangeable bands, and new features including relaxation reminders and a cardio fitness score.
The firm is the reigning leader of the fitness-tracking market, and for good reason: The company makes feature-packed fitness trackers at a range of price points. The new Fitbit Charge 2 is a solid, affordable band that takes all of the features from its predecessor, the bestselling Charge HR, and elevates them.
In addition to basic step-tracking, the Charge 2 offers continuous heart rate-monitoring for the most accurate
activity stats, automatic exercise-tracking so you don’t have to lift a finger before starting your workout, sleep-tracking, silent alarms, five-day battery life, and a mindfulness feature called Relax that helps you focus your breathing. All of that is packed into a somewhat bulky package (my least feature part of the Charge 2), but the new tracker lets you accessorize by swapping in more stylish bands for the default sport option. Then there’s the new OLED display, which is four times larger than the Charge HR’s tiny screen and offers more info at a glance than its predecessor. You can tap the display to toggle between step count, mileage, and calories burned, and also view call, text, and calendar notifications. The tracker isn’t swim-proof and it lacks built-in GPS, so it’s not the best tracker for swimmers and runners, though it does connect to your phone’s GPS if you bring both devices for a run. The Fitbit app, where the Charge 2 logs your data, is one of the best fitness apps around. The app graphs your activity and sleep stats and allows for easy foodand water-tracking. The social challenges, which let you compete with fellow Fitbit-using friends, are a great motivator. The app’s lone downside: It’s not integrated with HealthKit, so it won’t read or write data to the Health app database. That’s not a deal-breaker for most, but something to keep in mind.