Running hot with cool tech

SLEEKER IN its casing and far easier to read with an OLED display four times larger than its predecessor, the Fitbit Charge 2 fitness wristband is highly recommended.

Fitbit’s Charge HR has been popular with its neat heart-rate monitor, but the Charge 2 offers more easy to read details about your activities while you’re actually |exercising.

You press the button on the left of the screen or just tap the display twice to view the information. The button is also used to navigate through the other features, and taps on each menu item brings up still more options.

Other improvements include the ability to count the number of steps you make and calories burned off each day, based on gender, age, height and weight provided via the Fitbit app on your phone. The data from your workouts is recorded at an account registered with Fitbit and you get weekly summaries.

The Charge 2 will also track the number of floors you climb each day and tally them up at the end of the week, clock average duration of sleep each night, distanced covered, time spent in strenuous activity, and all-day heart rate, as well as “heart-rate zones”.

Perhaps the feature that really sets the Charge 2 apart from other fitness trackers is what it does with its PurePulse heart-rate sensor. Once connected to a GPS-capable phone, it will calculate your VO2 Max. That’s maximal oxygen uptake – the amount of O2 your body is capable of consuming per minute – which is information that’s essential in gauging your Cardio Fitness Score and Cardio Fitness Level.

The Cardio Fitness Score is based on an estimate of that VO2 Max as a measurement of how well your body uses oxygen when you’re working out at your hardest. A high score means good cardiovascular fitness.

The Cardio Fitness Level, ranging from “poor” to “excellent”, is an easily understood snapshot of your state of fitness. You see where you stand compared to other people of the same age range and gender. 

Professionals will measure your VO2 Max in a lab while you’re wearing an oxygen mask, but Fitbit can calculate it from your heart rate and running speed as long as you’re hooked up to GPS with your phone. As your speed increases, your heart rate and breathing rate increase too.

Meanwhile an improved Cardio Fitness Score is also helpful since better cadiovascular fitness translates as a lower rate for the heart at rest and lower body mass index, both solid indicators of good health.

Unlike the Charge HR, the Charge 2 will prod you to take at least 250 steps an hour, another proven way of safeguarding your health. The function called “Reminder” vibrates if you’ve taken less than 250 steps in the past hour. You get up and do some walking, and another vibration lets you know when you’ve done enough.

This quiet nagging is particularly important for people with desk jobs like me. My doctor told me my degenerative spinal discs are the result of sitting for too many hours each day. I needed to occasionally adjust my position or stand up and walk around, he said.

Also new in the Charge 2 is a “guided breathing” function called “Relax”. You choose a two-minute or five-minute session and follow an animated coach in inhaling and exhaling while viewing the biofeedback chart. At the end you learn how well you did. As all yogis know, deep breathing can lower blood pressure and reduce stress.

The Charge 2 will track all sorts of sports and other physical pastimes and deliver real-time statistics to your wrist. You basically see heart rate and calories burned, but you can tap the display to see more. The app lists 19 different activities and you can add up to seven of them as “favourites” to be tracked.

Another nice feature is the interval timer, useful for customising the times between movement and rest, again using the Fitbit app.

The “SmartTrack” function automatically monitors daily exercise – walking, running, outdoor biking, aerobic workouts (such as Zumba, cardio-kickboxing and dancing) and some sports (including basketball, soccer and tennis). 

Under “Exercise Goals” on the app you can select the types of activities you want recognised and the duration for |each. By default, activities are automatically recognised when you engage in them for at least 15 minutes.

The “Smart Notification” function will alert you with a vibration when you receive a call, text message or calendar notification on your connected phone. If the device is in “Quick View” mode, you just lift your wrist to view them, just like you’re looking at a watch. Otherwise you can simply double-tap the display and the notification scrolls across the screen.

The display is easily customised. There’s a choice of seven clock faces and various wristbands.

I set off wearing the Charge 2 and watched it automatically record my daily 2.2-kilometre walk to the end of my soi and my bike ride home, and then do it all over again for the trip out. I was able to check my average heart rate and calories burned.

I noticed that it counted fewer steps than the Charge HR I’d previously tried. Its tally (more |than 10,000 steps) was in fact closer to the reading from a Pomo 37 and a Garmin. Perhaps the algorithm has been improved in the Charge 2, or maybe I was just walking less.

Right from the start the Charge 2 sets a daily goal of 10,000 steps. I reached that and was rewarded with a display of animated fireworks. Fitbit has chosen this particular number based on doctors’ advice that people should get at least 150 minutes of exercise per week, and for most folks, 10,000 steps is equal to 30 minutes of |exercise.

The Charge 2 tracker, with a Classic band in black, blue, plum or teal, retails for Bt7,490. The bands are sold separately for Bt1,290, while the Luxe premium leather band in blush pink, brown or indigo costs Bt2,890.

 

Key Specs

- Display: OLED

- Sensors, components: Optical heart-rate tracker, three-axis accelerometer, altimeter, vibration motor

- Memory: Seven days of detailed motion data saved minute by minute

- Water resistance: Sweat, rain and splash-proof

- Materials: Flexible, durable elastomer material as used in sports watches, with stainless steel buckle

- Radio transmitter: Bluetooth 4.0

- Battery: Lithium-polymer, five-day, two-hour charging time