User blogs

Wearable Tech Fitness trackers on the rebound

Demand for fitness trackers worldwide grew significantly over the past year due to compelling new product releases coupled with strong demand in China. Worldwide unit shipments in 2019 jumped to an estimated 68.2 million, up 32% over shipments in 2018.Get more news about Fitness Watch Factories,you can vist our website!

Demand for fitness trackers in 2019 was a notable uptick in comparison to recent years, as global shipments had fluctuated between a low of 41.7 million and a high of 51.5 million from 2015 to 2018. Among the recently released products sparking market growth were Xiaomi’s Mi Band 4 and Mi Band 5, Fitbit’s Inspire HR and Charge 4, and Samsung’s Galaxy Fit and Galaxy Fit E.
Along with these new products, the COVID-19 pandemic is also fueling product sales, as an increasing number of consumers are turning to wearable devices to monitor personal health information such as body temperature and heart rate.

Definition

A fitness tracker, also known as an activity monitor or fitness band, is a device commonly worn on the wrist and used to monitor and track fitness-related metrics such as distance walked, heart rate and calorie consumption. Fitness trackers are relatively easy to use, and are often promoted by medical professionals who note that people wearing fitness trackers are less sedentary and more active than those who do not wear the devices.

Fitness trackers began appearing in late 2011 and early 2012, when a handful of companies, like Fitbit, Nike and Jawbone released the first generation of products.
Currently, the global fitness tracker market is dominated by Xiaomi, which accounted for an estimated 48% of worldwide shipments in 2019. Xiaomi, a Beijing, China-based electronics manufacturer, produces the Mi Band fitness tracker product line. The company sells the vast majority of its low-priced trackers to consumers in China, where the release of a new Mi Band product can spark huge demand. For example, when Xiaomi released it Mi Band 4 in June 2019, the company sold an estimated 1 million fitness trackers in just eight days.

In 2019, Xiaomi shipped an estimated 32.5 million fitness trackers. With the release of the Mi Band 5 in June 2020, Xiaomi appears to have further solidified its lead in the fitness tracker market.

Fitbit, one of the original fitness tracker market leaders, offers a broad line-up of products and is second in global market share. Fitbit’s Inspire HR, released in November 2019, and the Charge 4, released in April 2020, are driving current demand for its products. In 2019, Fitbit shipped an estimated 9.9 million fitness trackers, up from 8.4 million in 2018.

The biggest security risks of using fitness trackers

Fitness trackers, which help keep tabs on sleep quality, heart rate and other biological metrics, are a popular way to help Americans improve their health and well-being. Get more news about Fitness Watch Factories,you can vist our website!

There are many types of trackers on the market, including those from well-known brands such as Apple, Fitbit, Garmin and Oura. While these devices are growing in popularity — and have legitimate uses — consumers don’t always understand the extent to which their information could be available to or intercepted by third parties. This is especially important because people can’t simply change their DNA sequencing or heart rhythms as they could a credit card or bank account number.

“Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, you can’t get it back,” said Steve Grobman, senior vice president and chief technology officer of computer security company McAfee.

The holiday season is a popular time to purchase consumer health devices. Here’s what you should know about the security risks tied to fitness trackers and personal health data.Fitness devices can be expensive, even without taking inflation into account, but don’t be tempted to skimp on security to save a few dollars. While a less-known company may offer more bells and whistles at a better price, a well-established provider that is breached is more likely to care about its reputation and do things to help consumers, said Kevin Roundy, senior technical director at cybersecurity company Gen Digital.

To be sure, data compromise issues, from criminal hacks to unintended sharing of sensitive user information, can — and have — hit well-known players, including Fitbit, which Google bought in 2021, and Strava. But even so, security professionals say it’s better to buy from a reputable manufacturer that knows how to design secure devices and has a reputation to upkeep. There can be other concerns beyond having a person’s sensitive information exposed in a data breach. For example, fitness trackers generally connect to a user’s phone via Bluetooth, leaving personal data susceptible to hacking.

What’s more, the information that fitness trackers collect isn’t considered “health information” under the federal HIPAA standard or state laws like California’s Confidentiality of Medical Information Act. This means that personally revealing data can potentially be used in ways a consumer might never expect. For instance, the personal information could be shared with or sold to third parties such as data brokers or law enforcement, said Emory Roane, policy counsel at Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a consumer privacy, advocacy and education organization.

Some fitness trackers may use consumers’ health and wellness data to derive revenue from ads, so if that’s a concern, you’ll want to make sure there’s a way to opt out. Review the provider’s terms of service to understand the its policies before you buy the fitness tracker, Roundy said.

The best fitness trackers and smartwatches in 2022

With spring just around the corner, runners and athletes can put away the treadmill in favor of a run on the track or in the park, basking in increasingly more beautiful weather. Unsurprisingly, search interest in fitness trackers and smartwatches began peaking in the beginning of the year. What’s more, according to Statista, people are expected to spend over $93 billion on wearable devices this year.Get more news about Fitness Watch Factories,you can vist our website!

When I first began regularly using fitness trackers in 2015, they were mainly designed for step counts and distance traveled. Today, fitness trackers equip much more: The brands behind them say they can detect biomarkers such as your heart rate, respiration rate, heart rate variability (HRV) — the variation in time between heartbeats — blood oxygen concentration and sleep time. Some companies boast trackers that they say can predict menstrual cycles.

To help you find the right fitness tracker for you, we consulted fitness experts, some of whom recommended specific models they prefer. On top of sharing those below, we found highly rated fitness trackers that aligned with our research and the guidance experts gave us.
While fitness trackers can provide many specific data points, experts’ shopping advice was more general than granular: Prioritize comfort, wearability and style — they all noted these matter more than the specific datasets fitness trackers afford, which should be secondary.

“Comfort and wearability are paramount to the effectiveness of the devices,” explained Zakkoyya Lewis-Trammell, assistant professor of kinesiology and health promotion at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, adding that “the device cannot be effective if it is not worn. The robust data means nothing if no data is collected.”

Once those points are settled, experts said your direction will mostly fall within the context of your personal fitness goals and needs, no matter what those are.

“Fitness trackers are most useful for not only athletes and avid gym-goers but also everyday people who may benefit from or be curious about their physical metrics,” said Rhys Athayde, founder and CEO of Phantom FitnessWhile fitness trackers are certainly an investment — their prices fall mostly between $100 and $300 — Lewis-Trammell told us that many relatively affordable models offer substantial features like self-monitoring, goal-setting and feedback. The higher priced models largely improve on aesthetics and more granular and “robust biometric data” like heart rate, stress and sleep data, she said.