Is The Apple Watch in Contention for Best Fitness Device?

The Apple Watch as a Fitness Device.

We’ve seen the fitness market overwhelmed by fitness trackers in the past few years, with names as far ranging as Samsung, Fitbit, Xiaomi and Jawbone.

But tech & health fans still get the most excited when Apple is mentioned. Although rumors swirl about the Apple Watch 2, we’ll have to make do with the original Apple Watch in the meantime. So how does it stack up against the competition?

The big selling point of the Apple Watch was its ability to free us from our phones, making it the ultimate portable fitness device.

This ideology was capitalized on by Apple, as they released fitness-specific models of the Apple Watch, as well as a string of apps to help guide users to their full health potential.

Workout App

The preloaded Workout app earned itself many a solid review for its ability to track your movements, and improve your performance through setting goals.

A few people rightly commented that this still required your smartphone nearby in order to properly function. Although there was potential for it to be able to do a range of tasks from playing mobile games to writing messages, these operations were limited on the first generation device.

Samsung’s wearables have attempted to counter this by including a sim card, meaning the device was no longer a slave to a smartphone. The Samsung Gear S3 promises access to in excess of 10,000 apps, meaning we could be checking our online banking, playing Lucky Nugget’s responsible mobile casino games, or simply listening to Spotify – and all from ours wrists.

Competitors and Other Alternatives

Impressive technologies comes at an impressively high price, and this is where Xiaomi’s Mi Band Pulse fitness tracker finds its niche as the ideal budget option to track your stats without breaking the bank. You may be lacking mobile casino games, but it will definitely incentivize you to raise your performance levels.

Fitbit Blaze and Jawbone UP3 have also carved themselves out a little niche, able to provide very detailed information without the big brand name. When Apple announces the Apple Watch 2, the competition will only get more fierce from here on out.