Top 15 Fitness Gadgets for your Christmas List

Nike Fuelband (£100)
Simply tracking your activity can be a good way to motivate yourself to do more. The Nike Fuelband makes that simple: it's a wristband that contains motion sensors to track your movement through the day, translating your activity into 'Nike Fuel' points that aim to let you compare yourself to others, regardless of the sports you're doing. It also counts the steps you take - 10,000 per day is seen as a good indicator of a healthy lifestyle - and tells the time. It comes in three colours but the sleek black version is the coolest.


Jawbone Up (£39)
Another trendy wristband that monitors your movement is the Jawbone Up. First released in 2011, the Up was withdrawn because of technical problems. It will be back on sale in Britain shortly, after being completely re-engineered. It's slimmer than the Nike Fuelband and adds the ability to track the quality of your sleep. However, unlike the Fuelband, it doesn't have a screen.


Polar Rcx3 GPS (£189)
If you are a runner or cyclist and are more serious about tracking your activity then it's worth considering a GPS watch, rather than a wristband like the Fuelband or Up. The Polar Rcx3 will track your route, speed and distance, which you can upload to Polar's Personal Trainer website. The Personal Trainer gives you access to training programs, tracks your progress over time and offers feedback on each workout.


Strava Run and Strava Cycling (Free, iPhone and Android)
You don't necessarily need a watch to track your exercise. Smartphone apps can use GPS to plot your route and there are plenty of services which will keep track of your performance over time. The only downside is having to strap your phone to your arm or stick it in a pocket while you exercise. If you're happy to do that then there are plenty of options. Runkeeper (free) is an online service that syncs with many popular apps, while Zombies, Run (£2.49) turns running into an immersive game. There are apps for gym workouts, swimming and training for other sports too. If you run or cycle, Strava's apps are worth a look. They allow you to compare your performance with other users over parts of your route, which is a handy feature. Subscribers can also calculate their "suffer score" for maximum bragging rights.


Griffin Adidas MiCoach armband (£10.99)
If you are using your smartphone while you exercise, whether it's to track your activity or just to listen to music, it's worth getting an armband to keep it in. Having a phone strapped to your arm might feel a little awkward at first but it makes it easy to see the screen, change songs or check your exercise statistics without fumbling in your pocket. This one from Griffin works very nicely and is available for a range of devices.


Bose SIE2i headphones (£129.95)
There are three good reasons to get dedicated sport headphones. First, they usually have special tips that keep them secure in your ears while you move. Second, the best ones are weather and sweat resistant - handy if you are exercising outside in bad weather. And third, they tend to have shorter chords, which mean you won't get tangled up in them as you move. These ones, from Bose, have all the above and excellent sound quality.


Fitbug (£49.27 plus £2.99 per month subscription)
Another wearable fitness tracker but this one comes with a coaching plan that delivers daily progress reports and sets regular goals to help you get fitter. If you buy the Fitbug Go (£24.99) the monthly subscription for the fitness plan is £2.99. With the Fitbug Air (£49.99) then you get a year's coaching included. Fitbug also has a deal with Pru insurance, offering discounts for those who meet certain targets.


Fitbit Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale review (£84.99)
No fitness gadget obsessive can make do with an ancient set of bathroom scales. What's needed are wireless smart scales, like these from Fitbit. They won't just tell you your weight, they'll track weight changes and monitor your BMI and body fat percentage for up to seven people. The data is uploaded via your WiFi network and available online or in a free iPhone app. Pair them with one of Fitbit's activity trackers, such as the Fitbit One (£79.99) and you can add even more data.


Garmin Edge 810 cycle computer (£222.21)
This touchscreen cycling computer has GPS navigation with built-in maps and is designed to withstand bad weather as well as bumps and knocks. As well as helping with navigation, the Edge 810 tracks data about your ride, including distance, speed and elevation. It's also compatible with many heart rate monitors, power meters and cadence sensors for those who want more detail.


Xbox 360 Kinect training bundle (£349.99)
Want to get fit but avoid going outside? A games console can help. Microsoft's Xbox Kinect motion tracker is compatible with a range of exercise games that offer surprisingly good workouts. Nike+ Kinect (£24) and Adidas miCoach Kinect (£22.99) both offer workouts, fitness plans and performance tracking.

Camera Demon Helmet Camera Mount (£15.04)

Camera Demon uses a sticky pad to stay put on top of a helmet, allowing cyclists, skiers and other sports enthusiasts to capture all their activity in video on their cameras.

Pioneer SE-D10E headphones (£39.99) 

The SE-D10Es use a unique ‘Skull Fit’ design to hook onto the ear, which ensure a comfortable fit, even during intense exercise. They are also sweat proof.

Withings Smart Body Analyser (£120)

This internet-connected set of scales is capable of measuring heart rate and air quality as well as traditional weight measurements and body composition.

Breffo Adventure Camera Kit (£16.90)

This eight-legged stand securely attaches to virtually any surface in any position, allowing far more versatility than a standard camera tripod, whether for windsurfing, cycling or skiing.

Oliver Sweeney Swipe Glove (£99)

... and for spectators... the outer leather layer of these gloves is touch-sensitive for smartphones, while the inner is fleecy to keep your hands warm from the sidelines.

Review: Misfit Shine

Key Features: Bluetooth 4.0 LE; Waterproof to 50m; Multiple sports tracked; 4-month battery life; No charging or wires required Manufacturer: Misfit Wearables Misfit Shine review What is the Misfit Shine? The Misfit Shine enters a rather crowded fitness tracking market with a selling point that will stand it apart from the competition – it’s fully waterproof. It’s also an attractive all-metal disc that can be worn anywhere on your body using a dinky little magnetic strip that holds the Misfit Shine in place. It was launched as an IndieGoGo campaign and achieved its $100,000 project goal 9 ½ hours after it launched. At close, the Misfit Shine had raised its goal eight and a half times over, which just goes to show how interesting the device is. But can the £99 fitness tracker stand out against its popular rivals? Misfit Shine – Design and Features One of the most striking things about the Misfit Shine is its design. Made from aerospace grade aluminium with a distinct groove running around the middle for using the Misfit Shine’s various accessories, it is small, light and compact. Misfit’s choice of material means the Shine only weighs 9g on its own, or 16g with the included wrist strap. The company, Misfit Wearables, is co-founded by former Apple CEO John Sculley, and there is definitely a touch of Apple in the design of the Shine, especially its simplicity and clean lines.  Misfit has made sure the Shine can be worn anywhere on the body, and even supplies both the sports band and clasp as standard with the Misfit Shine in the UK from John Lewis. The clasp is a rubber loop with a magnet on one end that folds over to couple with the back of the Shine. You can attach this to any item of clothing, even a swimsuit or shorts as it is completely waterproof to 50 metres. This is also pretty handy if you forget to remove it from your clothes and it happens to take a washing machine trip. The sportsband is a rubber watch strap that the Misfit Shine simply pops into and is designed to look much more like jewellery than your average fitness tracker, which is one of its key benefits. There’s also a leather strap and a necklace option to purchase separately if you feel the need. Its waterproof nature and the fact it is so very light means you can pretty much forget about the Misfit Shine when you’re wearing it, especially when it’s strapped to your wrist. However, it is useful to remember, any fitness tracker worn on your wrist isn’t going to be as accurate as one worn on your clothing as you tend to move your arms more than any other limbs, or you could stop moving them altogether, such as when you’re gripping a bag strap – both of which can cause inaccurate results. This is why Misfit includes the clasp for attaching the Shine to your clothing, which is especially useful when at the gym. When in sleep mode, the Misfit Shine looks like it has no display at all, but with a double tap on its face you’ll be presented with a ring of LED lights around the edge, which are used to indicate your current goal progress and the time.  Each LED light is an interval of five minutes or 5 per cent completion of your customised goal. It can be a little difficult at first to work out what time it is (the hour is a solid LED but the minute indicator flashes), but you soon get used to it. Your goal progress is shown in a ring that runs clockwise with your sporting activity until the whole ring of lights is completed, which is a simple but effective way to keep tabs on it without having to look at the app.  On the rear of the Misfit Shine is a handy 12 logo, to show you which way up the fitness tracker should be placed in your watch strap for accurate clock readings.  The Misfit Shine connects to the Shine app for iOS devices via Bluetooth 4.0 LE, which doesn’t require pairing. Misfit assures us there’s an Android app coming “in the next few weeks”, but there hasn’t been any joy there as yet. Bluetooth LE keeps the power consumption low and combined with the fact the Misfit Shine uses a standard cell watch battery with a battery life of at least 4 months, you’ll be using it for ages without having to charge it or replace the battery. There are some features that are lacking in the Misfit Shine, like an altimeter to count the number of stairs you climb, which features in upcoming trackers like the Fitbit Force. Misfit Shine – Tracking and Apps The Shine app is a very simple but effective way of monitoring your daily fitness activity. Periods of activity are shown in colour coded panels that show the type of sport you are doing and low, medium and energetic patches of activity. There’s a highlights panel that offers you a look at your daily milestones, broken down into a handy activity chart and the aforementioned coloured blocks. You can also take a look at a weekly overview of your activity, which also compares your achievements to the previous weeks.  Overall, the Misfit Shine is very accurate and can tell when you are performing any of its recognised activities – walking, running, cycling or swimming. It does tend to be far more precise when worn on your clothes, as when on your wrist it can suggest you were more active than you actually were – but that sometimes isn’t a bad thing. Within the app you can not only personalise your activity goal, but also let it know where you’re wearing the Misfit Shine for more precise data gathering and whether you want the fitness tracker to display the clock or progression lights first.  You can also utilise the Misfit Labs Activity Tagging. This allows you to triple tap the Misfit Shine to tell it you are doing a specific activity for more accurate readings. Although this feature is still in Beta, you can use it to tell the Shine when you’re sleeping, cycling, swimming, playing tennis, basketball or football and the results are far more accurate – if you remember to triple tap before you start doing them.  The Shine app also presents information on the amount of steps you’ve taken, calories burnt and distance covered in a single day or whole week.  What is disappointing about the Misift Shine is its sleep monitoring functionality. Unless you tell it you’re going to sleep using the Activity Tagging it won’t monitor your sleep pattern whatsoever. We always forgot to triple tap before we fell asleep so we’d wake up with no data for our slumber.  When you do remember, it lets you know how many hours of deep sleep you’ve managed to get in between patches of tossing and turning. How accurate this data actually is is very hard to calculate, but they are interesting statistics to peruse in the morning. As the Misfit Shine uses Bluetooth LE you won’t need to pair it with your smartphone or tablet. When you enter the app, the data automatically updates and fills in all the fitness tracking information since you last logged in. it doesn’t matter whether that’s a week or 5 minutes ago, it is all updated regardless.  It is very speedy to update, which is a bonus. We will say the data provided is a bit limited, but that’s pretty standard for what is basically a glorified pedometer like its competition. The app is laid out in a straightforward and accessible way and unless you’re a proper fitness freak it is more than sufficient for those looking to monitor their activity. Should I buy the Misfit Shine? The Misfit Shine is a great activity tracker but is a little more expensive than some of its competitors and currently has limited smartphone and tablet compatibility if you don’t have an iPhone or iPad. It’s still a strong contender, but you might still want to consider some of the alternatives. At £79.99, the Fitbit Flex is another successful fitness tracker that offers a great app, a 4 – 5 day battery life and is water resistant if not entirely waterproof. It is a bit basic though and lacks a full display, altimeter and can’t even tell the time by itself. It works with (select) Android devices as well as iOS though. At the top end of the price bracket is the £99.99 Nike Fuelband that is specifically optimised for Apple’s device range. It uses Bluetooth LE and is now water resistant and more flexible for a more rugged device. It can offer a lot more information on your wrist than the Misfit Shine, but still lacks an altimeter. The Jawbone UP works with iOS and Android devices and is around the same price as the Misfit Shine at £79.95. It offers detailed feedback via an app and has a vibrating alarm function alongside sleep monitoring. You can even take pictures of your meal to convert it into calories with the Jawbone UP. Verdict If you’re looking for a fully-functional and completely waterproof fitness tracker, the Misfit Shine is a great choice, especially for the fashion conscious. The lengthy battery life just sweetens the deal.

Review: Jawbone Up

Like love, sensors are all around us. The astronomic growth in smartphone uptake means that most of the people you know now carry around a device that is constantly monitoring movement, light, sound and location. To date, the data captured by these sensors has found limited application, but this will soon change.

At its core, the Jawbone Up is a pedometer, but with pretensions of being much more. Within its "medical grade" rubber casing, the Up houses a number of motion sensors and shares the information it collects with a smartphone app for iPhone and Android.

• Buy Jawbone UP Wristband - at Amazon for £64.99

Beyond counting your steps, Jawbone believes the Up is capable of monitoring your sleep as well. Using proprietary algorythms, the wristband and its software tell you how well you slept based on how you moved, sensing a difference between light and deep sleep and acknowledging when you wake up.

The accuracy of these readings is hard to guage though, and acting on the information it feeds back is entirely up to the user to figure out.

Smartly designed

There is one thing for certain: the Jawbone UP is fantastically designed. Both the wristband and the app are sleek, easy to grasp and a pleasure to use.

The band itself is completely devoid of clasps or clips. It is a flexible loop that you slip around your wrist, and it sits comfortably below your hand. There are three sizes to choose from, with a size guide on the Jawbone site.

Best of all, the wristband looks good to wear. Our review unit is black, and it goes with every outfit in our wardrobe, from unwashed weekend wear to cocktail party dress.

At one end of the band is a small, square tip, that looks like mere decoration. In fact, this is the single button on the Up that users interact with. A long press on the button changes between day and night modes (you switch it before bed), and a double-press and hold command starts special modes, like a power nap, or the recording of an exercise session.

The app

 Monitoring the data collected by the Up is quite good fun, thanks to Jawbone's colourful and well-designed smartphone app. Large arrows point towards your daily goals and animate when you reach them; congratualting you on your small achievements.


You begin the Up journey by telling it a little about yourself: gender, weight, daily walking goal, etc. It keeps track of everything thereafter, showing you how you are doing each day, as well as collecting data over time into larger, more complex graphs.


Once or twice a day you plug the Up wristband into your phone via the headphone socket. Doing this syncs your data with the app.


You can enter food into the mix, but this isn't really designed as a calorie counter. The pre-set food options are extremely limited, and manually entering these details is a pain.


If you gain motivation from groups, you can select friends to add to your "team" and watch each others daily progress.

What does it all mean? 

Not to delve too deeply into the existential, but what does it all mean? Data collection and graphing is one thing, but what are you to do with the information the Up feeds back?


Some of it is pretty simple. For example, after using the Up for a month it is clear that this reviewer needs to get up and walk more. If the average adult should walk 10,000 steps a day, I'm a few kilometres short. The solution here is pretty straight forward.


But what about sleep? Each night the wristband reports on the quality of sleep with coloured-strips that show how much deep sleep you had, how much light sleep you had and often you were awake.





My sleep looks bad -- I think. There seems to be far too much light sleep, only thin strips of deep sleep and several instances of waking up each night. It is interesting to gaze at the graphs each day, but without suggestions on how to act, the Up creates more questions than it answers.


On top of this, you have to take this information at face value, if you do at all. There are several times during the review period where the band has reported periods of being awake that we don't rememberm for example. Is it wrong? We have no evidence to the contrary.


On a similar note, the Jawbone could have a limited use for some people with sleeping disorders. This reviewer has sleep apnea and uses a CPAP machine to sleep comfortably. During the review period, data from the Up suggested poor sleep and prompted a check-up.


It is certainly a long way from being an effective monitoring tool for these sorts of disorders -- heart-rate monitoring would be necessary for starters -- but it is handy for (very) general guidance.

Vs FitBit

Comparing the Jawbone Up to its most obvious competitor, the FitBit One, it's easy to see just how much growth this category has in front of it.

When it comes to step counting, the Up feels significantly looser than the FitBit model. While we couldn't do a side-by-side comparison for absolute accuracy, we found that we hit our goal of 10,000 steps a lot more frequently with the Up, despite not changing our habits.

The One's screen is a welcome addition as well, giving immediate feedback of performance. To get a quick idea of how you are performing during the day, you need to manually sync the Up band, while the FitBit's OLED screen can give that information at the press of a button, as well as offering information about calories burnt.

The sleep function, on the other hand, is a much nicer implementation via the Up band. Because the Up is already on the wrist, it's as simple as pressing the button to switch to sleep mode.

The FitBit, on the other hand, requires the device to be slipped into a special pouch that wraps around your wrist and attaches with velcro. Because the tracker is in a pouch, it's much easier to forget to switch the device in or out of sleep mode.

The information you get from the Up, when displayed through the accompanying app, is also a lot more useful than the FitBit version, especially for sleep. The Up app's food counter is also more usable - although not necessarily more accurate.

Ultimately, the Up is a lifestyle product. It's designed to look good, while providing your information on your lifestyle so you can hopefully improve it.

The FitBit, on the other hand, is more of a tool, something that works to enable you to improve your lifestyle. They may do similar things, but if you're serious about accountability for your physical actions, the FitBit is a much more accurate tool.

Verdict

It looks good and it certainly seems to work as intended, but if you were hoping that the Up was something more than a pedometer in fancy dress, then you'll be disappointed. Especially considering that At £65 it is twice the price of most step-counters. It certainly looks much better, and its smartphone app is well designed, but at the end of the day the functionality it collects the same data as a pedometer and leaves the same questions unanswered. 

Review: Fitbit Flex

Even though the Flex was briefly superseded earlier this year with the arrival of the Fitbit Force, it is once again the company's flagship tracker following the Force's recall earlier this year.

Fitbit has said it's fixed the issues that plagued the Force and is all set to release the new, updated version, but until that happens, the Flex is still the wrist-mounted tracker flagship from the company.

• Buy Flex Activity and Sleep Wristband - Amazon for £65.37

Announced at CES back in 2013, the Fitbit Flex combines the step-counting technology that made its One and Zip products so useful, and places it on the wrist for convenience.

This big design change has some pretty big advantages. For a start, the fear of having the small sensor pop out from a pocket while walking is gone. With the wrist mounted option, you always know where the device is.

The second major benefit is for sleep-tracking. While the Fitbit One offered the ability to track sleep by slipping the sensor into a soft, velcro arm band, the Flex leaves the sensor permanently attached, allowing you to switch modes without removing the device at all.

Unlike the Jawbone Up, the Flex consists of two separate parts - the sensor and the strap. The sensor itself is smaller than the One, thanks to the fact that it doesn't include an LED display.

Instead, five LED lights indicate the number of steps taken during a day, and are only activated by double tapping the device.

The rubber wristband is lightweight, but a little simplistic in its design. Unlike a watch strap or even a bracelet, the Flex uses a plastic grey latch to poke to plastic prongs into a series of holes on the band.

Getting the Flex closed the first time can be challenging, but it does quickly become second nature. It's not as comfortable or effortless as the Jawbone Up, but it is functional.

The other noteworthy aspect of the Flex band is the clear bar that sits above the LED lights in the actual tracker unit. This band allows you to view your progress while wearing the band.

But after a few weeks, that clear band was already showing signs of wear and tear, with scuffs and scratches, despite a blatant lack of gruelling conditions.

Of course, Fitbit offers a range of bands in a variety of colours, which might be a nice way (although expensive) to work around this problem.

Power to the people

One of the most immediate joys of using the Fitbit Flex over the Jawbone Up is the inclusion of Bluetooth 4.0 wireless syncing. Instead of having to manually remove the device and plug it into your phone to sync, the FitBit will periodically wake up and connect to your phone, keeping your stats up to date.

The catch is that at the moment, wireless syncing to mobile still only works with a very limited number of devices. If you don't own an iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, Galaxy S3, Galaxy S4 or Galaxy Note 2, then you're out of luck on the phone front.

That said, it also syncs with a 5th Gen iPod Touch, 3rd and 4th Gen iPad and iPad mini and the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet.

While this is currently a major frustration for Android users, there is good news on that front with Google announcing Bluetooth Smart support as part of the OS, which should theoretically give Bluetooth 4.0 syncing support to a much wider range of devices.

In the meantime, the Flex does come with a small USB dongle for syncing to Mac or PC. It works well, but is nowhere near as elegant a solution as the mobile syncing.

One thing that does work in the Flex's favour is battery life. Despite the inclusion of Bluetooth for wireless syncing, the Flex still managed to almost match the Jawbone Up for longevity when worn side by side.

While the Up can be pushed to 9 days of use - depending on how active you are - the Flex tended to last seven or eight days.

Sure, that's a step down, but the convenience of wireless syncing makes it all worthwhile. Especially given it also offers some kind of real time indication of your daily progress in the form of five LED lights, while the Up has nothing.

The question of accuracy

Like a high-tech hipster, we tested the Flex by wearing it on our weaker arm, with the Jawbone Up right alongside it. Despite the proximity of the two devices, the results were quite varied.

On the sleep front, the Jawbone was easily the stronger device. Nights spent getting up and down to unsettled children were accurately broken up by the Up as times awake, while the Fitbit app claimed that sleep was just a little unsettled.

But when it came to step counting, the devices offered such varied results that you had to wonder how they could both claim to count the same thing.

Without fail, the Flex reported a significantly higher number of steps taken than the Up. On a day where we conquered our 10,000 step goal on the Flex, the Up would bring us back to earth by reporting only 8,000 steps taken.

To test which of the two was more accurate, we physically walked 200 steps, counting as we went. Neither device tracked the steps 100 per cent accurately, although the Flex did come up slightly closer to the mark.

How that extrapolates to larger numbers is unclear, but there's a real question mark over the accuracy of the wrist-mounted device, which is something we didn't encounter with the pocket-mounted One or Flex.

Steps to 'appiness

Fitbit's app is easy enough to come to grips with for even the most novice of users, but does let you drill down into more and more layers of information.

That said, it still struggles with food tracking thanks to a lack of internationally localised cuisines, although that is something that can be worked around thanks to the third party app ecosystem and services like MyFitnessPal.

Compared to the Jawbone, the social aspect with the FitBit app seems undercooked, which seems like a missed opportunity.

On the upside, Fitbit has just launched IFTTT compatibility, which will automate many functions and help improve the overall function of the device with very little effort.

Which goes back to the verdict we came to in our Jawbone Up review, that the Fitbit is a much more useful fitness tool, while the Up is a lifestyle tech accessory.

The Flex does start to veer to the accessory side of the fence with its design, but it's app keeps it firmly in the fitness tool category.

Verdict

The Fitbit ecosystem is a great way to start using technology to keep on top of your personal health. But the Flex is the weakest link in the product lineup, a device that tries to take the same technology as the One and place it in a much more convenient position on the body.

The catch is that it sacrifices too much. Gone is the satisfying feeling of accuracy, with high step counts seemingly too-easy to obtain thanks to inaccurate algorithms.

The wristband itself could also use a little more work. It's lightweight and comfortable, but looks more like the watchband on a kid's watch than a truly stylish piece of tech.

All that said though, Fitbit has shown the strengths of its platform. Wireless syncing is essential in this product lineup, and having a strong app ecosystem is a huge benefit to fitness trackers out there.

There's no doubt the second generation Flex will improve on all of the issues, but at this stage the One is still a much better alternative for your money.

Buy Flex Activity and Sleep Wristband - Amazon for £65.37