What Does Your Fitness Tracker Know About You?
They collect more than just steps now. Find out how well you know your fitness tracker — and how well your fitness tracker knows you.
If you haven’t yet hopped on the fitness tracker trend, you may want to consider doing so. Many fitness trackers can connect to your Android, too — a very cool function. Fitness trackers come in all shapes, sizes, and colors so that you can have one that best fits your personal style. They may sync perfectly with your smartphone, too, depending on the maker of your phone and fitness tracker. Fitness trackers have come a long way from just tracking steps.
Many different fashion brands and beyond now have their own fitness trackers and smart watches. Now that fitness trackers work like computers on your arm, what exactly do they track now? What is the future of fitness tracking? The answers to these questions are surprising and actually cool.
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First, fitness trackers track your motion. Sensors in your wristband track the speed, rotation angle, and intensity of your movements. So much data from fitness trackers can be interpreted from just this sensor system. Some more complicated ones also throw in altimeters, micro-measuring altitude changes as you mountain-climb or even just walk up stairs.
Future fitness tech will soon use optical tracking to measure blood pulses and skin pigments to increase precision. New fitness trackers even measure your average heart rate, the number of calories you burn, your average blood pressure, your REM sleep patterns, potential weight loss projections, and every other statistic you can think of. To calculate this data, however, your fitness tracker needs your age, sex, height, and weight, as well.
Next, fitness trackers interpret the data with complicated algorithms. These mathematical formulas are top-secret, since they are unique to the fitness tracker brands. Whatever the case, these algorithms turn all the movement data, altitude, and other stimuli into easy-to-understand statistics.
Using the fitness-tracking app on your Android, you can log in and see exactly what your fitness tracker knows about you. These statistics are organized and graph-oriented, and allow for ease of understanding. Experts say these statistics are still messy, but they certainly have come a long way since the start of modern fitness tracking. Fitness trackers can give advice on how to lose weight and improve your REM sleep, allowing wholesome changes to your day-to-day life. There is no need to fear that your fitness tracker is spying on you; it is not. However, fitness trackers do let you know how to better your life.