Fitting In: Increasing health awareness leads to wearables growth
“I want to stay fit as long as I live,” is the new age mantra. This increasing health awareness has also led to the growth of wearable technology that includes fitness trackers or health bands. According to IDC (International Data Corporation) the world-wide wearable market is growing at 16.9% year-on-year and fitness bands are leading the bandwagon. These bands have come a long way from being just a basic pedometer to becoming a smarter device that monitors your heart-rate, sleep pattern, and sometimes also being your personal coach. Still at their nascent stage in India, we can see a good amount of adoption, especially amongst the youth. For many fitness bands have gone mainstream just like smart-phones.
Until recently, there have been only few big players in the market like FitBit, Samsung, Goqii and Garmin, Xiaomi etc., but the growing traction is also seeing many new players making an entry.
Fastrack: Recently, Fastrack, a youth-oriented brand owned by Titan, unveiled its first fitness band in India, the Fastrack Reflex.
Targeted towards the younger generation, who might also be the first time users, this band comes with a set of features like step, distance and calorie counter, sleep monitor, call and text notification, and alarm. What’s missing is the heart rate sensor. We tried the band for few days and got fairly accurate results. It also has a sedentary reminder, in case you are being a couch potato for a long time.
A helpful feature is that it comes with a built-in USB charging port, saving the hassle of carrying a separate charger.
The black OLED display is housed in a rigid silicone strap that comes in three colour variants, purple, black and blue. In terms of design, Fastrack Reflex is not your sleek and slim looking band. If you are someone who likes the rugged, heavy look then it might suit you. The device is water resistant with battery life of 15 days.
Zeb-Fit: IT Peripherals maker, Zebronics too recently upgraded its wearable series by launching the Zeb-Fit 500. Apart from the usual features such as a pedometer, distance tracker, calorie counter, sleep monitor, etc., this tracker comes added with a heart-rate sensor in two modes, automatic and manual. The automatic mode keeps track of the heart rate in every five minutes and shows the results as a graph.
The Zeb-Fit 500 has two more interesting features that include a camera remote option, which clicks pictures from your smart-phone with a single touch on this fitness tracker and an anti-lost alert feature that helps one locate his/her phone.
The device sports a slim and sleek design with a 0.49-inch, removable OLED screen, which also display time, phone and SMS notification, and alarm. The 70mAh Li-polymer battery needs to be charged once in 15 days.
Both, Fastrack Reflex and Zeb-Fit 500 are compatible with iOS & Android. Priced at Rs 2,000, the Fastrack Reflex is for the budget conscious, whereas the Zeb-Fit 500 with price tag of Rs 3,499 is for those who want more features from their fitness band.
—IndiaTechOnline
