As predicted by CEO Stephane Marceau of OMsignal, makers of biometric smartwear, “We’re going to see technology integrated directly into our clothing, first through sensors, but eventually it will be weaved into the fibers.” Take the climate dress that flashes in a highly polluted environment, or the mood sweater that functions like a mood ring and reflects your state of mind by changing color.
In a recent Britton blog, “Connectivity Is Wearable Tech’s Strong Suit,” Steve Penhollow reported on what’s happening today in wearable tech and where it’s predicted to grow. Many of us at Britton are enjoying tracking these fascinating and game-changing tech advances that merge fitness gear and tools to boost fitness in highly functional and wearable forms.
Just the Nudge You Need?
Enough about who’s designing and downloading health and fitness apps. Let’s take a look at what’s available to us. With over 100,000 of these apps on the market, it may be prudent to narrow the list just a bit.
Let’s start by checking out what a few Britton diehards are saying about their favorite apps.
Britton’s Best Of
- Lose It! “A super user-friendly way to set weight-loss goals, stay motivated and track daily calories and exercise.”
- Fitbit Surge “Lets me compete against my friends (and my supercompetitive boyfriend), set new challenges and make up my fitness goal at the end of the day when I see how close I am to my goal marker.”
- MapMyRide “Shows me the best bike routes, anywhere I take my bike.”
- Fitbit Charge “Pushes me to take more steps during the day and tracks my sleep (or lack thereof).”
- My Fitness Pal (synced with Fitbit) “Helps me track my daily calorie intake.”
- Nike+ (on my old-school iPod nano) “Improves my running stamina when I get to listen to my favorite tunes.”
All in One, App in One
A recent boom in apps that sync up with — and combine and organize data from multiple app sources — fitness-tracking wearables like Jawbone and Fitbit is making happy campers out of weekend warriors and fitness fanatics. A few are winning over our affections too.
Nudge, launched in 2014, is a health-app-lover’s dream. It syncs up with seven other fitness apps and gathers a user’s comprehensive health and fitness stats into one data-loaded output.
After it crunches your scores gathered from each of the apps that it houses, it gives you a Nudge Factor — an index of fruit and veggie consumption, hydration, sleep duration and exercise data over 30 days — to help you close in on overall fitness goals.
Nudge has launched a new version, Nudge Coach, that serves up at-a-glance views of client data to help health and fitness practitioners put customized plans in place and allocate the right amount of time to each patient.
Map My Everything
If you view fitness as a lifestyle, and spend a fair amount of time on the road, the MapMyFitness app, recently acquired by sports-apparel giant Under Armour, could change your life.
An impressive suite of mobile apps that integrate with over 400 fitness tracking devices and wearables, the “Map My” dynasty includes MapMyRun, MapMyRide, MapMyWalk and MapMyHike, and features over 160 million running, cycling, walking and hiking routes across the globe.