Apple Watch is the best wearable for monitoring fitness activity, according to a recent study by a US medical center. We are talking about a medical center in Cleveland, which states that the Apple Watch 2 offers the best monitoring of fitness activity among all wearables available on the market.
According to this study, done on 50 Americans, the results of an electrocardiogram done on the Fitbit Charge HR, Apple Watch, Mio Alpha, Basis Peak and a certified medical device, gave the Apple Watch the winner over the other wearables, the medical device having a rate 99% accuracy, as is normal.
The electrocardiogram monitored the activity of the heart when the subjects were relaxed, when they were walking at a normal pace and when they were jogging. Among all wearables, the Apple Watch recorded an accuracy rate of 90%, with only 9 percent behind the medical device normally used for such investigations.
Apple Watch: the best fitness tracker
After the Apple Watch, the rest of the fitness devices had an accuracy close to 80%, so far from what the Apple smartwatch offers. The interesting part is that the accuracy of these devices became worse and worse as the activity became more intense, this being a major problem.
"All of the wrist technologies are looking at blood flow. You need to have good contact between the photosensing cells; as a person is exercising more vigorously, there's more bounce, so you may lose some of that contact."
Unfortunately, as the activity becomes more intense, much of the direct contact between the skin and the wearable is lost, and here the Apple Watch had results far above those of the competitors. Defending themselves, those from Fitbit stated that their wearables are not intended to be medical devices, but also that their tests showed that the accuracy is 94% in similar tests, not just over 80%.
This study puts the Apple Watch in an extremely good light, especially since Apple heavily promotes it as a perfect gadget for fitness sessions. In this idea, people could be more easily convinced through medical tests to buy the Apple Watch and use it daily in fitness sessions.
