5 Gadgets to Get You in Shape

March 15, 2015

1. WRIST WEARABLES With the new year, arrived two new Fitbits, the wrist wearables that help you monitor your health and track your fitness progress. The Charge HR is an update to the existing Charge Fitbit, with sleep monitoring and continuous 24-hour heart rate monitoring, while the Surge is Fitbit’s first attempt at a smartwatch, with GPS, text messaging and music control. A new entry in the wrist game is this year’s CES Innovation Award winner, the InBody Band. It’s similar to the Fitbit, but adds analysis of your body composition – muscle vs. fat mass, calculated via body water – with its BIA (Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis) system. And who could forget the Apple Watch, loaded with features including the three-ring Activity graphic app that shows daily calories burned, minutes of activity and even how often you’ve stood up? The Apple Watch also offers customizable coaching options with goals and milestones, plus a heart rate sensor, GPS, accelerometer and progress tracker. Fitbit Surge - $250 and Fitbit Charge HR - $150 at fitbit.com; InBody Band - $179 at Kickstarter; Apple Watch starting at $349

2. SMART SOCKS Comfortable and sporty, but infused with textile pressure sensors, the Sensoria Smart Socks aim to help runners exercise more efficiently and avoid injury by informing them in real time when they’re running on their heels or the balls of their feet. Your foot’s "heat map" can be viewed to help maximize your foot-landing technique. The makers of the socks suggest that an increase in your step rate can reduce pressure on hip and knee joints, so the socks’ Cadence Monitoring helps you pace your steps per minute, enabling you to speed or slow as necessary. Sensoria Smart Socks/Anklet/Mobile App - $199 at sensoriafitness.com

3. INTERACTIVE MATS If yoga’s more your speed, there’s an innovation for you, too: the SmartMat, which also syncs with an app of its own and works in real time. It looks and feels like a regular, durable yoga mat (it even rolls up just like you’d expect), but the insides are made of a conductive grid and piezoresistive layer that works for people weighing up to 300 pounds. Once you calibrate the mat with your stats (height, gender, etc.), it’ll help you form a baseline of yoga poses and will then use those to provide feedback – via visual cues and optional audio – to adjust and refine your yoga practice. This virtual yoga instructor can detect when you’re out of alignment and will help you correct your poses. SmartMat pre-order - $297 (ships in July 2015), full price $477 at smartmat.com

4. GOAL BOOSTERS While some people say the exercise itself is the reward, some of us need a little more motivation. The right app can help you stay entertained, which means you’ll exercise longer. Plenty of available apps track the miles you’ve run, but the new generation of fitness apps "gameify" your workout to make it more fun. Zombies! Run is one of the best of these, an immersive adventure that interval trains you without you even noticing as you follow along as part of an apocalyptic audio story, getting chased by zombies or running to find supplies. Fleetly lets exercisers earn in-app medals by completing workout challenges like 2015 in 2015 or The Spartacus. The new Atari Fit app encourages users to complete more than 150 custom exercise routines, earning points that allow them to unlock classic Atari games like Centipede, Super Breakout and more. Zombies! Run - $3.99 at zombiesrungame.com; Fleetly- free at fleetly.com; Atari Fit -price TBA, arriving spring 2015 at atarifit.com

5. WEIGHT MANAGERS After you’ve put in all this work, of course you’ll want concrete proof of the results, but being healthy is about more than just the number of pounds on the scale. The new QardioBase smart scale syncs to your phone or tablet to acquire and share the info you want, and also the info you need. With automatic recognition, it measures your BMI, body fat, and muscle, water and bone composition. Is that just water weight or do you weigh more because you’ve gained muscle mass? This scale gives you the answer via a sleek white disc that compliments any style décor. If you’re having a tough week and feeling a little sensitive about your weight, it also offers the Expressive Feedback option, which indicates how you’re doing without showing you any numbers at all, only little faces. QardioBase wireless smart scale - $150 at getqardio.com