A portable tracker continuously detects body movements on a 3-axis accelerometer. The data is recorded as long as it is used and turned on, allowing the tracker to track if the person is walking forward, running fast, or even if they are still. A fitness tracker is a portable device used to track your physical activity and body stats. The device works by using a three-axis accelerometer to track its various movements in all directions.
The heart rate monitors used in most monitors work using a technology called pulse oximetry. Infrared light penetrates the skin and looks for subtle changes in blood color. These colors represent the oxygenation of the blood, which increases with each heartbeat. A fitness tracker will monitor activities such as walking, running, or even standing still and will store data about it.
However, both activity trackers do not count steps at slow walking speeds, and the consumer-rated activity tracker also discounts steps at high walking speeds. However, for this to work, a fitness tracker and its app must provide you with the necessary functions to achieve your goals. For example, a recent study measured weight loss in one group, half of which reported their diet and exercise and the other half used physical activity trackers. It's possible that the real secret to impressive weight loss is to be more energetic and active throughout the day and your fitness tracker has no way to effectively track this.
Philippe Kahn is co-founder and CEO of FullPower, developer of MotionX, and explained to us how the “signal processing” procedure within a fitness tracker cleans the raw data that is collected. Using a fitness tracker to monitor their progress gives patients concrete information and can allow them to start making changes to help improve their heart health. However, today's fitness trackers take advantage of the latest technology and sophisticated algorithms to track and estimate a wide variety of fitness measures, including how many calories are burned during exercise. Each movement will then be categorized into different activities, expanded and stored under the corresponding titles in the physical activity tracker app.
So, whether a fitness tracker is accurate or not depends on many factors, but there is one benefit that experts seem to agree on. Now that the fitness tracker app has processed the data from the portable tracker, you can view a report in the app. As you may already know, it's hard to get two fitness trackers to agree on how much activity you've been doing in a day or what your heart rate really is. This research and others like it has led some experts to suggest that fitness trackers might not work the same for everyone when it comes to losing weight and getting more exercise.
The amount of information you can see and how you can interact with the information will depend on the fitness tracker and the application.
