Elliot Weiler, the digital lifestyle editor at Consumer Reports, joined Cheddar News to break down the best wearable fitness trackers currently on the market. "Really, what we're looking at is some basic functions, which most of these do, things like step count and heart rate," he said.

Closing Bell

Breaking Down the Best Fitness Trackers 

the closing bell on cheddar news. Everyone consumers relying more and more on wearables, like finished trackers for their health goals these days. But as more products to flood the market, it's not always easy for consumers to choose which ones are right for them. Well, joining me now is Elliot Wyler Digital lifestyle editor at Consumer Reports. Elliot. Thanks for coming on the show. What are some of the top rated fitness trackers out there right now? Sure. I don't see anything on your wrist. So I'm guessing you're not aware of one of these? No, at least not, not on the Okay. Okay. Yeah. So we we have four recommendations here. These are performed at the top level in consumer reports testing. Really. What we're looking at is some basic functions which most of these do. Things like step count and heart rate. You see there the Fitbit inspired to. That's a Consumer reports best buy, meaning it performs well at a great price. One of the things that most of these have, the people who are familiar with smartwatches might envy is long battery life. In fact that Fitbit, their claims that it can last up to 10 days. There's someone that product list there that can last up to 15 days. I have Apple watch and I'm used to charging that literally every night because you know of all the the functionality built into a smartwatch think about fitness trackers is having much less functionality. So the battery isn't isn't on quite as much. So you do get a lot more wear time out of it. So I do have a Fitbit, I'm not wearing it today. I do like to wear the Fitbit looks. How does that one rank? Uh so that's not in our top four. But but I should say that most fitness trackers today really do quite well with those basic functions like step count and like heart rate monitoring and that's what a lot of people want them to do. You might notice also depending on the model of fitness tracker that that you have, you can increase the functionality if you buy into a paid subscription plan and naturally what a lot of these companies will want you to do the hardware generally speaking is anywhere from about 70 or $80 to about 100 and 50 maybe 100 and $80. So it's much less than smart watch cost, but it doesn't have that functionality unless you get one of their apps or a third party app. And those often come with sub subscription fees, surprise surprised, but it does give you more of that wellness field. So if you want to monitor things like your diet, things like your sleep and other kind of wellness activities, that's where those apps kind of play in there. So but again you may have to sort of upgrade the very basic fitness tracker may not allow you to do that, but as you go a little bit higher. Oftentimes you can add in an external app is your data safe if you use these various devices. Elliot. That's a very good question and a very fair question and the answer is you know, we don't always know right because some of these many of these that there is cloud storage, you know, you are agreeing to share that information and it's generally stored somewhere else, not on the device itself or perhaps on the device but also somewhere else. And when you think about the information here, you know, oftentimes when you're setting up your profile you are entering some very personal information there about your yourself certainly you know, your height, your weight, some of these things keep track of your blood pressure, some of them can monitor your E K G some of them can look at blood sugar if you have one of those apps. So there's a lot of personal data there and you're not just relying on the hardware company or their cloud based server, you are likely also opting into privacy policies and data sharing of those third party apps and there have been leaks. So you know this is the conundrum with with so many connected devices. Check the privacy policy, lock it down if you can oftentimes the hardware will let you limit what is shared but then when you limit it you may not get the full functionality so we see this often time many of our devices there may be a bit more sensitivity with these because we are talking about some personal health data that some people just might not be comfortable sharing. So the Apple watch series eight said to be one of the big debuts at this september 7th Apple event. Any indication Elliott as to what we might expect from the series eight and what Apple consumers want from a new iteration of the Apple watch. Sure. Well, you know, the, the early hints and these are just hints. We are reluctant to report on rumors that can consumer reports. We put everything through rigorous tests once it hits the market. However, you know, I read just like you do and it does look as though Apple is leading in even more on those health functions that we saw built into the, to the smartwatch seven, the series seven. Uh, so this is what we have seen in this wearable space for quite some time that that they're really trying to sell this wellness lifestyle with their built in apps. Apple has fitness programs that that, that you can buy into. The newer ones also connect to things like peloton apps. Mirror things like that. So look for much more of that. But again, that cost will be in addition to what you're paying for the watch one sort of inside pro tip here. If you do want an Apple watch but don't want to spend the money on that new series eight. Typically when Apple launches a new product, the older versions will go on sale sometimes for a 10 to 15% discount. So if you're okay with sort of last year's model? The Apple seven? The Apple watch seven might be a good choice for you, but just wait until the new one comes out, then you'll get the discount on the existing one. So perhaps even with a discount Elliott on the previous model, the series seven after the september 7th announcement, what prices are we talking here for? An Apple watch versus a Fitbit per se? Yeah, no, it's it's a great price and you are at a much higher price point where you're gonna be in the 300 to $400 range, depending on whether or not you have a cellular connection or just wifi. Some of these will certainly go on sale for black friday. We oftentimes see some deep deep discounts right on that day through cyber monday. So if you can wait even longer for a holiday gift, either for someone else or or from yourself, you can you can save there. But again, the fitness trackers are gonna be half that or maybe even less than that. So we have some great fitness trackers that will do all of those fitness functions for you from say anywhere from from about $80 on up to 100 and And $50 and you can really decide what do you want that to do. Right. Is it purely that hardware that does the step counting or measures your heart rate or do you want to do a little more motivation? Do you wanted to, you know, kind of send you messages of support maybe on your phone, maybe in your email encouraging you to try different things in your, in your diet. Maybe meditate if it senses that your breathing is a little bit heavy. I mean, there's a lot that these can do. But again, that typically does come from a higher price point that you'll find in a smart watch. And those are typically made by Apple or Samsung. You know, just my two cents is I do like some of these cheaper fitness trackers because the band two is smaller for someone with small risk versus a bulky or Apple watch. So Elliot, great to get your take. Thanks so much for coming on. That's Elliot Wyler digital lifestyle editor at Consumer Reports.