fbpx

How your Android phone can track your fitness

Keeping fit can be tricky, but having a motivational tool available in your pocket sure makes it easier. Android is found on all manner of phones and Google, along with all the big name manufacturers have plnety of options to help keep you fit.

Not so long ago, Google introduced Google Fit, a set of services and apps that allow your Android phone to keep track of your movements and help you keep on top of your fitness. Google Fit is very similar to Apple’s HealthKit app, in that it can collect data from many sources – such as your phones’s sensors, fitness bands and watches as well as a variety of apps.

To really take advantage of Google fit, you should start off by making sure you get a phone that has things such as a accelerometer, gyroscope and compass as all these sensors will allow the app to collect your movement data. Right now any top end Android phone as well as many mid-range handsets should easily satisfy this need. Google Fit presents you information in the form of a circle – the more activity you do the more full the circle will become, and you can set yourself goals to decide at what point the circle becomes full.

Google’s not the only kid on this block though. Samsung have a comprehensive suite of fitness tools built in to their handsets, and if you happen to have the likes of a Galaxy S5 or Galaxy S6 then you also have a heart rate sensor built in to the back of your phone too. With the S Health app you can set yourself fitness and health goals, and your phone becomes akin to being a personal coach.

You’ll get reminded about getting up keeping active, and you can also easily check progress through their intuitive charts that can keep a track of movement, nutrition and sleep. You can also add data such as weight, and then use the heart rate monitor to give you a much clearer picture of where you’re up to and where you’re going in terms of your overall health.

If you are not a Samsung person, then HTC and Sony won’t disappoint either as both companies have apps designed to work with their handsets to help you keep on top of your fitness. With Sony you’ll get Lifelog, an easy to use tracker than can use all the sensors in your phone as well as data you plug in. At the end of the day you can look back at the amount of steps taken, as well as the amount of time you were walking, running cycling and more.

HTC’s Fun Fit app attempts to make keeping track of your fitness a bit more fun by adding a large social element to it. You choose an avatar and then simply leave the app running throughout the day. You can add friends and compare how well each of you have performed each day. Overall these apps aren’t quite as comprehensive as the Samsung ones, and do miss out on the heart rate tracking, but provide you all the basics you’ll need to keep up with your movement.

 


Don’t have an Andriod Phone? Check out our articles about iPhone and Windows phones instead. 

Search our site for more of the content you love...

We hope you enjoyed this blog, read more of our fitness blogs here