Whether you strive to become an ace athlete, crack craftsman, or professional pilot, there’s wealth of tech out there promising to help you reach your goals. But do these devices deliver? We figured there’s no better way to find out than to put a pro in a room full of gadgets made for their field, set them loose, and watch what happens.
Welcome to Digital Trends’ new series, Pro:Test.
For our first installment, we reached out to Beastmode himself, Marshawn Lynch, to find out whether fitness watches can really coach a gym rat to full-on pro athlete status. Except, Beastmode doesn’t work out in the conventional sense. So, Marshawn did us a solid and called up his cousin, Defensive Rookie of the Year and Kansas City Chiefs Cornerback Marcus Peters, to strap on three top-rated fitness watches and give them the workout of a lifetime.
We chose three distinctly different fitness watches for our test, each with its own set of features, metrics, and feedback style.
You’ll have to watch our video to find out which of the fitness watches Marcus and Marshawn liked best, but truth be told, none of them were able to track Marcus’ hard-core workout very well. Some of his steps were too fast and furious to count, and because Marcus’ heart rate remained so steady, his calorie burn metrics were likely skewed as well. It would have helped, too, if the workout covered some sort of distance so GPS could have come into play.
Ultimately, while the Fitbit Blaze was the most practical and fun to use of the three, the Garmin Vivoactive HR was probably the most accurate, and would be the best choice for most advanced athletes. With that said, both the Fitbit Blaze and Polar A360 will be much more desirable for novice athletes and adventurers.
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