Health

The best smart scales

Whether you're looking to track your progress on the way to a weight goal, or you just simply want to be a little healthier, smart scales are useful tools. They're accurate, provide valuable data, and sync up with your smartphone so you can easily log and share your results.

There's a lot to consider when shopping for a smart scale including price, features, app compatibility, and customer ratings. To help you make the right decision, we've decided to put together a roundup of what we think are the best smart scales on the market right now.

Another Apple Watch Series 2 ad highlights closing Activity rings

Apple on Saturday released a new fitness-focused advertisement for Apple Watch Series 2 through its official YouTube channel. Titled “Catch, Swim, Play”, the commercial invites viewers to be more active and close their Activity rings. The latest 15-second video is a continuation of the previous mini-ad which also challenged viewers to close their Activity rings by moving more, having some exercise and standing up every 50 minutes for a bit.

The best exercise apps for Apple Watch

One of the predominant selling points of Apple Watch has always been the notion of having a chummy, yet inspiring fitness pal on your wrist. Since its inception, Apple Watch’s App Store has therefore given rise to a plethora of apps, offering new ways to conduct and manage physical exercise, ranging from running to yoga companions and everything lying in between.

Focussing on one particular branch in the field of exercise - strength training from the comfort of your home or gym - we have put some time aside to cut through the clutter and size up todays’ most prominent apps in the segment. If you are currently on the lookout for a personal trainer on your wrist, here are the best exercise apps for Apple Watch you will want to consider.

New fitness-focused Apple Watch ad challenges you to close your Activity rings

Apple's official YouTube channel was refreshed Saturday with a new advertisement for Apple Watch Series 2, challenging viewers to close their Activity rings by moving more, having some exercise and standing up every 50 minutes for a bit. The firm also shared three new ads for AirPods today, highlighting such features as Siri integration, seamless Bluetooth pairing on Apple gadgets via the W1 chip and more.

Apple Watch pinging wearers of new Activity achievement launching tomorrow

Apple recently challenged Apple Watch wearers in the United States to bag a special Thanksgiving Day fitness achievement and now it's doing the same with a brand new achievement launching tomorrow in the Activity app. As MacRumors notes, the notification is currently being pushed to Apple Watch owners.

It informs users of a new achievement, aptly titled Ring in The New Year, that challenges them to close all three Activity rings each day for an entire week in January in order to earn the new virtual medal.

Have any Health information at a glance with HealthFace for Apple Watch

The developer team at Crunchy Bagel has taken the wraps of HealthFace, a product designed to assist regulars of Apple’s Health app in monitoring their vital data on the fly. HealthFace is capable of reaching deep into your personal Health catalogue and displaying virtually any data point in form of a complication on your wrist.

For users constrained to keeping a close eye on their vitals, food intake or other health related parameters, the app sets out to become a quasi extension of Apple’s Health app.

Gamify your stand goals with Standland for iPhone and Apple Watch

Filling all three activity rings at the close of day has become a proper ritual and incentive for many Apple Watch owners. Out of the three, the one most likely to botch your hard-earned, months long streak is going to be the blue circle gauging standing times per day. The reasons for it are manyfold, but it often comes down to the simple fact that you cannot pencil in a time slot before or after work to quickly fill up the blue one, as it is contrived to be an achievement realized over the course of 12 hours per day.

Standland, an app for iPhone and Apple Watch users, has identified that pitfall of Apple’s activity tracker and plays on it nicely, offering more control, analytics and motivation to get users standing up at least once per hour. Japan’s iPhone App of the Year 2016 achieves this by serving up a creative blend of pet collection (resemblant of the old tamagotchi days) and fitness curation. Standland can track your standing hours right from your wrist or the inside of your pocket (for iPhone-only users) and has recently been updated for the festive season that is upon us. Follow our review below to find out about the role of in-app purchases and whether or not the stripped-down version of Standland is worth your time.

10 great gift ideas for fitness geeks

Welcome to the latest edition of iDB’s ongoing Gift Ideas series, where we provide curated roundups of some of our favorite products. Throughout the year we cover and test a number of devices and accessories, so we decided to use that experience to help those searching for the perfect present. Today’s roundup is focused on fitness geeks.

Map your runs accurately without iPhone in Runkeeper’s latest Apple Watch update

If you own an Apple Watch Series 2, you can leave your iPhone at home the next time you go on a run with Runkeeper as the app's just been updated with full support for the built-in GPS on the Apple Watch Series 2. Runkeeper's refreshed experience also includes new active metrics with charts for target pace and heart rate.

Runkeeper is a free download from the App Store.