A study led by scientists at the University of Pittsburgh has found that people who wear fitness trackers may lose less weight than people who don't. As reported in JAMA, the study followed 471 overweight adults between 18 and 35 years old for two years. The group was put on a low-calorie diet for six months, instructed to increase their physical activity, and were counseled … [Read more...]
AmazFit’s New Tracker: Fitness as a Fine Art
AmazFit, manufacturer of the Equator and Moonbeam fitness trackers, is owned by Huami, one of the top wearable companies worldwide, and has sold 24 million fitness trackers in China through the company’s partnership with Xaiomi. Xaiomi’s Mi Band, originally sold only in China, is second only to Fitbit in global market share. The AmazFit Equator marks the company’s expansion … [Read more...]
“Pay As You Live” Health Insurance?
Someone's got the bright dystopian idea of using fitness tracker data to individualize health insurance rates. The "Pay as You Live" concept is based on "Pay as You Drive" insurance programs such as Progressive’s Snapshot, where you snap a dongle in your car to track how you drive; safer behaviors supposedly result in lower car insurance rates. Some members of the British … [Read more...]
Texas Med School Looks at Whether Trackers Can Actually Help Your Health
The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston has taken a hard look at 13 fitness trackers to determine if they're likely to actually help people improve their health. researchers found that most of them do, although none do everything they might to help their wearers past frequent problems. (Scroll down the linked page to read the full report.) The researchers found … [Read more...]