Smart Health Walking Fit Watch

Once again, I got a great deal on a cool product from Costco. This time it was via email. Costco is sending out a flyer every day with Christmas deals on it. This was on one of them last week.

Actually, one of the folks in my aerobics class inspired it. He has a heart rate monitor and I thought it was a nice idea to see how much of a load any workout put on my heart. Then the offer from Costco came, and I bit.

The watch comes in either white or black

Although I am somewhat computer savvy, I don’t love messing with them. So, I had misgivings about buying a little watch. It advertises that besides telling time there is a step count, calorie burn, distance and, of course, the heart rate monitor. I did not look forward to punching in a lot of this button and that button the feed it my vital statistics. But, the listing said ‘NO SET-UP.’ Costco advertised it as $39.95, on special for $25. So I ordered it.

I have now owned it for two days and I like it a lot. The heart rate works very well. The watch has two contacts, the back of your wrist and a finger pad on the watch face. It takes only seconds to get a reading and so far they have been excellent. I had been using the iPhone monitor which requires taking your pulse for 15 seconds and multiplying by four. Slow and cumbersome, but no problem for biking. I couldn’t use it in an aerobics class.

The step count works well, too. Because it is in your watch it is based on arm swings. I like this because when I ride my bike, I can’t have a pedometer on me that measures steps because my legs are pedaling away. My arms aren’t swinging at all.

It says all day calorie burn, but since I use Lose It! I don’t need that nor use it, so I can’t comment on how it works. I know that the User Manual offers what they call ‘Advanced Set-Up’ which inputs your height, weight, age, etc. It was a little complicated, but not too bad.

I don’t need to paint with that fine a brush. I like that it gives me an estimate of how many steps I took during the day, keeps accurate time and allows me to monitor my heart rate at a moment’s notice. For 25 bucks that’s a win.

If you are considering starting a walking program, or would just like to get a reading on how far you walk on a given day, you might be able to use this. I feel strongly about the benefits of walking. Check out the walking tags at right for more details.

As an old fogie, I like analog watch faces, so I am not thrilled that this gives a digital readout of the time. But, that’s personal and may have no relevance to you.

As always your comments are invited.

Addendum:Posted December fifth. I have just come back from my aerobics class and used the heart rate monitor successfully several times. Fascinating to see how my heart rate varied through the class.

Tony