Apple Watch: A Must Have

A prominent feature of the Apple Watch is its health and fitness tracking capability — the watch monitors your movement throughout the day, including workouts, and even reminds you to get moving. But is the device worth buying for its health features alone?

After wearing the Apple Watch for a few weeks (and after having previously tested out dozens of other fitness trackers), I found the Apple device works decently as a fitness tracker. It not only tracks your activity passively, but also reminds you to stand up and sends several updates each day to tell you how close you are to reaching your activity goal. It’s also the only smartwatch so far that specifically tracks the amount of time you spend standing, which seems apt, given the growing body of evidence showing the health hazards of too much sitting. Plus, you can use the watch to track your heart rate and view your workout stats, all from your wrist.

As recently as a year ago, the Apple Watch would have seemed like a pretty comprehensive fitness tracker. But now, an increasing number of fitness trackers — including the Fitbit Charge HR, Fitbit Surge and Jawbone Up3 — have added heart rate monitoring, and these devices cost less than the Apple Watch. And unlike the majority of fitness trackers, the Apple Watch lacks sleep tracking, which some people may want.