The medicines you take contain a soup of active and inactive ingredients.

Active ingredients are the ones that provide a therapeutic benefit, while inactive ingredients are just that — inactive — meaning they don't react in the body and are instead there to enhance the properties of the medication itself, such as its taste, appearance and ability to be absorbed by the body. [7 Bizarre Drug Side Effects]

But it turns out that inactive ingredients may not be as, well, inactive as we think: A new study finds that, in some patients, inactive ingredients can trigger allergic reactions or other symptoms of food intolerance.

The study was published today (March 13) in the journal Science Translational Medicine. (Of note, three of the study authors hold a patent on a system that examines the burden of inactive ingredients in pills.)

The researchers began looking into inactive ingredients after senior study author Dr. Giovanni Traverso, an assistant professor in MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering and a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, treated a patient with celiac disease who had a reaction to a medication that contained inactive ingredients derived from wheat products.

Traverso and his team started by looking through the medical literature for reports of patients reacting to inactive ingredients.The researchers found some studies on patients who had allergic reactions to inactive ingredients such as lactose — present in about 45 percent of pills — as well as certain kinds of chemical dyes.

But they didn't find any studies looking at whether certain inactive ingredients may cause less extreme, but likely more common symptoms of food intolerance, such as bloating or stomach aches.

The researchers also dug into data about inactive ingredients themselves, using a database run by the National Library of Medicine. They found that active ingredients make up, on average, just over a quarter (29 percent) of the weight of an oral pill; the remaining 71 percent of the weight comes from inactive ingredients. On average, a pill contains more than eight different inactive ingredients but can contain up to 35, they reported.

But far than 35 inactive ingredients are available. In fact, drug companies have around 1,000 inactive ingredients to choose from when manufacturing pills, the researchers found. Of these ingredients, 38 of them, such as peanut oil, lactose and some dyes, are known allergens. But though most inactive ingredients are usually tested to see if they're toxic — and though they're found to not have a major effect on most of the population — these toxicology tests may miss certain small side effects in some people, according to the report.

The study found that 93 percent of pills contain at least one of the 38 allergens and that almost all of them contain substances that could be problematic for people with certain food intolerances, such as gluten or sugar.

Still, not all experts are convinced that inactive ingredients are particularly problematic.

Dr. John Kelso, an allergist and immunologist at Scripps Health in San Diego, California who wasn't involved in the study, doesn't see a cause for concern.

"Such reactions are quite rare," he said. "In most cases, the amount of the food protein [present] in the medication would not be sufficient to trigger an allergic reaction."

For example, the amount of egg protein that's present in flu shots is not enough to trigger reactions even in people with severe egg allergies allergic to eggs, Kelso told Live Science. Indeed, the the American Academy of Pediatrics revised recommendations for flu shots containing eggs, saying that it's no longer necessary to ask people if they are allergic to eggs before giving them the flu vaccine, because the risk is so minimal, he said.

As such, "for the vast majority of patients with [a] food allergy, there is no reason for them to avoid medications with [inactive ingredients] derived from the foods to which they are allergic," Kelso said.

He did note, however, one inactive ingredient in that may cause problems for people with allergies: gelatin. That's because some medications and vaccines are either administered intravenously or injected can contain larger amounts of gelatin, and can trigger allergy reactions. Therefore, these drugs should be avoided for people with gelatin allergies, but Kelso added that "even most of these patients tolerate [taking] gelatin in capsule form."

• Weight Loss Drugs: Pros and Cons of 5 Approved Prescriptions
• 11 Surprising Facts About Placebos
• Aspirin to Zoloft: How 4 Common Medicines Work

Originally published on Live Science.

Parents who fear their kids are spending too much time in front of screens now have more reason for concern.

New research funded by the National Institutes of Health found brain changes among kids using screens more than seven hours a day and lower cognitive skills among those using screens more than two hours a day.

When studies find links between screen time and negative outcomes, some have argued that this is just the latest moral panic over technology.

After all, didn't the parents of baby boomers and Gen Xers worry that their kids were watching too much TV or talking on the phone too much? Those kids turned out OK, right?

So how are portable electronic devices, the chosen technology of today's kids and teens — a generation I call "Gen" — any different?

New research I've conducted on the relationship between portable device use and sleep provides some answers.

Everywhere, all the time

It almost goes without saying that today's portable devices — including smartphones and tablets — are fundamentally different than the living room television sets and rotary phones of the past.

Since researchers have been tracking TV watching habits, the average U.S. teen has never spent more than two-and-a-half hours a day watching TV. Yet as of 2016, the average teen spent about six hours a day immersed in digital media — more than twice as much time.

This large amount of time spent using digital media is enough to crowd out time once spent on other activities, such as interacting with friends face to face, reading or going out.

And unlike the telephone, digital media apps are designed to hook you. As former Silicon Valley executive Tristan Harris said of smartphone apps, "Your telephone in the 1970s didn't have a thousand engineers … updating the way your telephone worked every day to be more and more persuasive."

Second, unlike TV or landline phones, portable devices can be carried everywhere: to school, where teachers say they are a near-constant distraction, and into social situations, where a conversation can instantly be upended by reaching for a buzzing phone. (There's even a word for this: phubbing, a portmanteau of "phone" and "snubbing.")

Sure enough, people have reported enjoying a restaurant dinner with friends less when their phones were available, compared to when they weren't.

The sleep factor

Across many studies, kids and teens who spend more time with screens — including both TV and portable devices — also sleep less.

That could be because they spend so much time engaged with their devices that it's coming at the expense of sleep. But there's also a physiological reason: The blue light emitted by electronic screens tricks our brains into thinking it's still daytime, and then we don't produce enough of the sleep hormone melatonin to fall asleep quickly and get high-quality sleep.

Once again, some might argue that TV is just as bad: After all, it also takes up time and emits blue light.

But in a new paper, my co-authors and I decided to parse the two. We studied links between sleep and TV watching as well as links between sleep and portable device use. Then we compared the results.

Drawing from a large survey of parents administered by the U.S. Census Bureau, we found that 2- to 10-year-olds who spent four or more hours a day on portable electronic devices — versus no time — were twice as likely to be significantly sleep deprived. TV time was also connected to less sleep, but not as strongly or consistently.

Among teens ages 14 to 17, those who spent four or more hours a day on portable electronic devices – versus no time – were 44 percent more likely to not sleep enough. However, once portable device time was statistically controlled, watching TV or playing video games on a console had little link to sleep time.

Why would portable devices be more strongly associated with losing sleep?

For one thing, TV is simply not as psychologically stimulating as a portable device like a smartphone, which, unlike a TV, doesn't exist to simply consume media. Smartphones have also become a huge part of social life, whether it's texting with friends or interacting with them on social media.

And unlike TV, smartphones and tablets can be silently carried into the bedroom or even the bed, resulting in some teens using them throughout the night – what some call "vamping."

That might explain why sleep deprivation among teens spiked after 2012 – just as smartphone use became common.

The lesser of two evils?

To be clear, we did find that watching many hours of TV was associated with less sleep, especially among elementary-school age children. Watching over three hours a day of TV is also associated with depression — though more weakly than portable device use.

So parents were right to worry about kids watching too much TV in the 1970s and 1980s. But their worries might not have been as justified as today's parents' concerns about smartphones.

So what is a parent — or anyone who wants to sleep well — to do?

First, it's best for smartphones and tablets to stay out of the bedroom after "lights-out" time. Nor is it a great idea to use the devices within an hour of bedtime, as their blue light influences the brain's ability to produce melatonin. Finally, as a general rule, two hours a day or less spent on portable devices is a good guideline. These rules apply to parents, too – not only kids.

Just don't binge-watch TV instead.

Jean Twenge, Professor of Psychology, San Diego State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google +. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Live Science is bringing our readers a monthly series on personal health goals. We'll give you tips and tricks for reaching those goals, based on the advice we've gathered from the countless health experts we've interviewed. Each month, we'll focus on a different goal, and the goal for August is "Get Better Sleep." Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to connect with other readers who are working toward these goals.

Jump to: January — Lose Weight | February — Eat Healthy | March — Start Exercising | April — Cope with Allergies | May — Protect Yourself from Sun and Heat | June — Stay in Shape Outdoors | July — Get Gutsy About Gut Health

Falling asleep — sounds simple, right? But for people who struggle to fall asleep or stay asleep through the night, or for those who can't stop hitting the snooze button in the morning, getting good sleep can feel pretty complicated. On this page, Live Science brings you the science behind sleeping more soundly. We've rounded up our best reporting, from bedtime tips to the latest studies on the science of sleep, to help you get the shut-eye you need.

Why sleep?

For starters, why do we even need to sleep in the first place? The answer is a bit murkier than you simply sleep because you feel tired. In fact, why people need sleep remains somewhat of an unsolved mystery in science. But research has shed some light on the reason for our slumbers, including that sleep may help the brain cleanse itself of toxins at night.

More info:

• Why Do We Sleep?
• A Night's Sleep Cleans Brain of Harmful Toxins
• The Longest Night: Do We Sleep Better on the Solstice?

And although the exact reason for sleep remains unknown, scientists do know a bit (though not everything) about what goes on while a person sleeps. Experts break down sleep into several stages, known as the stages of sleep. Here's what goes on in each of them:

• REM vs. Non-REM Sleep: The Stages of Sleep

Falling asleep and staying asleep

Some scientists compare the process of falling asleep to a computer shutting down: The brain goes through a series of steps, "shutting down" certain areas as sleep sets in. But what can help a person fall asleep, and then stay asleep? And how much sleep do you actually need?

More info:

• How Do We Fall Asleep?  
• How Much Sleep Should You Get? New Recommendations Released
• How Much Sleep Does Your School-Age Child Need?
• Busting the 8-Hour Sleep Myth: Why You Should Wake Up in the Night
• How Long You Sleep May Be in Your Genes  
• Why Does the Sound of Water Help You Sleep?                     
• 'Super Sleepers' May Actually Be Sleep Deprived
• 5 Surprising Sleep Discoveries  

All about insomnia

More than 1 in 4 Americans say they don't get enough sleep from time to time, and nearly 1 in 10 say they have chronic insomnia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But what, exactly, does it mean to have insomnia? People with insomnia may have trouble falling asleep at night, or they may have trouble staying asleep, the CDC says. Some people with insomnia may wake up too early in the morning, and they may be unable to fall back to sleep.

More info:

• Insomnia: Symptoms, Treatment & Prevention  
• 7 Strange Facts About Insomnia
• Brain Scans May Reveal How People with Insomnia May Be Wired Differently
• Procrastinators Beware: Insomnia Linked with Putting Things Off
• Insomnia Can Worsen Chronic Pain Conditions 
• Log On, Sleep Better? Online Therapy for Insomnia Shows Promise   

Sleep apnea

Sleep apnea is another common sleep disorder — but people don't always know they have it, because the condition often goes undiagnosed, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). People with sleep apnea experience short pauses in their breathing during sleep, often because the breathing tube closes or becomes blocked. These pauses can last a few seconds to a few minutes and typically end with a loud snoring or gasping sound. Although the condition sounds frightening, many people with it don't realize they have it, simply because they continue to sleep through the night. But sleep apnea takes a toll: The condition causes people to shift out of deep, restorative sleep and into light sleep, the NHLBI says.

More info:

• Sleep Apnea: Symptoms, Causes and Treatments
• Sleep Apnea Linked with Silent Strokes
• How I Can Tell If I Have Sleep Apnea?
• Kids with Sleep Apnea More Likely to Develop Behavioral Problems
• Breathing Problems During Sleep Linked with Cancer

How sleep affects your health

Not getting enough sleep can be a drag if it happens once in a while, but if you miss out on it regularly, the effects can build up and take a serious toll on your health. Recent research has shown that sleep deprivation can increase a person's risk of diseases such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

More info:

• Why Sleep Is So Important for People at Risk for Heart Disease
• The Spooky Effects of Sleep Deprivation
• Lack of Sleep May Boost Diabetes Risk
• Getting Too Little Sleep Raises Hunger Levels

Benefits of a good night's rest

On the other hand, getting a good night's rest can do wonders for your health, from improving your mood and appearance to even giving the brain a chance to reset its neural networks to prepare for the day ahead. Here's the latest on the benefits of sleep:

• Sleeping Beauty: Science Proves Beauty Rest Is Real
• Sleeping Shrinks the Brain, and That's a Good Thing
• Hit the Sack! People Who Get a Good Night's Sleep Are Happier
• Sleep Is Important to Weight Loss, Research Suggests
• After a Good Night's Sleep, Brain Cells Are Ready to Learn

Seriously — get your tech out of the bedroom

Are smartphones, tablets and laptops ruining your sleep? A slew of science studies point to a pretty clear "yes." Certain types of light from these devices can trick the brain into thinking it's daytime, suppressing the brain's release of the sleep hormone melatonin. Experts agree: The best way to put a stop to this particular sleep obstacle is to simply keep your tech devices out of the bedroom.

More info:

• How Blue LEDs Affect Sleep
• More Science Says Smartphones Spoil Sleep
• For Teens, Falling Asleep Gets Harder with More Screen Time
• Touch Screens May Be Ruining Toddlers' Sleep
• Apple's 'Night Shift' Mode: How Smartphones Disrupt Sleep

Strange sleep conditions

For some people, sleep troubles can stem from conditions beyond insomnia and sleep apnea. These sleep conditions can sound strange and frightening — and, in some cases, such as sleep paralysis or "exploding head syndrome," they are. Here's the lowdown on a few of the stranger things that can go wrong during sleep.

More info:

• The Demon on Your Chest and Other Terrifying Tales of Sleep Paralysis
• Hearing Crashes, Seeing Light: Life with Exploding Head Syndrome
• Should You Wake Up a Sleepwalker?
• Why Do People Talk in Their Sleep?
• Strange Sleep Disorder Makes People Appear 'Totally Drunk'
• Top 11 Spooky Sleep Disorders

Originally published on Live Science.

If you take 10,000 steps a day, you're well ahead of the average person on Earth, who takes only about 5,000 steps a day, according to a new study that used smartphone data to track step counts from around the world.

The study analyzed anonymous smartphone data from more than 700,000 people in 111 countries or territories. All the participants used the smartphone app Argus, which tracks physical activity (including step counts) using the phone's accelerometer. Users' steps were tracked for 95 days, on average. (Most of the study's analysis relied on data from the 46 countries and territories that had at least 1,000 users each.)

Overall, the average user took 4,961 steps per day. Step counts were highest in Hong Kong, where people took an average of 6,880 steps a day, followed by China, with 6,189 steps, and Ukraine, with 6,107 steps. The countries with the fewest average daily steps were Malaysia, with 3,963 steps; Saudi Arabia, with 3,807 steps; and Indonesia, with 3,513 steps.

Out of the 46 countries with at least 1,000 users, the United States ranked 30th, with an average daily step count of 4,774. [4 Easy Ways to Get More Exercise]

Interestingly, the researchers found that a country's average step count wasn't the best predictor of that nation's obesity rate. Instead, a factor the researchers called "activity inequality" turned out to be more important. This is the difference between the most and least active people in a country (similar to "income inequality," which is the difference between the richest and poorest people). A country's level of activity inequality was strongly tied to its obesity rate, the researchers found.

"If you think about some people in a country as 'activity rich' and others as 'activity poor,' the size of the gap between them is a strong indicator of obesity levels in that society," Scott Delp, a professor of bioengineering at Stanford University and a co-author of the study, said in a statement.

For example, Sweden had one of the smallest gaps between the most and least active people, and also has one of the lowest obesity rates. In contrast, the United States had a large gap between the most and least activity people (it was fourth from the bottom in overall activity inequality), and also has a relatively high obesity rate.

The researchers additionally found that places that are more "walkable" (i.e., where it's easier to get around on foot) tend to have lower levels of activity inequality.

"In cities that are more walkable, everyone tends to take more daily steps, whether male or female, young or old, [of] healthy weight or obese," said study co-author Jennifer Hicks, the director of data science for the Mobilize Center at Stanford. This finding shows the importance of the "built environment" (or the human-made surroundings where people live and work) in influencing activity levels and health, the researchers said.

The study was published online July 10 in the journal Nature.

Original article on Live Science.

iPhone Turns 10

Ten years ago, the original iPhone hit stores in the U.S. for the first time and revolutionized how companies designed and built cellphones.

When then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage at the Macworld Conference & Expo in January 2007, he announced that the company would be releasing a wide-screen iPod with touch controls, a next-generation mobile phone and a breakthrough internet device.

It turned out he wasn't launching three devices, but one. Now, a decade later, here are some of the technologies that the original iPhone and its successors have made must-haves for all modern smartphones.

Multi-touch screens

The iPhone's most obvious contribution was to ditch the physical keyboard.

Prior to 2007, phones fell into two main camps: feature phones with a numeric keypad or "smartphones" like the Blackberry with a full QWERTY keyboard. The latter sometimes came with a touchscreen but they required a stylus to operate and weren't really suitable for typing.

The iPhone instead featured a 3.5-inch (9 centimeters) LCD screen with multi-touch technology. Not only did this get rid of the stylus in favor of what Jobs said was the ultimate pointing device — our finger — it enabled "smart" functions like pinch-to-zoom and physics-based interaction that presented on-screen elements as real objects with weight, size and intuitive responses.

More importantly, it allowed the screen to cover the entire face of the phone, which was the basis of many of the devices' other innovations.

Google Maps

It may seem strange to list Google Maps as an innovation made popular by the iPhone, but Steve Jobs was central in bringing Google's mapping smarts to mobile devices when he asked Google to build an app for the iPhone.

It was the first smartphone to feature the app, and even though the original iPhone didn't feature GPS, this was rectified in later versions, allowing Google to add the turn-by-turn satellite navigation capability that is now standard in smartphones.

The App Store

With only a screen to interact with, the iPhone suddenly made developing good software an imperative.

Initially, this came down to Apple's army of engineers, but in 2008, to coincide with the launch of the iPhone 3G, the company unveiled the App Store. While third-party app stores did exist prior to this, the introduction of Apple's offering was what really spurred the app economy that exists today.

Mobile gaming is now a $100 billion industry and most companies now have their own app. There are even multinational giants like Uber, Snap and Tinder whose entire existence can be traced back to the revolution started by the iPhone.

Fingerprint scanners

As with many of the things Apple has popularized in smartphones, the company wasn't the first to integrate a fingerprint scanner in its devices.

But with the introduction of Touch ID in the iPhone 5S, it overcame issues with cost, size, reliability and security that had held back the technology. The innovative tech also introduced compelling uses for the devices, such as using it to unlock the phone or to make payments.

It wasn't long before competitors started to follow suit with their high-end devices.

Gorilla Glass

Making the screen such a prominent and integral aspect of the smartphone did have one obvious downside that most users experienced at some point: the smashed screen.

Apple foresaw this flaw and did their best to mitigate it by tapping the expertise of Corning. This leading American glass and ceramics company had been experimenting with toughened glasses aimed at consumer electronics since 2005, but when Apple asked them to provide a thin, toughened glass for their iPhone screens, Gorilla Glass was born. The crack- and scratch-resistant glass is now the gold standard for mobile devices.

Mobile Internet

While mobile Internet had been around for some time before the iPhone was released, the experience was pretty limited.

Most phones at the time featured WAP browsers that presented a stripped-down version of the Web, but the iPhone's MobileSafari tried to bring the full experience of the Internet to what was, at the time, a comparatively large phone screen.

The original iPhone was actually uncharacteristically behind the curve because it didn't support 3G technology, but this was rectified the following year, and it didn't stop the device from being a trendsetter. The introduction of web-enabled third-party apps in later iPhone editions also gave rise to the current environment of always-connected social, news and shopping networks.

Virtual assistants

With the advent of Amazon's Alexa, Google's Assistant and Microsoft's Cortana, artificial intelligence-powered virtual assistants have become commonplace.

But when Apple acquired the company that made Siri, SRI International, in 2010 and then made the technology proprietary the next year, the concept was revolutionary. Initially, the service had limitations, such as how it struggled with certain accents and had little flexibility on what kinds of commands it could understand, but it wasn't long before other mobile firms were trying to play catch up.

This is one case, however, where Apple seems to have let a leading position slide. Other companies like Google and Amazon, who have focused more heavily on AI technology, seem to have taken Apple's idea and run with it, producing virtual assistants that are much more advanced than Siri.

All-in-one device

The iPhone put a mobile computer in everyone's pocket and then let them decide what they wanted to do with it.

Prior to the iPhone's release, the cellphone market was highly segmented. In particular, smartphones were largely seen as business-oriented devices designed to allow users to access enterprise email and calendar applications on the go. Feature phones, on the other hand, had cameras and music players and were aimed at everyday users.

Apple instead released a single model that could switch seamlessly between roles. The phone came with a camera and Apple's iTunes music player, but also included calendar and email applications that enabled users to carry out most of the productivity tasks that traditional smartphones were designed for. 

Accelerometer

In its bid to make the iPhone experience as seamless as possible, Apple included an accelerometer that enabled the phone to know when it was turned sideways so that it could automatically rotate the screen.

Since then, the sensor has become a must-have for smartphones and has spurred a host of innovative new uses for the technology. There are now hundreds of apps built specifically to take advantage of this feature, from digital spirit levels to mobile racing games that use the phone as a steering wheel.

No more headphone jack

Probably Apple's most controversial and criticized innovation was its decision to remove the headphone jack from the iPhone 7.

Apple claimed the move was all about getting rid of a century-old technology that was holding back the inexorable march toward ever-slimmer devices in favor of the wireless future. Others pointed out it could have been a cynical move to force customers to buy expensive Bluetooth headphones from Apple or its subsidiary Beats, or opt to pay for an inexplicably expensive adapter.

Either way, the move hasn't stopped other smartphone makers from jumping on the Apple bandwagon, and HTC, Motorola and LeEco are all following suit despite considerable user backlash.

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Sometime around 2011 or 2012, it suddenly became very easy to predict what people would be doing in public places: Most would be looking down at their phones.

For years, mobile phones weren't much to look at. The screens were small, and users needed to press the same key several times to type a single letter in a text. Then, 10 years ago – on June 29, 2007 – Apple released the first iPhone.

"Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything," former Apple, Inc. CEO Steve Jobs said during the iPhone's introductory news conference.

Within six years, the majority of Americans owned a smartphone – embracing the new technology perhaps faster than any other previous technology had been adopted.

Today, smartphones seem indispensable. They connect us to the internet, give us directions, allow us to quickly fire off texts and – as I discovered one day in spring 2009 – can even help you find the last hotel room in Phoenix when your plane is grounded by a dust storm.

Yet research has shown that this convenience may be coming at a cost. We seem to be addicted to our phones; as a psychology researcher, I have read study after study concluding that our mental health and relationships may be suffering. Meanwhile, the first generation of kids to grow up with smartphones is now reaching adulthood, and we're only beginning to see the adverse effects.

Sucked in

In the beginning, sociologist Sherry Turkle explained, smartphone users would huddle together, sharing what was on their phones.

"As time has gone on, there's been less of that and more of what I call the alone together phenomenon. It has turned out to be an isolating technology," she said in the 2015 documentary "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine." "It's a dream machine and you become fascinated by the world you can find on these screens."

This is the new normal: Instead of calling someone, you text them. Instead of getting together for dinner with friends to tell them about your recent vacation, you post the pictures to Facebook. It's convenient, but it cuts out some of the face-to-face interactions that, as social animals, we crave.

More and more studies suggest that electronic communication – unlike the face-to-face interaction it may replace – has negative consequences for mental health. One study asked college students to report on their mood five times a day. The more they had used Facebook, the less happy they were. However, feeling unhappy didn't lead to more Facebook use, which suggests that Facebook was causing unhappiness, not vice versa.

Another study examined the impact of smartphones on relationships. People whose partners were more frequently distracted by their phones were less satisfied with their relationships, and – perhaps as a result – were more likely to feel depressed.

Nevertheless, we can't stop staring at our phones. In his book "Irresistible," marketing professor Adam Alter makes a convincing case that social media and electronic communication are addictive, involving the same brain pathways as drug addiction. In one study, frequent smartphone users asked to put their phones face down on the table grew increasingly anxious the more time passed. They couldn't stand not looking at their phones for just a few minutes.

iGen: The smartphone generation

The rapid market saturation of smartphones produced a noticeable generational break between those born in the 1980s and early 1990s (called millennials) and those born in 1995 and later (called iGen or GenZ). iGen is the first generation to spend their entire adolescence with smartphones.

Although iGen displays many positive characteristics such as lower alcohol use and more limited teen sexuality, the trends in their mental health are more concerning. In the American Freshman Survey, the percentage of entering college students who said they "felt depressed" in the last year doubled between 2009 and 2016. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a sharp increase in the teen suicide rate over the same time period when smartphones became common. The pattern is certainly suspicious, but at the moment it's difficult to tell whether these trends are caused by smartphones or something else. (It's a question I'm trying to answer with my current research.)

Many also wonder if staring at screens will negatively impact adolescents' budding social skills. At least one study suggests it will. Sixth graders who attended a screen-free camp for just five days improved their skills at reading emotions on others' faces significantly more than those who spent those five days with their normal high level of screen use. Like anything else, social skills get better with practice. If iGen gets less practice, their social skills may suffer.

Smartphones are a tool, and like most tools, they can be used in positive ways or negative ones. In moderation, smartphones are a convenient – even crucial – technology.

Yet a different picture has also emerged over the past decade: Interacting with people face to face usually makes us happy. Electronic communication often doesn't.

Jean Twenge, Professor of Psychology, San Diego State University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

College students who are glued to their devices may show early signs of developing the painful condition carpal tunnel syndrome, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that young adults who spent an average of 9 hours a day using mobile phones, tablets, gaming consoles and computers reported more pain in their wrists and hands than their peers who spent less time each day using electronic devices. The findings were published online Wednesday (June 21) in the journal Muscle & Nerve.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is a nerve-related condition that causes numbness, tingling and pain in the palm of the hand and wrist. It occurs when there is swelling in a narrow passageway in the wrist known as the carpal tunnel, which puts pressure on the median nerve, a major nerve in the hand. [9 Odd Ways Your Tech Devices May Injure You]

Students in the study who used their devices intensively had changes in both the size and shape of the median nerve, and changes in a ligament called the transverse carpal ligament, the study found. These changes closely mirror the symptoms of people with carpal tunnel syndrome, said study author Peter White, an assistant professor of health technology and informatics at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

This means that intensive users may be at greater risk of developing carpal tunnel syndrome, White told Live Science.

In the new study, the researchers analyzed data collected from 48 college students, ages 18 to 25. Besides completing a questionnaire describing how much time they spent using electronic devices in the past year, participants also reported whether they had any pain or discomfort from using these devices.

The researchers defined "intensive" users as those who said they used their electronic devices for at least 5 hours a day. Half of the participants fell into this group. When the researchers calculated how much time these students actually spent using their devices, they found the average was about 9 hours a day. Those who were not intensive users spent about 3 hours a day, on average, using their devices.

About 92 percent of intensive users complained of pain or discomfort in their hands or wrists, but only 25 percent of less frequent users experienced pain, according to the findings.

Experts have been concerned that young people's use of devices could bring on carpal tunnel syndrome, but so far, most studies that have looked at this have focused on smartphone use, the researchers wrote in their study. In the new study, the researchers looked at young adult's use of a slew of devices, and used ultrasounds to spot any problems within the hands at an early stage to get a better idea of the problem. [11 Odd and Intriguing Smart Home Technologies]

The researchers noted that their study was relatively small and included a relatively homogeneous group of participants; all were college students in Hong Kong. Further studies are needed to confirm the results, the researchers said.

Prevention tips

Physical exams and ultrasound imaging of the hands and wrists showed that men and women who logged excessive hours on their electronic devices had median nerves that were swollen and flattened. This can lead to uncomfortable symptoms.

In addition, frequent users had transverse carpal ligaments that were thicker and showed signs of bowing. This may indicate an increase in pressure inside the carpal tunnel and subsequent compression, or squeezing, of the median nerve, White said.    

All that swiping, tapping, clicking, scrolling and pressing of game buttons led to pain not only in the hands and wrists of device enthusiasts, but also in other places on their bodies, including the shoulders, necks, upper and lower backs, and elbows, the study found.

Texting, playing games, typing and browsing the internet all involve repetitive movements, and when these movements are done for long periods of time, they can cause injuries, White said. 

Young people are avid users of electronic devices. In fact, in one of his previous studies, White said that out of 500 college students surveyed, only 10 percent reported they used these handheld devices for less than 5 hours a day.

Given the increasing and extended use of electronic devices among many age groups, White offered the following tips to help prevent carpal tunnel syndrome.

• Keep wrists flat. Maintaining the wrist in a straight position can reduce stress on the median nerve, White said.
• Pay attention to form and posture. Loosen up tight grips on gaming devices and avoid applying too much force when typing. Avoid keeping the thumb and fingers in a flexed position for long periods of time. This advice is especially important when using only a single hand on a device, White said.
• Take frequent breaks. Build in regular rest periods to gently stretch out your hands (and the rest of your body) and give them a break from constant activity, White said. He recommended taking a 5-minute break for every 30 minutes of device use.

Originally published on Live Science.

The technique, dubbed Electrick by its inventors from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, relies on electrodes attached to an object made of or coated with any slightly conductive material. While not as precise as smartphone touch-screen technology, the resulting touchpads are still accurate enough to allow basic control functions, such as using a slider or pushing a button, the researchers said.

"The technology is very similar to how touch screens work," said Yang Zhang, a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII). "When the user's finger touches on an electric field, it will shunt a fraction of the current to the ground, and by tracking where the shunting of the current happens, we can track where the user touches the surface." [10 Technologies That Will Transform Your Life]

The technique is known as electric field tomography and uses an array of electrodes to detect the position where the touch occurred.

In a video demonstrating Electrick's capabilities, the researchers added touch control to a model of a human brain made of Jell-O, a guitar and a section of a wall. When a person touched parts of the Jell-O brain, for example, he or she could to see on a computer screen the name of that particular part of the brain.

The researchers said the technology could be used for educational purposes, by hobbyists and in other commercial applications.

"The goal of this technology is to enable touch sensing on everything," Zhang said. "Touch has been very successful. It's a very intuitive way to interact with computer resources. So, we were wondering whether we could enable these touch-sensing capabilities in many more objects other than just phones and tablets."

Smartphone touch screens are made of expensive materials and require costly and sophisticated techniques to build. As such, it can be complicated to create touch surfaces on objects that are large or irregular in shape, Zhang said. There are ways to enable touch control on larger objects, but these methods mostly rely on detection of motion by cameras. However, these techniques also have limitations, Zhang said.

"If you use a camera, it won't work that well if the lighting condition changes," he said. "Users also could have privacy concerns to have cameras in their homes."

Zhang added that the Electrick technique enables touch control in objects that have been created using a wide range of manufacturing methods, including 3D printing and injection molding. The only condition is for the material to be slightly conductive, he said.

"It wouldn't work with normal plastic, which is totally nonconductive," Zhang said. "But we can use various carbon-loaded materials, materials that have carbon particles inside them, which make them slightly conductive."

The slightly conductive layer can also be sprayed onto the surface of an otherwise-nonconductive object of any shape, Zhang said. This way, the engineers can enable touch control in existing pieces of furniture, make a touch-controlled steering wheel or phone case, or enable someone to turn on the lights in their apartment by simply tapping the wall.

Zhang said the Electrick surfaces are durable and could get additional protection by adding an extra layer of coating on top.

The researchers presented the technology earlier this month at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Denver.

Original article on Live Science.

Toddlers are fiddling more with tablets and smartphones during the day, and it's robbing them of sleep at night, a new study from England suggests.

In the study, children ages 6 months to 3 years who spent more time playing with touch-screen devices during the day got less sleep overall and took longer to fall asleep, compared with the youngsters who used touch screens less frequently, the researchers found.

The findings also showed that compared with the kids who used touch screens less frequently, the babies and small children who used touch screens more often slept more during the day but less at night, according to the study, published today (April 13) in the journal Scientific Reports. [7 Ways to Short-Circuit Kids' Mobile Addiction]

This is the first study to look at the link between toddlers' touch-screen use and sleep, said lead study author Tim Smith, a lecturer in cognitive psychology at Birkbeck, University of London.

Although the use of smartphones and tablets is widespread, little was known about the extent to which infants and toddlers were using touch-screen devices in the U.K. before the researchers carried out their study, Smith said. Still, despite a dearth of studies on the subject, parents had been advised to limit their small children's screen time due to concerns about its possible negative effects on sleep, he noted. 

In the new study, the researchers asked more than 700 families in the U.K. to complete an online questionnaire. This survey asked parents how often their youngsters played with a smartphone or tablet on a typical day. The parents also provided information about how much time their child spent sleeping, how often the child woke up each night and how long it took for the child to fall asleep.

Less overall sleep

Previous studies in children and teens have shown that there's a connection between increased screen time and both a later bedtime and less shut-eye each night. But scientists had a limited understanding of the effects of touch-screen use on sleep in young children.

The study found that infants that were 6 to 11 months old used touch screens for about 8 minutes a day, on average. Kids ages 12 to 18 months used them for an average of 19 minutes a day, and kids ages 19 to 25 months used them for 25 minutes a day on average. The 2-year-olds (older than 25 months) in the study logged about 44 minutes a day, on average, on the devices. And as touch-screen time increased among younger children, it cut into their sleep, the researchers found.

Every additional hour of touch-screen use by young children was associated with 15.6 minutes less total sleep, according to the study. Specifically, each additional hour spent using a touch screen was linked to 26 fewer minutes of sleep at night, on average, and 11 more minutes of sleep during the day, on average, for a total of 15 fewer minutes of sleep overall. [25 Scientific Tips for Raising Happy Kids]

The researchers didn't look into why more use of tablets and smartphones interfered with sleep in young children. Other research, however, has suggested some possible ways that more screen time can affect sleep in older children and teens, and these factors may also affect younger children, the researchers noted.

One explanation is that time spent using these devices cuts into the time available for older kids and teens to nod off, Smith told Live Science. In other words, instead of sleeping, adolescents are spending time on smartphones and tablets.

In addition, using touch screens can stimulate a child mentally and physiologically, making it more difficult for them to fall asleep and preventing them from sleeping as well as they otherwise would, Smith said.

Nor did the researchers look at whether the reduced amount of sleep in young children had a negative effect on their health, well-being or development, Smith said. But in future studies, the research team hopes to examine the long-term effects of touch-screen use on children's brains, development and cognitive abilities, he said. [11 Facts Every Parent Should Know About Their Baby's Brain]   

In the meantime, Smith said, the best guidelines for parents on electronic media use in children comes from the American Academy of Pediatrics. The AAP advises limiting a child's overall use of these devices coupled with carefully supervising the activities that children are doing on these devices, he noted.

It's also a good idea for children to avoid using smartphones and tablets in the hour before bedtime, Smith added.

Originally published on Live Science.

A Connecticut woman is crediting her Fitbit with saving her life, after the device detected signs of life-threatening blood clots.

The woman, 73-year-old Patricia Lauder, had recently retired and bought a Fitbit to help her get in shape, according to a statement from the University of Connecticut, where Lauder was treated. But then, she began to feel ill, even though doctors' tests for health problems came back negative.

She also noticed that her heart rate reading on her Fitbit was gradually increasing, until one day, it spiked to 140 beats per minute. She called 911 and was taken to the hospital, where tests showed that she had a condition called pulmonary embolisms, or blood clots in her lungs. Doctors gave her anti-clotting medication, which got rid of the clots.

"If I didn't have a Fitbit on my wrist, I would never have known that my heart rate was getting dangerously high," Lauder told UConn Today, the news website for the university. "And I might not be here to tell my story." [Top 10 Amazing Facts About Your Heart]

Experts say that, because some fitness trackers include heart rate monitors, the devices can potentially alert people to certain health problems that cause changes in heart rate.

"Heart rate is a general signal for how much stress your body's under," Dr. Allen Taylor, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C., told Live Science in a 2015 interview. Like a fever, a high heart rate could be a symptom of many conditions, so it cannot be used by itself to make a diagnosis, Taylor said. But "for certain conditions, [if] patients find their heart rates running faster, it could alert them to say 'something's not right here,' Taylor said.

A rapid or irregular heartbeat can be a sign of a pulmonary embolism, according to the Mayo Clinic. The blockage caused by the clots can require the heart to start working harder to pump blood through vessels, and this can also lead to an increase in blood pressure inside the lungs, the Mayo Clinic says.

Other conditions that a fitness tracker might detect include atrial fibrillation (an erratic heartbeat), anemia (a low red blood cell count) and an overactive thyroid. All of these conditions can lead to a faster-than-normal heart rate. A normal resting heart rate is between 60 and 100 beats per minute, according to the Mayo Clinic.

In September 2015, a high school senior credited his Apple Watch with saving his life, when the device showed he had a heart rate of 145 beats per minute. An exam revealed that he had rhabdomyolysis, a condition in which muscles release a protein that damages the kidneys and other organs.

And last year, doctors in New Jersey used data from a man's Fitbit to determine how to treat him when he arrived at the ER with a rapid and irregular heart rate.

Still, it's important to note that having a normal heart rate doesn't necessarily mean you're healthy, Taylor said.

And fitness trackers like the Fitbit aren't approved medical devices, so they cannot be used to diagnose cardiovascular conditions. A study published last year found that wrist-worn heart rate monitors, which are typically used on fitness trackers, are not as accurate as chest strap monitors. The researchers advised fitness-tracker users to be aware that the devices' heart-rate readings aren't always accurate.

Original article on Live Science.

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The U.S. divorce rate hovers at 40 percent, but that's not the whole story. Many intact relationships are on life support. According to a survey by the National Opinion Research Center, 60 percent of people in a relationship say they're not very satisfied. There are some familiar culprits: money problems, bad sex and having kids.

But there's a new relationship buster: the smartphone.

My colleague Meredith David and I recently conducted a study that explored just how detrimental smartphones can be to relationships.

We zeroed in on measuring something we've dubbed "phubbing" (a fusion of "phone" and "snubbing"). It's how often your romantic partner is distracted by his or her smartphone in your presence. With more and more people using the attention-siphoning devices – the typical American checks his or her smartphone once every six-and-a-half minutes, or roughly 150 times each day – phubbing has emerged as a real source of conflict. For example, in one study, 70 percent of participants said that phubbing hurt their ability to interact with their romantic partners.

Most know what it's like to be phubbed: You're in the middle of a passionate screed only to realize that your partner's attention is elsewhere. But you've probably also been a perpetrator, finding yourself drifting away from a conversation as you scroll through your Facebook feed.

In our study, we wanted to know the implications of this interference.

We surveyed 175 adults in romantic relationships from across the United States and had them fill out our questionnaire. We had them complete a nine-item Partner Phubbing Scale that measured how often some felt "phubbed" by his or her partner's smartphone use.

Sample questions included "My partner places his or her smartphone where they can see it when we are together" and "my partner uses his or her smartphone when we are out together."

Survey participants also completed a scale that measured how much smartphone use was a source of conflict in their relationships. Participants also completed a scale that measured how satisfied they were with their current relationship, how satisfied they were with their lives and if they were depressed.

We found that smartphones are real relationship downers – up there with money, sex and kids.

People who reported being at the receiving end of phubbing also reported higher levels of conflict over smartphone use than those who reported less phubbing. Not surprisingly, higher levels of smartphone-related conflict reduced levels of relationship satisfaction.

Something as seemingly innocent as using a smartphone in the presence of a romantic partner undermined the quality of the relationship. This can create a domino effect: As our study also showed, when we're not happily in love, we are also less likely to be satisfied, overall, with life. We're also more likely to report that we are depressed.

Why, might you ask, does partner phubbing wreak such havoc between romantic partners?

At least two possible explanations for such relationship tumult exist. The "Displacement Hypothesis" suggests that time spent on smartphones displaces (or reduces) more meaningful interactions with your lover, weakening the relationship. I call a second theory "Smartphone Conflict Theory." Simply put, the device is a source of conflict and leads to fighting. Fights, of course, can only serve to undermine your satisfaction with your partner and the relationship.

So what can we take away from all of this? Even if we act like it's no big deal, it still stings whenever we're phubbed by our romantic partner. In a sense, our romantic partners are choosing their phone over us.

We probably feel a little less important and the relationship feels a little less secure.

James A. Roberts, Professor of Marketing, Baylor University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Gifts for health

A brand-new year is a new opportunity to commit (or recommit) to fitness and health. You may want to jump-start that process for friends and family with one of the myriad fitness trackers and gadgets on the market, but which one should you choose?

We've combed through the reviews and have even done some of our own testing to pick out great gift options for everyone from swimmers and runners to the sleep-deprived and sunburned. These devices will get your loved ones moving despite dreary Januaries and Februaries still ahead.

Charge 2 fitness tracker

Picking a fitness tracker is a challenge, given the number and variety of these exercise-encouraging devices on the market. But don't fret: We've done some of the work for you. We recommend the Charge 2, from Fitbit. This tracker is an update to Fitbit's popular fitness tracker, the Charge, but the Charge 2 has a larger display screen, better activity-tracking options and interchangeable wristbands. 

The device tracks the number of steps you take, the floors you climb and the calories you burn every day. It also tracks how much sleep you get automatically, so there's no need to put the tracker into Sleep Mode to gather data on your nightly shut-eye. The screen of the Charge 2 is not always on, but the device has a "lift to look" feature, which means it turns on when you raise and turn your wrist to look at the screen.

The Charge 2 includes a continuous heart-rate monitor, which tracks your heart rate all day long, and conveniently, the tracker syncs with your phone to give you notifications about incoming calls, texts and calendar events right on your wrist.

Price: $149.95

AVOIN colorlife 27oz. Sport Tritan Fruit Infuser Water Bottle

Fruit-flavored water is always on tap with this water bottle. The Sport Tritan lets you load up the infuser in the center of the water bottle with the fruit of your choice, and then enjoy flavorful water whenever you hydrate. The infuser can also be used to hold tea bags, or removed completely, so the bottle can be used for just water. The bottle is BPA-free, fits into most cup holders and is top-rack dishwasher safe.

Price: $11.99 - $15.00

Suunto Core Multifunction Watch

Fitness trackers may not do the trick for those who like to go off the beaten path. For the climber, mountaineer or hiker on your list, check out the Suunto Core Multifunction Watch instead. This watch features an altimeter, barometer and compass for navigation and a storm alarm to alert the wearer to a rapid drop in barometric pressure (which can mean bad weather is on the way).

The watch also tracks sunrises and sunsets to help keep track of the remaining daylight, and it is water-resistant to 30 meters (about 100 feet).

Price: $200.00-$300.00

Monkey Light LEDs

These Monkey Light LEDs turn your bike wheels into an eye-catching, rolling light show. At speeds of 10 mph to 40 mph (15 to 65 km/h), these LEDs can create 42 different circular patterns, from stars and swirls to hearts and puppy paw prints. At slower speeds, the lights still turn on, but they don't cover the entire wheel.

The lights attach to your wheels with zip ties, and are powered by a wheel-hub-mounted battery. Their total weight is 2.1 ounces (60 grams). The show is visible from all angles — making it a cool safety feature for kids and bike commuters alike.

Price: $56.99

Audible Rush speakers

Wearing headphones while cycling is a safety risk, but music can make a long ride fly by. These handlebar-mounted speakers from Audible Rush offer a good solution. A smartphone fits inside, although the Samsung Galaxy S5 and similarly large models won't fit; for those, a separate clamp to hold the phone on the bike may be needed.

At only 2.3 inches (5.8 centimeters) thick and 7.3 ounces (207 grams), this speaker won't weigh cyclists down. It comes with a yearlong warranty and customer service that seem to keep reviewers happy.

Price: $19.95

Magic Moves Electronic Wand

The light-up Magic Moves Electronic Wand will delight kids and their parents alike — because it will help get toddlers moving even when snowy weather confines them indoors. The wand plays a variety of music and 90 recorded commands, such as "Stomp like an elephant" and "Let's dance."

Toys "R" Us lists this toy as a top pick on its "Toys for Differently Abled Kids" list because it boosts listening skills with its auditory commands.

Price: $13.19 - $22.99

Shine 2 fitness tracker

The slim and fashionable Shine 2 fitness tracker from Misfit automatically tracks many of the same basic metrics that other trackers do — including your steps taken, calories burned and distance traveled — but this tracker is water resistant, so you can take it swimming. The tracker also wins points for being one of the lighter and thinner options among fitness trackers.

The Shine 2 also automatically detects when you've fallen asleep, which is an advance over the original Shine, which had to be put into sleep mode to track sleep. The tracker also syncs with your phone to alert you by vibrating or lighting up when you're getting a call or a text (although the tracker does not indicate who the caller or sender is). You can even control Misfit's smart- home devices from your shine. For example, you can play music or control your lights if you've installed Misfit's Bolt light bulb. 

Price: $99.99

Jabra Sport Pulse

Music and heart-rate monitoring come in a single package with the Jabra Sport Pulse, a set of wireless earbuds that use the pulse in your inner ear to track your heart rate during exercise.

The earbuds are sweat- and water-resistant. They connect to Jabra's Sport Life app, which provides feedback and audio coaching to keep users in their target zone. The earbuds and app also record distance traveled, calories burned and speed. If the runner on your list has her own preferred fitness app, the Jabra Sport Pulse earbuds can sync to independent apps, too.

Price: $99.99

Fitlosophy Fitbook: Fitness and Nutrition Journal

Sure, there are apps for that. But some may want a no-frills, old-fashioned, paper-and-pencil method of tracking diet and exercise habits. This 5.5-inch square notebook includes pages for planning your goals for the week and for logging your food intake, nutrients, water and sleep. There are also daily workout pages to track your strength training, cardio, classes and flexibility. Plus, the book aims to provide motivation: There's a highlighted "reward" spot where you can write down the prize you plan to give yourself for meeting your goals for the week.  

Price: $14.97 - $22.95

June UV detector

Sunscreen isn't the only way to keep skin safe. June, a jewel-like UV detector, records daily sun exposure and gives real-time UV index data. The device then gives customized alerts when a user's UV exposure reaches damaging levels based on the user's skin type.

The sensor comes in platinum, gold and gunmetal colors, and can be worn on a leather wrist strap when you want to be stylish, or on a silicon strap for exercise or outdoor activities.

Price : $144.95 - $149.99

S+ sleep monitor

Need something for an insomniac's Christmas stocking? A device called S+ is a small bedside module that has both a motion sensor to track movement and an audio sensor to track breathing. Though likely not as accurate as a wearable sleep tracker, S+ doesn't have to go to bed with you in order to work. The device records information about light levels, temperature and noise, and gives feedback on ways that you can improve your sleep environment.

S+ also works as a note-taking tool, helping users to get those racing bedtime thoughts out of their heads by letting them record notes via voice or text. In the morning, S+ will attempt to wake you during your lightest phase of sleep, so you wake up feeling more ready and refreshed.

Price: $50.00 - $85.30

Your fitness tracker may nag you to reach "10,000 steps a day," but if you can't meet this goal, don't give up hope — a new study finds that taking fewer steps may still bring health benefits, especially if you walk at a brisk pace.

In the study, researchers analyzed information from about 3,400 U.S. adults who took part in a national health survey in which they were asked to wear a fitness-tracker-like device, called an accelerometer, for up to a week. The devices kept track of the users' daily steps, as well as their pace (steps per minute). Researchers also assessed participants on a number of health measures that affect a person's risk of chronic diseases, such as waist circumference, body mass index, blood pressure, fasting glucose, insulin and cholesterol levels.

Only about one-fifth of the men took more than 10,000 steps a day. The top fifth of women took nearly 10,000 steps daily (about 9,800 steps a day, on average).

But overall, the more steps people took, the better those individuals fared in health measures. Even participants who took only about 5,000 to 7,000 steps a day "still displayed favorable values" for these disease risk factors, the researchers said. [The Truth About '10,000 Steps' a Day]

"Some physical activity is better than none, and typically more is better than less," study co-author John Schuna Jr., an assistant professor of kinesiology in Oregon State University's College of Public Health and Human Sciences, said in a statement.

The researchers also calculated something called the "peak 30-minute cadence," which is the average number of steps in a participant's most vigorous 30 minutes each day (which weren't necessarily consecutive minutes). Generally, researchers recommend that people engage in 30 minutes of "moderate intensity" physical activity every day, with 100 steps per minute being the minimum for moderate intensity.

In the study, only the top fifth of men and women had a peak 30-minute cadence of close to 100 steps per minute (about 96 steps per minute for both sexes).

However, people who took about 70 to 80 steps per minute during their peak cadence also had favorable values for their health measures, the researchers said.

The findings suggest that "small increases in the volume (steps/day) and intensity (peak 30-min cadence expressed in steps/min) of physical activity across the day … are associated with clinically favorable values for a wide range of cardiometabolic risk factors," the researchers wrote in their paper, published online Sept. 23 in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.

That's not to say you shouldn't aim to take 10,000 steps a day if you can. Meeting this goal will put you in the top 15 percent of adults for step count, Schuna said. People should aim to take at least 3,000 of their daily steps at a brisk pace, he said.

The researchers noted that their study was conducted at a single point in time, so they don't know for sure whether the step count and pace of the participants was indeed the cause of their high or low disease risk factors. More research would be needed to see how changing step count influences health, the researchers said.

Original article on Live Science.

Google debuted its first smartphone this week, dubbed "Pixel," signaling the company's move into an industry long dominated by the likes of Apple and Samsung. And considering Google is already the developer of the Android mobile operating system, what will make the Pixel different from other smartphones already on the market?

Google unveiled the Pixel Oct. 4, saying it will provide the best experience "by bringing hardware and software design together under one roof."

This isn't Google's first foray into the smartphone industry: The company's Android operating system is available on smartphones from a number of companies, including Samsung, HTC and Motorola. Previous smartphone releases from Google were part of the Nexus program, in partnership with other smartphone providers. But Pixel is all Google's — the first smartphone built entirely by the company. [9 Odd Ways Your Tech Devices May Injure You]

"With Pixel, we obsessed over every detail, from the industrial design to the user experience," Brian Rakowski, vice president of product management at Google, wrote in a blog post to introduce the new phone.

With its curved edges, sleek design and two size options, the Pixel is reminiscent of Apple's iPhone. The 5-inch Pixel has a 1080p screen — 1440 x 2160 on the 5.5-inch Pixel XL — 4GB of RAM and either 32GB or 128GB of storage. The new iPhone 7 has similar specs: the screen resolution is 1334 x 750, with 2GB of RAM and storage options of 32GB, 128GB or 256GB.

Google has highlighted that Pixel users also will have unlimited photo and video cloud storage, which may quell some smartphone users' fears of reaching their storage capacity.

Pixel also has what Google is touting as the "best smartphone camera ever." The 12.3-megapixel rear camera received top marks from DxOMark, which measures camera image quality through rigorous testing. With an overall score of 89, the Pixel's camera surpassed every other smartphone camera currently on the market, reported Tom's Guide.

"Pixel puts cutting-edge computational photography in an ultra-fast and easy-to-use camera," Rakowski wrote in the blog post. "Our team of photography gurus and image-processing experts have spent the last year designing and tirelessly optimizing our entire camera stack. Pixel's camera lets you take stunning photos in low light, bright light or any light."

Another feature touted by Google is the Pixel's battery and charge time. According to the company, 15 minutes of charge will yield 7 hours of use. Pixel is also the first phone with the company's virtual "smart" service, known as Google Assistant, built in, allowing users to have "a natural conversation with Google" to search or complete tasks.

Pixel phones will start at $649 (equivalent to the price of the new iPhone 7) for the smaller versions and $769 for the "XL" model. The phone comes in three colors: "really blue," "very silver" and "quite black." In addition to being available for preorder from Google directly, Pixel can be bought at all Verizon retail outlets, including Best Buy stores.

At the Google event earlier this week, the search-engine company also announced the launch of a new virtual reality headset and a home assistant to rival Amazon's Alexa.

Original article on Live Science.

When Apple unveiled its new iPhone 7 last week, Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering Phil Schiller called the device's camera one of the most advanced ever put in a smartphone. Cameras in phones are so commonplace now that users take them for granted, but improving the picture-taking capabilities of the newest devices means cramming a lot of tech into a small, and thin, package.

Upgrading the cameras in smartphones typically requires improving the sensors that pick up the image, the optics that focus it and, perhaps most importantly, the software and computing power in the phone, said Daniel Sakols, vice president of business development at Amalence Inc., which makes the imaging technology for companies such as phone maker Huawei.

"There was a big increase in the available processing power to take this image information and do radically new things with it," Sakols told Live Science. [Photo Future: 7 High-Tech Ways to Share Images]

One of the first cellphones with a camera was the Nokia 7650, released in 2002. At the time, Nokia said the technology was going to usher in the "multimedia messaging era," according to a statement from November 2001. The camera, at 0.3 megapixels, was a far cry from current models, which range from 8 megapixels to 12 megapixels.

The pictures taken on the Nokia 7650 were 30 kilobytes and were saved on only 3.6 megabytes of RAM, according to a 2003 review by ZDNet. This means that few existing smartphone apps would fit on the Nokia phone, let alone image-stabilization software. 

In comparison, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, which launched last month, has a processor similar to that found in a laptop computer and has 853,000 times as much data-storage space as the Nokia 7650. The Note 7's camera has a sensor that picks up 12 megapixels, while the iPhone 6 has an 8-megapixel camera and a similarly powerful processor. Both Samsung's and Apple's phone cameras can run image-stabilizing programs, as well as apps that sharpen edges and adjust for lighting conditions, a whole suite of adjustments that the cameras make without the user even knowing.

Sakols said that improvements to phone cameras made taking pictures more convenient and allowed the phone to compete with point-and-shoot cameras, if not digital SLRs. "It's what phone manufacturers are building around," he said. "It's no longer about just having a bigger sensor."

Software isn't the only factor in improving the cameras in smartphones. For example, the earliest phone cameras lacked the ability to focus. Now, smartphones can alter the position of the lens slightly using tiny motors and can provide a wider variety of depths of field and better autofocus capabilities. In fact, a big selling point of the iPhone 7 is the optical zoom, which actually changes the arrangement of lenses. The iPhone 6 had only a digital zoom, which just enlarges the image with software; it doesn't add any detail. [9 Odd Ways Your Tech Device May Injure You]

The optics of focusing are becoming a big issue in camera design, Sakols said. As a result, some manufacturers are adding a "bubble" to the front of the camera to add focal length to the lens(the bubble is visible on an iPhone 6 if you look carefully). Samsung has had camera models with optical zoom in the past, notably the Galaxy K, but the addition of real lenses added bulk to the camera itself. (On Samsung's website the phone even looks a little like a point-and-shoot camera)

"When you look at the lens against a sensor of a given size, one of the interesting constraints [is] as the sensor size increases so does the lens in front of it to project a nondistorted image," he said. This is why manufacturers are adding bubble shapes to the lenses — to get a little bit of extra distance between the lens and sensor so that the lens itself can be a bit larger.

But there are limits, Sakols said. He added that most phone makers now try to limit the size of the image sensor in order to keep the lens size down.

This is one reason why even though pictures taken on smartphones are good, digital SLRs still have an edge in some areas. This can be partly explained by the physics of gathering light onto an image. The aperture of the lens limits the resolution of a magnified image because when light waves go through a smaller opening, they tend to diverge rather than hitting the sensor in parallel. This process is called diffraction. Magnifying an image only magnifies the loss of detail, so the big lenses that professional photographers use will outperform a smartphone camera's zoom in some areas.

However, software and hardware advances have leveled the playing field for smartphone cameras and narrowed the performance gaps among phone manufacturers. Apple was once far and away superior, but that's less true now than it was nearly a decade ago, Saklos said.

"Apple's imaging capability is pretty awesome," he said. "But it's not just the iPhone 6 that can produce these beautiful images. Other smartphone cameras can kick out a fab image as well."

Original article on Live Science.

A new, screenless phone for young kids could help parents stay in touch with their children, without the adults having to worry that their kids are glued to smartphones.

The new device, called Snowfox, also comes equipped with a GPS tracker, letting parents know where their kids are, while helping children learn independence by letting them roam to places where they are allowed.

The new "trackerphone" is a waterproof, 2 x 2-inch (5 x 5 centimeters) square that comes in either pastel blue or pink. It comes with a lanyard that allows it to be connected to a key ring or carabiner hook. [Best Educational Toys & Games for Kids]

Snowfox's battery and low-power electronics let it operate for a week on a single charge, according to the company. The device can be recharged via a micro USB port.

A speaker and microphone allow two-way phone calls, and Snowfox's flexible antenna, which is hidden within a durable nylon tag, helps provide 3G and 2G service.

The phone connects to a free iPhone or Android app. The app can find a single child, displaying his or her current location and timeline of movements, as well as the battery level on the Snowfox. Up to five guardians, such as parents, grandparents and caretakers, can view a child's profile, the company said.

The app also has a map view to show the location of all trackerphones linked with the app. It can send alerts when kids have wandered where they are not permitted, and it can deliver notifications if they arrive or leave various locations.

Each Snowfox includes an embedded SIM card, which comes with a local call-in number, making it ready for use right out of the box, the company said. Unlimited voice and data are available via a pay-as-you-go plan that costs about $10 per month.

There is just one button on Snowfox. To use it to make a call, the child presses the button, which sends a notification to all the listed guardians' smartphones. Any guardian can then call the child, who can answer the incoming call by pressing the button once more. To make a call to a Snowfox phone, a parent or guardian can dial its number or simply use the app.

Less screen time means that kids will have more time for play, said Ville Ylläsjärvi, a co-founder of Haltian in Oulu, Finland, which designed and manufactures the device. Haltian's 80 or so employees are mostly former employees of one-time mobile device giant Nokia.

"I see way too many young kids with smartphones these days," Ylläsjärvi said. "Simply looking around, you can see kids playing with their devices and not doing stuff kids should be doing, like playing with friends outside, being in social situations and also interacting with the world around you. There have been multiple articles on kids suffering from delayed speech development, neck pains and posture development, which have been related to excessive smartphone usage at a very young age." [7 Ways to Short-Circuit Kids' Mobile Addiction]

Ylläsjärvi's own family members use Snowfox. "For our family, Snowfox Trackerphone has brought a lot of peace of mind," he said. "We have been able to have our 6-year-old daughter to play outside in the garden and be notified almost instantly of her going to the playground next door."

"We have now also allowed her to visit a friend living a few houses down and be able to call her to come home," Ylläsjärvi said. "Small but very meaningful things. I am really looking forward to her going to school next year and being able to be there for her and better in the know of what she does."

Devices that are similar to Snowfox include the GizmoPal from LG and the FiLIP from AT&T, but these come in the form of wristwatches, Ylläsjärvi said. "I think our form factor is more flexible for daily use, allowing multiple means for carrying," he said. "We have also found out that the wrist devices are not as comfortable to carry for the child."

An Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign for Snowfox began on June 28 and will last until Aug. 4. So far, the project has raised more than $21,000 of its $50,000 goal. If the campaign gets funded, Haltian aims to begin shipping Snowfox to its backers in October.

Snowfox will be available in 10 countries to start — the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Additional countries may be added during the Indiegogo campaign, the company said. The device is already on sale in stores in Finland.

Original article on Live Science.

A 13-year-old girl swallowed her Misfit Shine activity tracker while swimming, but the gadget still worked after doctors retrieved it from her stomach, according to a new report of the case.

The girl said she took the disc-shaped tracker out of its band, and placed it in her mouth while she was swimming, but accidently swallowed it. (It is not clear why the girl put the device in her mouth. The Misfit Shine is waterproof and can be worn while swimming to track laps.)

At the hospital, an X-ray showed the device was in her stomach.

Doctors waited 30 hours to see if the device would pass through the rest of the girl's digestive system, but the tracker didn't budge. The physicians became concerned the device might come apart, exposing the internal lithium battery, which could damage the girl's stomach or intestines.

As a result, the doctors decided to try to remove the tracker using a procedure called an endoscopy, which involves using a flexible tube with a camera to see inside the stomach. The doctors were able to use a snare-like medical tool to lasso the tracker and remove it through the girl's esophagus. [7 Weird Things People Have Swallowed]

"The watch retained normal function despite the low pH [or, acidity] of the stomach and manipulation upon retrieval," the doctors, from the Brian Allgood Army Community Hospital in Yongsan, South Korea (a U.S. military hospital), wrote in the Jan. 19 issue of the journal Case Reports in Gastrointestinal Medicine.

"When synchronized to her mobile device, the [Misfit Shine] watch accurately recorded all advertised data points, to include steps taken, calories burned [and] sleep cycles, and [it] maintained accurate time," the doctors said.

The girl recovered well, and went home the next day.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

For one New Jersey man, wearing a fitness tracker paid off in a big way: Doctors in the emergency room used the gadget to help determine the best way to treat his heart problem, according to a new report of the case.

The 42-year-old man went to the ER after he had a seizure, and doctors there found that his heart rate was irregular and rapid, measured at up to 190 beats per minute. Although the man had experienced seizures before, he'd never had a heart problem.

To treat the man, the doctors needed to know when his irregular heart beat had started. If it was a recent problem, one that started in the last few days before his visit, they could use a procedure called cardioversion. In this treatment, low-energy shocks are given to restore normal heart rate, the researchers said. But if it had started weeks or months ago, then that treatment might not have any effect.

People can't always tell if they have an irregular heart rate, and so doctors can't just ask them when it started.

But in this case, the doctors noticed the man was wearing the Fitbit Charge HR, which includes a heart rate monitor, so they pulled up the man's heart rate data in the app on his smartphone. They then saw that his heart rate was usually 70 to 80 beats per minute, but had jumped to 140 to 160 beats per minute about 3 hours before he arrived in the emergency room.

"Using the patient's activity tracker — in this case, a Fitbit — we were able to pinpoint exactly when the patient's normal heart rate of 70 jumped up," study co-author Dr. Alfred Sacchetti, chief of emergency services at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center in New Jersey, said in a statement. This gave doctors the information they needed to decide that the man was a candidate for the cardioversion treatment.

The man's heart rate returned to normal with just one of the shock treatments, the report said. [The Best Heart Rate Monitor Apps]

This isn't the first time a consumer-tech gadget has been credited with helping save a life; last September, a high school student went to the emergency room after his Apple Watch indicated that his heart rate jumped from about 70 beats per minute to 145 beats per minute. He was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis, a condition in which muscles release a protein that damages the kidneys and other organs. The disorder can be life-threatening.

The New Jersey doctors in the latest case said that fitness trackers may provide doctors with useful information about patients' conditions before those individuals arrive in the ER. This may help physicians properly treat or diagnose a condition. For example, a person who is dizzy and had a heart rate of 180 beats per minute before coming to the ER would be treated very differently from a person who is dizzy and had a heart rate of 30 beats per minute before coming to the ER, Sacchetti said.

Still, Sacchetti noted that fitness trackers are not approved medical devices, and using them to make medical decisions is at the doctor's own discretion.

The report was published online April 1 in the journal Annals of Emergency Medicine.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Yellowstone National Park has seen a rise in people getting injured by bison lately, and attempts to take selfies may be to blame for at least some of these injuries, according to a new report.

In the summer of 2015, five people were injured by bison in Yellowstone. That's more than the number of bison-related injuries seen annually in 2010 through 2014, when there were one or two injuries per year, according to the report from researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Four of the people injured in 2015 were visitors to the park, and one was an employee. In three of the cases, people were injured when a bison tossed them into the air, and in the other two cases, a bison injured the individual with its horns. None of the injured died, although four needed to be hospitalized for their injuries, the report said.

All of the injuries occurred when people got too close to the bison. The iconic animals roam freely throughout the park, but they can be dangerous, and park rules prohibit visitors from coming within 75 feet of bison. Most of the people injured in 2015 were within 3 to 6 feet of the bison just before they got hurt, the report said.

Three people in the report were injured while taking photos. Two of these reported turning their backs toward the animal to snap their photos, and one admitted outright to trying to take a selfie, the report said. [Top 10 Most Visited National Parks]

The report noted that from 1980 to 1999, about 30 percent of bison-related injuries involved photography, and most of the people injured during that period were standing more than 10 feet from an animal.

But with today's smartphones, more people are taking photos and selfies, and because the devices don't zoom in very well, people may need to get closer than they did before. "The popularity of smartphone photography with its limited zoom capacity and social media sharing of selfies might explain why visitors disregard park regulations and approach wildlife more closely than when traditional camera technology was used," the report said.

Male bison can weigh up to 2,000 pounds, and females can weigh up to 1,000 pounds. Yet the animals are agile for their size, and can run up to 30 miles per hour. There were nearly 5,000 bison in Yellowstone in 2015, according to the National Park Service.

Educating visitors about the need to maintain a proper distance between themselves and wildlife is critical, the report said. "Injury prevention campaigns that identify and target the underlying motivations of visitors to not comply with viewing distances might prevent future injuries," the researchers, led by CDC epidemiologist Dr. Cara Cherry, wrote in their report.

Selfies have been blamed for deaths and injuries before. Last year, officials in Russia launched a campaign warning of the dangers of selfies after a number of selfie-related injuries and deaths occurred in the country, including one teenager who died while trying to take a selfie on a railway bridge.

The new report was published yesterday (March 24) in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

A transparent material that can be attached to a smartphone's touch screen could help the device generate electricity whenever anyone taps it, researchers in China say.

Touch screens are now found on most cell phones and tablet computers. Using a touch screen typically involves finger taps, and scientists at Lanzhou University in China reasoned that the mechanical energy from these motions could be converted into electricity to charge the phone's batteries, which could significantly extend the working time of these portable devices.

The researchers developed a new material based on a transparent silicone rubber known as PDMS. Scientists embedded wires in this rubber that were made of lead zirconate titanate that were only 700 nanometers, or billionths of a meter, wide. For perspective, this is about 140 times thinner than the average width of a human hair. [Top 10 Inventions That Changed the World]

As the rubber solidified, the researchers used electrical fields to align the nanowires in the rubber in columns. This alignment helped set both the material's electrical and visual properties.

Whenever such nanowires are bent — for instance, whenever anyone taps on the material — they generate electricity, a phenomenon known as piezoelectricity. By making sure the nanowires are lined up with one another, the researchers helped ensure that they would react to finger taps in unison, generating as much energy from the motions as possible.

When the material is viewed head-on, these incredibly narrow wires are largely invisible, and the material can look mostly transparent. As such, the nanowires "can harvest tapping energy on a screen without influencing the screen's normal working," study senior author Yong Qin, a materials scientist at Lanzhou University, told Live Science.

In addition, when the material is viewed from an angle, the nanowires interfere with light rays, which means that anything seen through the material at that angle will look blurry. As such, the material can also help protect a user's privacy by preventing anyone nearby from being able to peek at someone else's smartphone screen.

In experiments, tapping on the material generated an electrical current of 0.8 nanoamperes, or about one-millionth of the electricity used by a hearing aid. The scientists noted that the results of future research could help their material generate more current to efficiently recharge the batteries of mobile devices.

Electrical signals from nanowires could also help researchers develop more sensitive touch screens, Qin said.

The scientists detailed their findings online Jan. 13 in the journal Small.

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Smartphones equipped with portable devices that magnetically levitate cells might one day help diagnose diseases in the home, clinic or lab, researchers say.

Nowadays, smartphones are incredibly powerful portable computers that include handy devices such as multimegapixel cameras, and they can be found in both developing and developed countries. Increasingly, researchers are exploring ways for smartphones to be used not only for posting selfies and playing video games, but also to help save lives by rapidly performing medical tests anywhere there are smartphones — that is, virtually anywhere around the world.

A common medical test involves measuring the levels of red blood cells and white blood cells in the blood. Standard methods for classifying and counting blood cells are either complex and expensive or labor-intensive and time-consuming. Now, scientists have developed a lantern-size device that can measure blood-cell levels using magnetic levitation. They also say their invention can be combined with smartphones to carry out this medical test rapidly, easily and affordably. [10 Technologies That Will Transform Your Life]

To use the portable imaging magnetic levitation system, dubbed i-LEV, a smartphone is placed on top of a lens so that the device's camera can look down on tubes filled with finger-prick-size volumes of blood — say, 30 microliters, or about the volume of a single grain of rice. Mirrors and an LED light help users see the specimens. The entire kit is about 6.3 inches by 4 inches by 7.9 inches (16 by 10 by 20.5 centimeters).

The blood samples are laced with a chemical known as gadobutrol, which is paramagnetic — that is, it is slightly attracted to magnetic fields. These samples are placed between two long, thin magnets about the size of toothpicks, and whatever is within buoys up in this magnetic field, the researchers said.

Cells float up to different heights in the magnetic field depending on their density, which, in turn, depends on their type. This helps the device easily separate red and white blood cells in about 15 minutes, the researchers said.

"Here, we develop a method to measure cell densities accurately at a single-cell level and separate them based on a balance between their weight and magnetic forces," said study co-author Utkan Demirci, a bioengineer at Stanford University.

The smartphone could see individual blood cells using i-LEV. Computer programs could then automatically count the number of blood cells seen in less than 30 seconds, the scientists explained.

Most portable biomedical devices designed to work with smartphones require extensive preparation of medical samples beforehand, and many need dyes and other labeling compounds to distinguish, for example, one cell type from another, Demirci and his colleagues said. In contrast, the researchers said i-LEV forgoes these steps and is therefore much simpler and easier to use.

The researchers noted that i-LEV could do more than just measure blood-cell levels. For example, their previous research found that cancer cells and infected cells levitate differently from the way healthy cells do. The invention could also help monitor the effects of drugs on cells for research applications.

The i-LEV is patented, and Demirci noted that it has already drawn lots of commercial interest. Still, "it won't be at the clinic the next day," Demirci said. "As with any other technology, this technology will take years of development and further commercialization to see it as a product on a shelf."

The scientists detailed their findings online in the journal Small on Nov. 2, 2015.

Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Babies and toddlers are spending plenty of time using mobile media devices at their homes, including children whose families are not well-off financially, a new study reveals.

The researchers looked at families with children under age 4 in an urban, low-income, minority community, and found that nearly all the children had access to popular electronics, such as televisions, computers, smart phones and tablets. The investigators also found that children's use of these devices began at very early ages.

In other words, the study found basically no evidence of a "digital divide" in this impoverished community, said Dr. Matilde Irigoyen, chief of pediatrics and adolescent medicine at Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, and a lead author of the study. The term "digital divide" refers to the gap in access to technology when comparing wealthier people to those with fewer resources.

"Decreasing disparities in the digital divide is a good thing," Irigoyen said. Having access to mobile devices at a young age and learning how to use this technology proficiently is a first step to digital literacy, she said.  [7 Signs Your Child Is an iPad Addict]

Pervasive tech

In the study, the researchers surveyed the parents of 350 young children ages 6 months to 4 years at a pediatric clinic in a low-income neighborhood of Philadelphia in 2014. The researchers found that 97 percent of the neighborhood's households had televisions, 83 percent had tablets and 77 percent had smartphones. In addition, more than half the households had video game consoles, computers and Internet access.

Almost every parent and child in the survey had access to a mobile device, and the technology was very pervasive, Irigoyen said. 

Mobile devices were not only common in these households, but they also got plenty of use by the very young children. Most kids had used a mobile device by their first birthday, primarily to watch a video, play a game or use an app, according to the study published online today (Nov. 2) in the journal Pediatrics.

The findings showed that three-quarters of the children in the survey owned a mobile device by age 4, whereas half of the 4-year-olds had their own TV sets.

Most 3- and 4-year-olds could use media devices without help, and they each spent about an hour a day on the devices..  

A benefit of early digital exposure is that it can increase a young child's educational access, Irigoyen told Live Science.

But mobile media may not always be used for educational purposes. About two-thirds of parents in the study said they gave the devices to their children to keep them calm or give them something to do when the adults needed to complete household chores. About one-third of parents said they used the devices to put their children to sleep.

The researchers said they were surprised at how often young children used these devices, how many of the kids used the devices daily and how many parents were using mobile media at their children's bedtime, Irigoyen said.

As the littlest users of mobile devices got older, they were more likely to use digital media independently and were often given their own personal devices, the study found.

The good news is that digital media use by young children has more advantages than does watching TV, Irigoyen said. Mobile media is more portable; the content can be streamed, and it can be interactive, especially when parents and young children use these devices together, which adds value to the experience, she said. 

However, the American Academy of Pediatrics discourages the use of all forms of media by children under age 2. Irigoyen noted that this policy was written before the introduction of tablets to the market, in 2011.

As of now, the research on how young children and families are using mobile media, and how it affects these groups, has not caught up with the technology's widespread use, Irigoyen said. 

Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science.

GPS running watches can track everything from your steps per minute to the length of your stride, but analyzing all that data can be a chore — especially if you don't have a running coach to help you make sense of your stats.

Live Science spoke with two expert running coaches to wade through the running-watch data dump. They told us what information runners should be tracking during workouts and helped us make sense of the advanced metrics that some GPS watches collect.

From checking your pace to counting your steps, here are some expert tips for how to analyze your runs: [Best GPS Watches of 2015]

1. Pay attention to your total time and distance

The most basic information you'll get from any GPS running watch is your total time spent running and total distance covered. But these simple stats are actually the most important metrics for runners to track, said John Honerkamp, a running coach and senior manager of runner products and services at New York Road Runners, an organization in New York City that provides classes, clinics and online programs for runners.

"Basic GPS is key, because time and distance are important," Honerkamp told Live Science. "Beyond that, it's an extra layer of data — like cadence and heart rate. You don't need that stuff, but if you're the type of person who wants and can handle that information, it can be helpful."

Some watches, like the TomTom Runner Cardio, can be programmed to buzz or beep when you've covered a certain distance or run for a certain amount of time. And many GPS watches also let you set up alerts that go off every mile, so you can keep track of how much ground you've covered without constantly looking down at your wrist.

Whether you're training for a race or just trying to stay fit, Honerkamp recommends abiding by what he calls the "coaching standard." According to this rule, you should gradually build up your endurance by increasing the number of miles you complete on your longest run every week, but do so by no more than 10 percent per week. So, if you run 10 miles (16 kilometers) one week, try running 11 miles (17.7 km) the following week.

If you shape your workouts based on how many minutes you run (rather than the number of miles), try adding five to 10 minutes (or about one mile or 1.6 km) onto your longest run each week, Honerkamp said.

2. Check your pace (but not too often)

Another key metric that GPS watches track is pace. Your pace, measured in minutes per mile, is an important measure to pay attention to, because it helps you estimate your effort over the course of a run. For example, many runners start out at a slow pace to conserve energy for later in the run. Pace can also be used to predict how long it will take you to finish a run (for example, if it takes you 10 minutes to run 1 mile, or 1.6 km, it should take you 50 minutes to run 5 miles, or 8 km). A watch that helps you track your pace is convenient, but as Honerkamp noted, it can also be distracting. [Best Fitness Tracker Bands]

"You don't need to look at your pace every five seconds, since things like going up a hill will change your pace, and you don't want to change your pace all the time just because of your watch," he said.

Instead of glaring at your wrist every few seconds, Honerkamp recommends checking your pace every mile or so, just to make sure you're on the right track. Some GPS watches, like the Garmin Forerunner 220, have pace alerts that beep or vibrate when you fall behind a programmed pace. 

3. Don't ignore elevation gain

Even the most basic GPS watches, such as the Garmin Forerunner 10, track changes in elevation along your running route. This information may not seem important at first glance, but it can come in handy in certain situations, said Jack Daniels, two-time Olympic medalist and a running coach with the Run SMART Project.

For example, if you live in a relatively flat area where changes in elevation aren't obvious, you can use your watch's elevation data to determine whether you're going uphill or downhill, Daniels told Live Science. This information is important because you're likely to run at a slower pace when elevation increases. And if you're training for a race with a hilly course, you'd do well to prepare your body for those elevation changes ahead of time, Daniels said.

"If you plan to run the Boston Marathon, which has some fairly long downhill stretches, the quadriceps muscles take a beating if [you're] not used to it," Daniels said.

4. Cadence (sometimes) counts

Cadence, or steps per minute, is not a metric that most runners need to analyze after every workout, said Honerkamp, who added that he rarely counts the steps of the runners he coaches. However, Honerkamp did say there are certain situations in which he'll take a closer look at cadence.

"If someone is getting injured constantly, and they're working with a podiatrist or doctor, I think [cadence] is definitely something to look at," Honerkamp said.

That's because cadence is directly related to running economy, or running efficiency — the amount of work you have to do to maintain a certain speed. If your running form is inefficient (maybe you swing your arms around too much or overextend your leg), your cadence likely suffers. The most efficient cadence is about 180 steps per minute, according to Daniels, who said he has tested runners at a variety of stride rates and always found this rate to use the least amount of energy.

If you're trying to improve your running form, consider checking your cadence every few weeks to see if you're becoming more efficient.

5. Efficiency is great, but don't get hung up on it

Cadence is just one measure of running efficiency. Some of the most advanced running watches on the market — specifically the Garmin Forerunner 620 and the compatible HRM-Run heart rate monitor — also track vertical oscillation (movement up or down, or "bounce") and ground contact time (the amount of time your foot stays on the ground with every step). However, these metrics are not something that the average runner needs to be concerned about, Honerkamp said.

"They're just other stats that tell you you're fitter and more efficient or faster. They tell you you're on the right track, but you'd already know that from other pieces of data — like your heart rate going down or your pace getting faster," Honerkamp said.

Daniels agrees and said that though these metrics are advanced, they also track things that are simple for a seasoned onlooker (like a coach) to observe with his or her own eyes. If you have what Daniels called a "plodding stride," chances are you're less efficient than someone whose feet spend less time on the ground with every step. And a runner who tends to bounce up and down a lot will certainly be less efficient than a runner who focuses on moving horizontally instead of vertically, Daniels said.

Instead of focusing on how many milliseconds your foot spends on the ground or how much you "bounce," you could aim to "float over the ground," which is what Daniels tells his runners to do.

"Try to imagine you are running over a field of raw eggs and you don't want to break any of them," he said.

Follow Elizabeth Palermo @techEpalermo. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Some Apple Watch users who have tattoos are running into problems when using the device's heart-rate monitor and other features, as it appears the ink in tattoos can interfere with the watch's sensors.

This week, one person noted on the website Reddit that the Apple Watch's auto-lock would engage when it was placed over an arm tattoo, possibly indicating that the device was not registering that it was being worn. And the heart-rate monitor gives different readings when placed over tattooed and nontattooed skin, with very dark ink colors appearing to cause the most trouble, according to the website iMore.

The Apple Watch monitors heart rate in the same way as the Basis Peak, the Fitbit Surge and other wrist-worn fitness trackers — they all use a light that shines into the skin to measure pulse. The light strikes the blood vessels in your wrist, and then sensors on the devices detect how much light is reflected back, which lets the devices detect the changes in blood volume that occur each time your heart beats, pushing blood through your body.

The Apple Watch has an LED light that flashes many times per second to detect your heartbeat, the company says.

However, changes to the skin, including permanent tattoos, can affect the heart-rate sensor's performance, Apple says. "The ink, pattern and saturation of some tattoos can block light from the sensor, making it difficult to get reliable readings," Apple's support website states.

If users are experiencing issues with the heart-rate monitor because of tattoos or other factors not related to the device itself, they can use an external heart-rate monitor (such as a chest-strap monitor) and connect it to the Apple Watch via Bluetooth, the company says.

Not all wrist tattoos will interfere with the Apple Watch's sensors — iMore found that lighter-colored tattoos did not disrupt readings as much as darker-colored tattoos, and that patterned tattoos did not appear to cause problems. The type and design of a person's tattoo may determine whether he or she experiences problems with the device, according to iMore.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

As smartphones become ubiquitous, several companies are taking advantage of these portable computers to track when and where people with asthma need their medication.

The data collected by the smartphones are giving researchers a clearer overall picture of asthma attacks and inhaler use, which, in turn, could allow researchers to map out the areas linked to respiratory disease and even reveal some of the underlying triggers of asthma symptoms.

"We're collecting data about daily lives and medications," said Chris Hogg, chief operating officer of Propeller Health, a company in Madison, Wisconsin, that provides both hardware and software for managing asthma. Propeller Health makes inhalers that patients can link to their smartphones via Bluetooth, which are now available to anyone with a doctor's approval.  

Whenever Propeller's "smart" inhaler is used, the phone's geolocation services log exactly where the patient is when he or she is using it. Thus, the time and location of the inhaler's use could allow doctors to tell whether a patient is following the correct instructions for inhaler use, and if certain places or times trigger the patient's asthma symptoms.  

Asthma patients without a smart inhaler can use an app (so far, available only in iOS) offered by California company LifeMap Solutions that allows patients to log the times when they need their inhalers. If these patients are required to follow a specific schedule for their inhaler use, the app alerts them when to use it. The app also tracks people's physical activity by using the phone's built-in accelerometer to count the number of steps that users take daily.

The app aims to help doctors monitor their patients and adjust their treatment plans accordingly, said LifeMap Solutions CEO Cory Bridges. "We want to take that big data and analytic work, and turn it into solutions for patients and doctors," he said. [The 7 Biggest Mysteries of the Human Body]

Researchers also can use the data gathered by asthma apps to conduct large studies of asthma patients. Currently, Propeller Health is partnering with state and local health authorities in Louisville, Kentucky, to work on a project called AIR Louisville. For the project, researchers want to follow 2,000 people with asthma to look at when their symptoms occur and when they need to use their medication.

The researchers will take all of this data and use it to understand the impact of environmental factors on people with asthma, Hogg said. They aim to map air-pollution patterns and other factors in order to figure out what drives asthma attacks.

Meanwhile, LifeMap is partnering with researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York on a similar project that uses the data from its Asthma Health app. In this case, the researchers are using the data to find ways to personalize treatment for patients.

LifeMap is also working on a Bluetooth-connected inhaler, as well as an app that would track the use of rescue inhalers that asthma patients employ when in distress.

Representatives from both LifeMap and Propeller Health said that, due to privacy concerns, they encrypt the data and make it anonymous.

Other companies are working on different types of products to help asthma patients. For instance, Poland-based MySpiroo and Greece-based Respi have designed devices called spirometers that connect to people's smartphones to measure patients' breathing capacity.

MySpiroo's device connects to a phone through the headphone jack, and is a variation of the spirometers that people with asthma have used for decades. Respi's breath-measuring device can collect location and sensor data, as well as predict when certain areas might be dangerous to a person with asthma.

One day, all of this new technology could help patients receive "asthma forecasts," similar to the pollen forecasts allergy sufferers can monitor today. An early analysis of Propeller data "found correlations with weather, temperature and season," Hogg said; "we might find all sorts of interesting things."

 Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science.

The Mio Fuse is a fitness tracker and training device from Mio Global — a company known for wrist-worn heart-rate monitors — that is very much intended for people who work out. The device includes an optical sensor to measure your heart rate during workouts, and will notify you when your heart rate has reached certain "zones." It also measures your workout's duration, distance, pace and speed, and even when you're not working up a sweat, it tracks total daily steps and calories burned.

At about $150, the Mio Fuse is on the higher end of the price range for fitness trackers, and it's the same price as the Adidas Fit Smart, which also features heart-rate-based training but does not track steps or calories.

Still, the Fuse does not include some features that have become standard in many fitness trackers, such as sleep tracking.

Overall Rating: 5.1/10

Although the Fuse is labeled as an activity tracker, it is more of a heart-rate monitor/training device that has a few fitness-tracking features tacked on. If you already work out regularly and are looking for a device that can monitor your heart-rate zones from your wrist, then the Fuse may work for you.

But if you are more of a fitness amateur, or want a device that provides motivation, I suggest looking elsewhere.

After testing out both devices, I think the Adidas Fit Smart is a better choice than the Mio Fuse, because (as I'll explain below) the Fit Smart lets you design your own training plan and calibrate your heart-rate zones, and it shows you if you are improving in your workouts by providing a score at the end of every workout. The Fuse does not offer any of these features.

The Fit Smart also includes a heart-rate sensor made by Mio. Still, the Fuse is a very comfortable and accurate device.

Design/Comfort: 6.5/10

The Fuse is a fairly large device, with a screen that's 1.2 inches (3 centimeters) wide. But despite its size, I found the device to be very comfortable. It has a soft silicon strap that's adjustable. The device comes in two sizes: large and small/medium. But there's not much room for personalization with this device. Each size comes in only one color — aqua for the small, and red for the large. Plus, it's the underside of the strap that's colored, so it's hard to see the color when you're wearing it.

The Fuse doesn't have any buttons, but there are dot icons on either side of the screen that you tap to scroll through your stats. There are also dots on the top of the screen, which you hold down to take your heart rate and tap a second time to start a workout.

The screen has a bright-red LED display that's easy to read in most situations but is a little less readable in direct sunlight. The screen stays off most of the time, unless you tap it to view your time/stats. This means that if you're wearing the device as a watch, you have to tap it to see the time. In contrast, the Basis Peak, which also tracks heart rate, has a screen that is always on, so you only have to glance at your wrist to see the time. But there is a difference in battery life: The Fuse's battery lasts up to seven days with regular use, whereas the Peak's lasts a maximum of four days.

Another way the Fuse saves its battery is that it does not monitor your heart rate all day along (unlike the Peak and Fitbit Charge HR, which do track heart rate all day). The Fuse tracks your heart rate only during workouts. However, you can check your resting heart rate with the Fuse by pressing down on the dots at the top of the screen.

The Fuse is waterproof up to 30 meters (about 100 feet), so you can take it swimming.

User-Friendliness: 7/10

The Mio Fuse is meant to be paired (via Bluetooth) with the Mio Go app, which is available for the iPhone and Android devices. I was happy to discover that the syncing process was flawless. I have an older iPhone (4S), and some of the fitness trackers I've tested have had trouble pairing with it, but the Fuse did not.

The Fuse also syncs with some other smartphone apps, such as MapMyRun, and pairs with a number of GPS watches and bike computers.

During workouts, the Fuse gives you a ballpark indictor of your heart rate via a small light that flashes on the side of the screen. The light changes color depending on what heart-rate zone you're in: A blue light indicates that your heart rate is in the "very light" activity zone (e.g., 94 to 112 beats per minute), a yellow light indicates that you're in the "moderate activity zone" and a red light indicates maximum heart rate. There are five heart-rate zones, each with a different corresponding color.

In addition, the device vibrates when you change heart-rate zones. This gives you an idea of the intensity of your workout, without the need to tap the device, or even read any numbers, while working out.

The device provides default heart-rate zones (which I assume are based on age), and you can change the zone ranges in the settings. But the Fuse doesn't provide a way to calibrate the zones based on your actual heart rate at different workout intensities. In contrast, the Adidas Fit Smart does provide a way to calibrate your heart-rate zones, by having you perform an assessment workout in which you run at certain intensities for about a minute each.

Heart-rate measures are very individual, so the default heart-rate zone settings in the Fuse are likely to be rough estimates. Experienced athletes may already know their heart-rate zones, in which case they can simply change the zone settings or look at their exact heart rate during workouts. But amateur athletes may want more guidance on the subject, so they may prefer the Fit Smart.

I also had a bit of a hard time determining how to see my exact heart rate during workouts. At first, I tapped the dots on the top of the screen, because this is what you need to do to see your heart rate in rest mode. But during a workout, tapping the top dots actually pauses the workout, and tapping again restarts the workout. Eventually, I figured out that, to see your heart rate during a workout, you have to tap the side of the screen instead, which wasn't very intuitive. (But the Fuse does automatically flash your heart rate on the screen when you change heart rate zones).

After a workout, you can sync the Fuse with the Mio Go app to see additional stats, including your average and maximum heart rate, speed and pace. The app also provides a graph to show you when you reached different heart-rate zones and how much time you spent in each zone. You can tell the Fuse what type of activity you were doing — running, road biking, walking, mountain biking, climbing, swimming, rowing or hiking.

Value of Information: 4/10

The Fuse works well as a heart-rate monitor, and the graph it creates at the end of each workout provides a nice summary of how intense your workout was. In addition to the five heart-rate-zone settings, you can set the Fuse to tell you whether you are in your "target zone" for heart rate, or if you are above or below the target zone. (Your target heart-rate zone is about 60 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate.)

But there is very little hand holding with the Fuse. For example, it does not explain why target heart-rate zones are useful, or how you would know if you were improving your workouts. In contrast, the Adidas Fit Smart calculates a "Run Score" after each workout, which is a score from 1 to 1,000 that you can use to see if your workouts are improving.

In addition, the Fuse sets a default step goal of 10,000 steps, without explaining why people should aim for that level of activity. Many other fitness trackers also pick this default goal, even though it is not an official health recommendation. (In fact, to meet physical activity guidelines, you'd probably only need to walk about 7,000 to 8,000 steps a day, experts say.)

Enjoyment/Inspiration: 3/10

The Fuse is aimed at people who are already motivated to work out, so the device and accompanying app offer very little encouragement. Even though you could be wearing the device all day, the Fuse does not alert you when you've been sitting too long (unlike some other fitness trackers, like the Soleus Go and the upcoming Apple Watch).

There's also no option to share your workouts with others via social media, or earn badges, points or some other form of motivation, as some fitness trackers offer. And the Mio Go app does not send alerts to remind you to work out, or provide a way for users to create a training plan. In contrast, the Adidas app, called miCoach, does offer these features.

About the only thing that the Fuse offers in terms of motivation is to show you how many more steps you need to take to complete your daily step goal.

Still, some people may find it motivating to see their heart-rate zones, and to try to aim to keep their heart rate in a particular zone color.

Price: $149.00

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. 

This story was updated at 1:05 p.m. ET on March 25.

The Misfit Flash is an activity and sleep tracker that you can wear on your wrist, clip onto your belt or dangle from your keychain. This colorful device measures the number of steps you take in a day, as well as your distance traveled and calories burned. It also tracks how long (and how soundly) you sleep at night.

With so many ways to wear the Flash and seven color options to choose from, it's clear that Misfit wanted this tracker to appeal to a wide range of users. And its affordable price — it retails for between $34 and $50 — might make this device particularly appealing to those who want to try out the whole activity- and sleep-tracking thing without spending $50 more on Misfit's other tracker, the Shine, or other similar trackers in the $100-$150 range.

I wore the Flash for a week to see how well this bargain tracker holds up in daily life. [Fitness Tracker Buying Guide]

Overall Rating: 4.25/10

This was my first time reviewing a Misfit product, and I have to say that I'm a little torn on how to judge this company's approach to wearables. On the one hand, I really enjoyed interacting with the Misfit app. I thought it was easy to navigate and I liked the way it displayed my data. I also found the point system that the app uses to be truly motivating, and a great alternative to other trackers, which simply set a goal for how many steps I should take in a day.

On the other hand, the physical Flash device left a lot to be desired. I disliked the fact that there's no display screen on the tracker, but I could have lived with this if the LED light system used to indicate activity and time of day wasn't so confusing and tricky to use correctly. And, the fact that I went through two wristbands (both cracked) during the one week that I reviewed this device has me wondering if this cheaply made tracker is worth even its relatively low price.

Design & Comfort: 2/10

The Flash is a small plastic disc that slips into either a wristband or a small clip that hooks onto just about anything, including your shoe, waistband or keychain. I wore the tracker on my wrist because I wanted to be able to easily check the time of day and my progress toward my activity goals throughout the day.

Or at least, I wore it that way until the sport band cracked and fell apart.

A few days after I started wearing the device, the plastic disc that contains the Flash's battery and sensor came loose and fell out of the wristband. When I tried to put it back in place, the plastic ring that holds the Flash inside the wristband cracked. After that, I couldn’t get the disc to fit in the band at all. Luckily, we had another Flash in the Live Science office for review purposes, so I borrowed the wristband from that device, and tried to slip the disc into place. But the plastic ring on that wristband broke, too, in exactly the same spot as the first one.

I'm not the only one who had this problem: Amazon is loaded with one-star reviews from users who experienced similar problems with the Flash's sport band. The device is made of polyurethane and polycarbonates — plastics that Misfit says are "rugged, yet ultra-comfortable." And while these materials are indeed comfortable and very lightweight — I practically forgot I was wearing the Flash — I think it's safe to say that the device is far from "rugged." However, having the band replaced was very easy. I filled out a form on the Misfit website explaining what went wrong and received a new band in the mail, free of charge, within a week.

Like the new Jawbone UP Move fitness tracker, which also goes for around $50, the Flash doesn't have a display screen. To interact with the device, you press down on the plastic disc, which is like an oversized button. The LED lights embedded in the outer edge of the disc lit up in a circle, to give a rough idea of how much of your daily activity goal you have accomplished so far that day (when all the lights around the circle light up, you know you've reached your goal).

After revealing my activity, the lights flashed again to indicate the time of day. But the disc is a circle (and has no numbers on it), so to show you the time of day, just one of the lights flashes first, to indicate where the "12" is on the face of the disk. Then, the lights turn on around the disc face, to indicate the time. Using this feature was so complicated and required me to reposition the disc so often (to get the "12" into the top position), that I didn't bother using it. It was easier to dig my phone out of my bag to tell the time.

User friendliness: 4.5/10

Pairing the Flash with my iPhone via Bluetooth was simple. I had to download the Misfit app and create an account with the company to get started. Although the setup was easy, the device is not that intuitive to use, and I had to go to the product website to figure out what all the flashing lights on the tracker meant. After I watched a few videos, I got the hang of how to read the Flash's display. But as noted, to accurately tell the time, I had to keep reorienting the disc inside the band, and I found that to be really annoying.

Syncing the tracker with my phone was easy and quick. I also really liked the graphics used in the Misfit app, which are easy to read and provided me with all the data I needed to see at a glance. As soon as I synced up with the app, I could view my step count, calories burned and distance traveled. Beneath those metrics, I could see at what times during the day I had been most active.

My sleep data was laid out in a similar, easy-to-read fashion. I could see at a glance how long I had slept and when during the night I had been deeply asleep versus lightly sleeping. The sleep-tracking feature on this wearable is automatic, so I didn't have to tell the Flash when I was tucking in for the night. This feature gives the Flash an advantage over the Jawbone UP Move, which users have to remember to put into sleep mode at night.

Another user-friendly feature of this device was its long-lasting, non-rechargeable battery. The Flash runs on a coin-cell battery that can the company says can last up to six months, so you (almost) never have to take it off.

Value of Information: 6/10

Misfit trackers use a point system that translates activity stats, like time spent running or swimming, into earned points. When you create an account in the Misfit app, you set a goal that dictates how many points you'll try to earn every day. I set mine at 1,000 points. Walking for 10 minutes earned me about 100 points, whereas running for 10 minutes earned me about 400 points.

You can also earn points by cycling, swimming or playing sports. However, you can't use the Flash to track specific metrics on these activities. For example, the device tracks how long you spend swimming and rates the intensity of this exercise (though it's not clear how intensity is calculated), but you can't track how many laps you swim or how many strokes you took per lap the way you can with swim trackers like Garmin's Swim Watch.

You can also use the Misfit app to track your body weight over time, but you have to enter your weight manually. Because I have a smart scale that uploads my weight data to its own app on my phone wirelessly, I opted out of this feature. You can also link your Misfit account with MyFitnessPal, as well as other third-party apps, which makes it easier to keep data on exercise and diet all in the same place.  

In the pool

I took the Misfit Flash in the pool and found that you can't use this device to track in-depth swimming metrics, such as the number of laps you've completed or the number of strokes per lap. But you can use this waterproof fitness band to keep track of how much time you've spent in the pool. The Misfit app also graphs your activity level over a 24-hour period. I found that my time spent in the pool was graphed similarly to a brisk walk or any other kind of moderate exercise.  

Like most fitness trackers I've brought in the water, the Flash records some, but not all, of your movements during a swim workout. It counted a lot of my strokes and other movements while swimming or treading water as "steps," and included these in my daily total. This might not be a very useful metric for swim training, or for those who want to know how far they swam, but I did like that my activity in the pool counted toward my daily step goal. 

Enjoyment/Inspiration: 4.5/10

Like most of the fitness trackers I've reviewed, the Misfit Flash doesn't do a great job of relating your stats to suggestions on how to improve health. So while the Misfit app is a great place to keep track of how active I've been, it doesn't tell me whether I'm doing enough to stay healthy, or how I could do better.

However, I really liked the point system that Misfit has developed for its trackers. I had more fun trying to reach 1,000 points a day than I did trying to take 10,000 steps a day while wearing Fitbit's new tracker, the Charge.

You can also connect your Misfit account with Facebook to share your stats with people you know and encourage some friendly competition. If you're like me and prefer not to use Facebook, then you can set up a profile through the app and use it to connect with people you know (as well as Misfit users you've never met). This feature lets you see when other Misfit users have reached their goals. You can also compare your stats to those of other users with this feature.

Editor’s note: This story was updated on March 25, 2015 to include information about how this device performs “in the pool.”

Follow Elizabeth Palermo @techEpalermo. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

This story was updated at 1:30 p.m. ET on March 25.

The Withings Activité Pop is a fitness tracker for people who don't want to look like they're wearing a fitness tracker.

On the surface, the Activité Pop looks like a regular analog watch (with an old-school clock face), but the device subtly tracks your activity and sleep. In addition to telling you the time of day, the tracker includes a smaller dial that shows your progress toward your activity goals, from 0 to 100 percent.

And when you're ready to hit the sack, the Pop will automatically detect that you've started sleeping (there's no need to put it in sleep mode, as you have to do with some other trackers). You can set the Pop's alarm to wake you up.

At around $150, the Pop is a more affordable version of the company's previous fashion-forward fitness tracker, the Activité, which costs $450. The two devices are similar, but the Pop is made from some different materials: For example, the Pop has a silicone strap, whereas the Activité's is leather.

Still, the Pop is about the same price as the new Fitbit Charge HR, but unlike that device, the Pop does not track heart rate, nor does it include smartwatch features such as caller ID. But those who want to get away from clunky smartwatches may not miss such features.

Overall Rating: 6.6/10

If you're looking for a fitness tracker that's stylish and doesn't scream "tech geek," the Pop might be right for you. It subtly tracks your activity and sleep, without a whole lot of bells and whistles. Other pluses are that the device has automatic sleep detection and can be worn swimming.

However, if you want to see how many calories you've burned or how many steps you've walked on a wearable device itself, you might consider looking elsewhere. The Pop does not track heart rate, either, and there's almost no way to interact with the device itself, except through the app.

Design/Comfort: 6.5/10

The Pop comes in three colors — Azure, Shark Grey and Sand — and additional wristband colors will be available soon, the company says. You can also use your own watch straps, if you wish, because the Pop has standard watch attachments.

One thing that disappointed me is that the Pop did not quite fit my wrist; even after I adjusted the strap to the smallest size, the device was slightly too big, so that it slid around on my wrist while I was wearing it. This probably would not be a problem for most people, but those with smaller-than-average wrists should be aware that this device (and the accompanying straps) may not quite fit them.

Because the tracker does not have a digital screen, you can't see the exact count of your steps taken or calories burned on the watch itself — for that, you'll need to download the Withings Health Mate app, and sync the watch with your smartphone via Bluetooth. (Currently, the Pop only syncs with the iPhone, but Android compatibility is coming at the end of February.)

There aren't any buttons on the Pop, either, so you also set the alarm, and calibrate the device hands, through the app. If you tap the watch face, the hands of the watch will move to show you the time of your alarm, although I found this feature pretty useless (since I knew what time I'd set my alarm for). During the week I wore the Pop, I sometimes wished the device was a bit more interactive. But again, the Pop is supposed to be a wearable that's disguised as a regular watch, so it's not aiming to be a device that's full of bells and whistles. 

You won't need to charge the Pop; it comes with a watch battery that lasts at least eight months, according to the company.

User Friendliness: 6.5/10

I found the process of syncing the Pop with the Health Mate app to be fairly straightforward. However, the method for setting the alarm is a bit odd. The app presents you with an alarm time (around 7 a.m.), and then you slide your finger up or down your phone's screen to change the time. But you can't choose the hours and minutes separately. So if you wanted to set your alarm for some time in the afternoon, you would have to slide your finger down the screen, and keep sliding — going minute by minute — until you eventually reached the time you wanted. This takes quite a while. I'm guessing that Withings assumes that most people are using the alarm feature to choose a wakeup time in the morning.

The Withings app has undergone a redesign since I last used it (to review the company's Pulse O2 tracker), and I like the new presentation. The app now shows your activity at the top, and then a timeline of your various activities throughout the week as you scroll down. (The new design actually reminded me of the Jawbone Up app.) If you choose a specific day, you can see exactly how active you were at any point during that day, as well as your overall steps, distance, calories burned and elevation(vertical distance climbed), and how close you got to reaching your goals. You can also see your weekly averages for metrics like steps taken and hours spent sleeping.

Devices like the Pop, which track sleep without needing to be put into sleep mode, are decidedly more convenient than those that do need to be put into sleep mode, in my experience. I also found that this device was pretty accurate at detecting when I was awake versus asleep. In fact, I was impressed that the device could tell the difference between when I was just sitting quietly and when I was actually asleep.

The alarm vibrates quite a few times to wake you up. But if you like to hit snooze, you're out of luck — the Pop's alarm does not have a snooze feature. If you forget to wear your Pop to bed, the alarm won't go off.

The default activity goal on the Pop is 10,000 steps per day, but I couldn't change my step goal. I found this a bit annoying, especially because you can't see your actual step count by looking at the device, only the percentage of your step goal you've achieved. But the company told me that an update in late February will allow users to set their own goals (if they want to choose something other than 10,000 steps).

Value of Information: 7.5/10

Unlike a lot of other fitness trackers, the Pop (like other Withings devices) does actually include some information about what your stats mean. However, this information is somewhat buried in the Health Mate app. For example, if you select a day's activity and look at your sleep, you'll see three small dots in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Tap on the dots, and you'll be given the option to view the Help Center. Within this center, Withings provides answers to various questions that actually might be helpful to people who want to not just track but also improve their health. Answered questions include "How much physical activity should I get?", "What are the consequences of physical inactivity?" and "How can I improve my sleep quality?" All this information is very useful, but I wish it were featured more prominently within the app.

On the downside, the app offers no explanation as to why 10,000 steps is the default step goal. Many fitness trackers similarly pick this default goal, even though it is not an official health recommendation. (In fact, to meet physical activity guidelines, you'd probably only need to walk about 7,000 to 8,000 steps a day, experts say.)

And because the Pop's hand dial shows you your progress as a percentage, the dial will move only a small amount when you've walked a few thousands steps. Some people may find this disheartening (I know I did). I'm a pretty active person, and I never reached the 10,000-step goal per day while I wore the device.

In the pool

The Activité Pop is waterproof, so you can wear it in the shower and take it swimming. However, Withings has not yet released its planned software update that will enable the watch to track swimming metrics. (The update is scheduled to be released at the end of April 2015, according to the company's website.) I wore the Activité Pop during a swim workout anyway to see how it held up.

After doing some laps and a few aquatic exercises, such as treading water and jogging in place, I checked to see if the activity hand on the watch had registered anything, and it had. Later, I went into the app and found that the watch had picked up my movements in the pool and added them to my total step count for the day. My pool time was also graphed in the app as time spent being active.

Enjoyment/Inspiration: 6/10

If you enjoy earning rewards, you may like that the Withings app sends push notifications to your smartphone for certain accomplishments — such as when you've unlocked a badge (which might tell you that you've walked enough to have climbed the Eiffel Tower, for example). The app also sends you reminders when you forget to wear your Pop.

About once or twice a week, the Health Mate app provides users with an analysis of their activity — in the form of a short message — which the app calls Insights. The only message that I received during my week of testing was one that read, "With only 6,420 steps, that was the least active you've been in 15 days," along with an accompanying frowny face. Needless to say, I did not find this very motivating. I love the idea of providing users with insights that get more specific the more you use a device, but telling someone that they're not doing well may actually backfire.

The app does have a feature called Reminders, which allows you to set memory-jogging messages to yourself to engage in healthy behaviors, such as weighing yourself or going for a run every day. These reminders appear as notifications on your phone.

The app also has a feature called Leaderboard, which allows you to challenge your friends to a weekly step competition to see who can walk the most. This type of competition may motivate some people: Withings says that those who use the Leaderboard feature are 24 percent more active, on average, than other Withings users.

Buy the Withings Activité Pop >>>

Editor’s note: This story was updated on March 25, 2015 to include information about how this device performs “in the pool.” Live Science Staff Writer Elizabeth Palermo conducted the testing and wrote that section of the review. 

Editor’s Note: In February 2015, we changed the rating system we use in our fitness tracker reviews from a 5-star system to a 10-point system. Not all of our ratings were a straight conversion (i.e. 2/5 stars = 4/10 points). Instead, we adjusted some of them in order to give our readers a better idea of how these devices perform in relation to each other.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook& Google+. 

The Fitbit Charge is an activity tracker that also monitors your exercise and how long you sleep, as well as displays the incoming calls you're getting on your smartphone. The tracker, which retails for $129.95, is a great tool for people trying to get fit or those interested in monitoring their daily activity. Its ability to track time spent exercising, distance traveled and calories burned also makes it a good option for experienced exercisers.

Like the company's other trackers, the Charge syncs seamlessly to the Fitbit app, but what really makes this tracker stand out is its simple and comfortable design. The Charge is the kind of tracker you can wear day and night without any discomfort. You can interact with this tracker as much or as little as you like, which sets it apart from fitness bands like Garmin's Vivosmart, which vibrates when you've been sitting too long, or Moov, which only tracks activity when you're exercising. 

Overall Rating: 7.3/10

If you're looking for a fitness tracker that will monitor your daily activity and sleep patterns, then the Charge might be a good choice. This comfortable band is easy to use and also has a few convenient features, like a silent alarm and caller ID.

However, the Charge doesn’t have a heart rate monitor or GPS, making it a poor substitute for more feature-packed (and expensive) fitness trackers or sport watches. And although the Fitbit app is easy to use, it's also a bit lackluster in the quality of information it provides. If you want an in-depth analysis of your data, you'll have to shell out more money for the company's premium service. 

Design/Comfort: 9/10

The Charge is worn around the wrist and comes in three sizes and four colors, so you can pick the one that fits you (and your personality) best. Like other trackers that monitor steps and calories, the Charge is shaped more like a band than a watch. But unlike its predecessor, the Flex, the new Fitbit does have a small display screen, so I could check my daily progress on my wrist without having to first sync the tracker with my phone. [Best Fitness Tracker Bands]

The display is easy to read both indoors and out, but it remains blank until you either tap the screen or press the tracker's only button. Then, the home screen displays the time of day, but you can keep pushing the button to see your other stats, like how many floors you've climbed and how many steps you've taken. Using the app, you can also choose which stats you want to appear on the tracker when you press the button, and customize the order in which you see these stats.

I didn't have to do anything at all to get the Charge to track my sleep. The device automatically (and accurately) detected when I was done moving for the day — a feature I definitely appreciated. With some other trackers that monitor sleep, you have to remember to put the device in sleep mode when you hit the hay, and take it out of sleep mode when you wake up, in order for it to tally your hours of shut-eye.

The Charge is a sturdy device, and it's easy to take it on and off. It was also lightweight and comfortable enough to wear day and night for as long as I wanted. The tracker is made of a flexible elastomer material that is water-resistant and easy to clean. However, the Charge isn't waterproof, so although I could (and did) sweat on it, run in the rain with it and even splash it with water, I didn't wear it while swimming. The company also recommends taking the tracker off while bathing.

User-friendliness: 7/10

The Charge was delightfully easy to set up. I downloaded the Fitbit app on my iPhone and then created an account in the app, but you can also go to the company's website to create a username and password there, and set up a profile. Once you have an account, you can link the tracker to your smartphone or tablet via Bluetooth (that's what I did), or you can use the dongle that comes with the tracker to sync the tracker wirelessly with your computer.

Actually using the Charge is just as simple as setting it up. I have reviewed several other devices, and I was surprised by how little frustration I experienced the entire time I was reviewing this tracker. One time, it fell off my wrist because I hadn't properly secured the clasp, and it can be a little tricky to get the tracker properly cinched to your wrist. But I could say the same thing of any tracker or watch I've ever worn.

The Fitbit app has a straightforward, appealing design that makes it easy to find the information you're looking for at a glance. Every stat — from steps taken to time spent exercising — has its own display screen in the app, so you can easily access graphs, charts and calendars that let you assess your progress over time. Also in the Fitbit dashboard is a miniature picture of the Charge, flanked by an icon that tells you how much battery life you have left, which is very convenient. This tracker has a long battery life — up to 10 days.  [Fitness Tracker Buying Guide: Use This Flow Chart to Pick the Right Device]

Value of information: 6/10

The Charge is similar to many other fitness bands in what information it tracks. However, unlike some other devices, it also provides information on how long you've exercised and your pace, if you use it while running. The only standout feature — one that few trackers have — is the "floors climbed" stat, which kept me informed of how many times I'd gone up and down the stairs each day. That information wasn't particularly valuable to me, but I imagine it might be useful for someone doing a stair workout (or, for Rocky).

Before I got started with the tracker, I was prompted to set goals for my daily fitness in the app. The app then tracked whether I actually met those goals, but there wasn't any information in the app about why I should be striving toward 10,000 steps a day, how much exercise was ideal or how much sleepI should aim to get every night.

People accessing the Fitbit dashboard on a Web browser can purchase the company's "premium" service, which provides in-depth analysis of your activity and sleep data, as well as suggestions on how to reach your fitness and dietary goals. But it was sort of a turnoff for me that you have to pay more ($49.99 per year) to really make sense of the data that the Charge tracks.

You can set up voice cues in the app that offer a bit of support while you're working out. The cues will help you pace yourself while you're running and let you know how much ground you've covered. I don't like to carry my phone with me on runs, so I didn't test out this feature, but it seems like it would come in handy, especially for distance runners.

The Charge that I reviewed didn't have a heart rate monitor, but Fitbit is coming out with a new Charge (the Charge HR) early this year that the company says will feature a heart rate monitor, and only costs a tad more than the Charge, at $149.95.

Enjoyment/Inspiration: 7/10

Fitbit has a history of keeping fitness tracking lighthearted and fun, and the Charge is no exception. If you let the app access your contacts, you can find friends with Fitbit accounts and invite them to participate in workout challenges with you. The "Workweek Hustle" challenge, for example, is a friendly competition to see who can walk the most steps between Monday and Friday. You can also send messages to your Fitbit friends from within the app, and share your stats with them.

When you reach your fitness goals for the day, you'll receive an email or text alert that congratulates you on your progress. However, Fitbit didn't send me any notification when I wasn't meeting my goals. I didn't mind this, but those looking for a tracker that seconds as a drill sergeant might be more interested in products like the Garmin Vivosmart or the Soleus Go, which vibrate on your wrist if you've been sitting too long.

But the Charge does have a silent alarm that vibrates to get you out of bed in the morning, and the device also vibrated when I got a call on my cellphone, and even let me know who was calling. However, I didn't really understand why this was a useful feature, since I still needed to use my phone in order to answer calls.

Editor’s Note: In February 2015, we changed the rating system we use in our fitness tracker reviews from a 5-star system to a 10-point system. Not all of our ratings were a straight conversion (i.e. 2/5 stars = 4/10 points). Instead, we adjusted some of them in order to give our readers a better idea of how these devices perform in relation to each other.

Follow Elizabeth Palermo @techEpalermo. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Fitness trackers seem to have gone mainstream — one in 10 adults in the United States now owns a fitness band — but it's much more uncommon for people to own smartwatches, according to a new national survey on consumer trends.

The survey of 5,000 U.S. adults, released Jan. 6, shows that people across the country are buying fitness trackers, which monitor activities such as steps taken, calories burned and time slept. The report found that 36 percent of people who own a fitness tracker are between 35 and 54 years old, 41 percent have an average income of more than $100,000 and 54 percent are women.

In contrast, just 2 percent of people in the U.S. own a smartwatch, and smartwatch owners are younger and less wealthy than fitness tracker wearers, according to the report. Most (69 percent) of people who own a smartwatch are ages 18 to 34, 48 percent earn less than $45,000 yearly and 71 percent are male. [10 Fitness Apps: Which Is Best for Your Personality?]

The reason for the different demographics may have to do with public awareness of different devices, said Wes Henderek, director of Connected Intelligence for the NPD Group, a market research firm.

When fitness trackers first hit stores in early 2013, "fitness fanatics and athletes" bought them in droves, Henderek told Live Science.

"Those people were really disappointed with the products initially," Henderek said. "The stuff that those fitness trackers were tracking was pretty basic, counting things like steps and calories. A lot of them stopped using fitness trackers altogether because it wasn't telling much more than they already knew."

Now, two years later, more companies and improved products have entered the fitness tracker market.With increased awareness and choices, people — even those who only exercise casually — are buying fitness trackers.

"For many people, they're great," said Carol Ewing Garber, a professor of movement sciences and education at Columbia University, who was not involved with the survey. "It gives them a way to really evaluate how much exercise and physical activity they're getting, which is really essential for health."

It's surprising that women make up a slightly bigger share of the fitness tracker market than men, because generally, "women are less active," said Garber, who is also the president of the American College of Sports Medicine. But women also tend to be more aware of their health and weight than men are, and fitness trackers may be a good way for them to monitor their activities, Garber said.

Smartwatches attract an entirely different group of people.

"People buying smartwatches are still early adopters," Henderek said. Most of these adopters are young men who haven't started earning that much money yet. But, like the early fitness trackers, smartwatches are still in the beginning phases of development.

Many smartwatches offer features similar to those of smartphones — they allow people to check email and text messages and go online, Henderek said. But the watches tend to be difficult to use, are uncomfortably large and have a short battery life, he said. Moreover, smartwatches don't offer something unique, meaning they don't have a corner on any market, he said.

Still, many smartwatches also track people's daily activity, and people who buy smartwatches or fitness trackers may be entering a new phase of monitoring their exercise.

"It's exciting to see the interest in these devices," Garber said. "Hopefully, this isn't a case where people are getting the devices and trying them out and then leaving them on their desks because they don't work."

The NPD Group plans to survey people about wearable technology buying habits every six months. Going forward, the survey will also include other wearable technologies, such as eyewear like Google Glass, and smart clothing, Henderek said.

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

LAS VEGAS — The era of ugly fitness trackers appears to be coming to an end. A number of the fitness trackers on display here at CES 2015 cater to those with an eye for fashion. Here are some of the best fitness trackers we saw, which aim to let you monitor your workouts in style.

Mira band

The makers of the Mira band clearly took fashion into account when designing this fitness tracker, which is aimed at women. The tracker attaches to a cuff bracelet that comes in either Brushed Gold or Midnight Purple finishes. "We designed Mira to fit right in with your jewelry collection," the company says on its website.

Up close, the device is definitely feminine looking. The tracker can also detach from the bracelet when you head to the gym or don't feel like wearing a bracelet.

Mira has completed its Kickstarter campaign, and the company says it plans to start shipping devices this month.

Wellograph watch

Designed as a "sleek timepiece," the Wellograph watch is a modern-looking device that features a sapphire-crystal watch face, which is stronger than steel and can only be scratched by diamonds, the company says. The device also displays a number of different infographics to depict your activity, heart rate and other fitness data. However, these graphics are in black and white on the watch display, and in looking at them close up, I thought they were less impressive than they would be if they were in color.  

The watch tracks daily activity, heart rate and running stats. Next month, it will offer sleep analysis along with stress testing based on the variability between heart beats.

The device currently comes in White, Black and Silver, and at CES the company announced that the watch will soon also be available in Pink Gold and White Pearl. But all this style comes at a price: The watch costs $329. [Fantasy Fitness Tracker: 8 Absolutely Must-Have Features]

Misfit Swarovski Shine

Misfit already has a reputation for producing fashion-forward fitness trackers, including the Misfit Shine, and the company's latest fitness trackers are no exception. This week at CES, Misfit announced a partnership with the Austrian crystal-jewelry–making company Swarovski to release two new fashionable fitness trackers: the clear Swarovski Shine, which has a crystal face, and the violet Swarovski Shine, which is solar powered, the company says.

The company also released nine new accessories for the trackers, including a crystal-studded bracelet, and several pendants to hold the tracker on a necklace.

Withings Activité Pop

At CES, Withings announced their latest fitness tracker, the Activité Pop, which has a sophisticated clock-face design, but costs only $150 — much less than the company's previous fashion-forward tracker, Activité, which costs $450.

Like the Activité, the Activité Pop has two hand dials: one that shows the time of day, and a smaller dial that shows users' progress toward their activity goals. Although the device is pretty, you probably wouldn't mistake it for a designer watch – for example, the device has a silicon strap instead of a leather one.

The Pop comes in three colors — Azure, Shark Grey and Sand — and additional wristband colors will be available soon, the company says.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

LAS VEGAS — The largest display of consumer electronics on the planet, CES, kicked off here on Monday (Jan. 6). Among the nearly 20,000 gizmos on display are a huge assortment of technologies designed with health and wellness in mind.

As expected, visitors to this year's CES will see an abundance of fitness trackers for athletes of many different sports, from marathon runners to snowboarders. But attendees will also see gadgets and devices that monitor your health when you aren't wearing workout clothes, such as an arm chair said to help you get fit while you watch TV, and a Bluetooth-enabled pacifier that lets parents know when baby is running a fever.

Live Science scoured CES in search of the most novel technology for the health-minded set. Here are our favorite finds so far:

Mood tracker

Lots of wristbands at this year's CES track your steps, calories burned or time spent working out. But one device aims to monitor your emotional health as well. Called Being and made by Zensorium, the device is touted as a way for people to track some of their moods throughout the day.

Built like a smartwatch, the device features sensors that collect heart rate and blood pressure data. This information is then used to assign the wearer a mood — it doesn't register all moods, but tells you whether you are excited, stressed, normal or calm. If you're feeling stressed, Being provides tips on how to unwind; for example, it may encourage you to take deep breaths.

Being also serves as a more conventional activity tracker, monitoring your steps taken and calories burned, as well as mapping out your sleep cycles. The device, due out in April, will retail for $169.15, according to the company. (Photo credit: Zensorium)

High-tech yoga mat

You don't need much equipment to practice yoga, but for yoga enthusiasts who want to go high-tech, there's SmartMat, a yoga mat with sensors that can detect your pose and provide feedback on how to improve your form.

Users first calibrate the device by providing their heights and weights, and then performing a series of poses so the mat can determine the length of the user's limbs and torso. This helps the device provide customized feedback, such as whether you need to adjust your position to get the perfect pose, the company said.

"The feedback you get is very specific for your body," Leanne Beesley, a representative for SmartMat, told Live Science. And the more you use the mat, the more it learns about your body, Beesley said. [Best Fitness Tracker Bands 2015]

The SmartMat can detect 62 different poses, and can hold a charge for six hours. The mat also has different modes, specialized for use at home or during yoga classes. The device is available now for pre-order at $297, and will begin shipping in July. (Photo Credit: SmartMat)

Workout armchair

At last year's CES, fitness company TAO Wellness unveiled its Wellshell, a cellphone-size fitness tracker that also works as a tiny piece of exercise equipment. The company says that users can hold the device against their bodies to strengthen their muscles (a technique known as isometric exercise). The device connects to an app on your phone, which monitors your progress and teaches you new exercises. The novelty of this product is that it can be used anywhere, at any time, allowing you to sneak in a quick workout no matter your schedule.

But this year, TAO has taken that idea of working out anywhere to another level. The TAO Chair is a piece of exercise equipment that seconds as an actual chair for your office or living room. The device lets whoever is sitting in it work out different muscle groups. That's right, you can tone up those biceps while you binge-watch your favorite shows or shoot off emails.

The TAO Chair likely won't be available until the end of 2015, and the company isn't giving up details on what the device will cost just yet. In fact, the Wellshell of last year is still in the testing phase, and the company is also releasing no details yet about how much that item might cost. (Photo Credit: TAO Wellness)

Smart pacifier

Any parent who has ever tried to take a sick baby's temperature will appreciate Pacif-i, a new pacifier that seconds as a pediatric thermometer. This smart device connects via Bluetooth to your tablet or smartphone, allowing you to record your kid's temperature consistently and without any struggle.

The Pacif-i app graphs baby's temperature throughout the day, which lets parents monitor a fever and check how well a child is responding to medication. Of course, the pacifier can also be used when a child is well. Pacif-i features a built-in proximity sensor that monitors the device's location, so a smartphone alarm will warn parents if their pacifier-toting kid wanders away.

Blue Maestro, the company behind the smart pacifier, says the device is due to ship early this year. The expected retail price for Pacif-i is $40.00. (Photo Credit: Blue Maestro)

Never-forget pillbox

Liif is a new connected device from wellness company Tricella that helps you remember to take your medication. The device uses Bluetooth to connect with smartphones and tablets, but it can also sync up with its own external hub (which looks like a small white speaker), so that even people without the latest tech can receive alerts at pill time. 

Liif was definitely designed with caretakers in mind, and it might help ease the stress of adults who care for elderly family members, or parents trying to monitor their college kids' medications from afar.

The smaller version of Liif, which has four pill compartments, retails for $59.99. A larger version with seven compartments goes for $74.99, and the smartphone-replacing hub is $119.99. You can pre-order all of these products now, but the company's website doesn't list information about when they're due to ship. (Photo Credit: Tricella)

Contributing reporting by Rachael Rettner.

Follow Elizabeth Palermo @techEpalermo. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Jawbone's new UP Move fitness trackers will track your steps taken, distance traveled, calories burned and hours slept, and can motivate fitness newbies to see whether their daily activities translate into lax or rigorous workout routines. There are two ways to wear the UP Move, a circular device not much larger than a quarter: You can either pop the disc into a comfortable rubber wristband, or put it in a clip that you can attach to your waistband or pocket. The disc is patterned with textured lines that look like petals on a flower, and has a hidden LED display. Users can press the face to see the time of day, and what percentage of steps they've taken that day.

At $49.99, UP Move is about half the price of the UP24 band, which is the $99 tracker that Jawbone released earlier this year, and about a third of the price of the new UP3, a $179.99 band that tracks multiple activities, including movement, temperature and heart rate. But the UP Move is about the same price as the Fitbug Orb, which also tracks steps, distance, calories and sleep. The battery, which is not rechargeable, lasts up to six months before a new one is needed, according to Jawbone. [Fantasy Fitness Tracker: 8 Absolutely Must-Have Features]

How do the UP Move's features stack up in real life? I wore the tracker for two weeks to find out.

BUY the Jawbone UP in the Live Science store >>>

Overall Rating: 6.6/10

The pros of the UP Move include its low price and ability to track steps, sleep and calories burned. Once you pair it with other applications, you can tailor it to fit your health needs and compete with friends and family. It also lets you set goals and track your health trends.

The cons of the UP Move are the difficulty to see the time of day quickly and respond correctly to certain clicks. You also have to remember to put it in sleep mode or tell it when you're about to play a sports game or work out. Moreover, the UP Move does not have an alarm or GPS, and it does not track temperature or heart rate.

Design/Comfort: 6.5/10

I'm generally wary of wearing trackers that are stiff or bulky. But I found the UP Move wristband surprisingly comfortable and flexible. The wristband comes in five colors (black, purple, red, white and yellow) and is relatively flat, so it can easily fit under a coat or shirtsleeve. It took me a few tries to secure the band on my wrist the first day — one side of the band fits through a loop and then into a number of holes — but I quickly mastered the technique and now can slide the band on and off with ease.

I found the UP Move more comfortable than the Orb, which is made by Fitbug, a company based in the United Kingdom. The UP Move and the Orb track roughly the same activities and have comparable prices, but the Orb has a rubber wristband, and is thicker and bulkier than the UP Move. Yet the Orb's wristband, with two pegs on one side that fit into holes in the other, is easier to attach with one hand. Although the UP Move is not as fashion-forward as the Misfit Shine, which can even be worn as a necklace, the Jawbone wristband is decidedly slimmer than many other fitness trackers on the market.

The UP Move is water resistant, so no worries if you get it wet when you're running in the rain or dripping with sweat after a workout, but don't submerge it in water.

User Friendliness 6/10

You basically need two things to start using the UP Move: the battery and a smart device to run the UP application, including an iPhone, iPad or Android device. The battery comes in the package, and the app, which speaks to your smart device using Bluetooth, is easy to download. I normally don't run Bluetooth on my iPhone 5, and I noticed that it drained my battery faster than usual. The UP app is compatible with more than 50 other apps, including The Breakfast Challenge, RunKeeper and Sleepio. I downloaded MyFitnessPal, which tracks calories, weight and exercise. The UP application imports your calorie count, and makes it into a bar graph on your home screen.

Calorie counting is an inexact science, so I'm not sure how accurate MyFitnessPal is in estimating how many calories were in my shakshuka, a Mediterranean dish with poached eggs and tomatoes that I ate for brunch last weekend. But it gives you a general idea about eating habits, and either cheers or chides you for eating foods high in vitamins or carbohydrates. The UP Move app also analyzes the nutrient content of your food, such as its fiber, sugar and unsaturated fat, to inform you whether you're eating a balanced diet.

Moreover, the UP app provides bar graphs of your stats — it shows you how your sleep quality and steps taken have changed since the day you started using the device. Tracking steps is definitely the UP Move's forte; a single tap on the UP Move's face shows the percentage of steps you've taken so far that day. For me, my main source of exercise is playing ultimate Frisbee, and unlike runners or cyclists who have a general sense of the distance they cover, I never knew before how much I was really moving when I was playing ultimate. Using a fitness tracker to count steps is a good measure of activity for people who play other games too.

Through the UP app, you can compete with friends and family to see who is the most active. You can also challenge yourself by timing your activities. To do this, you click on the UP Move's face. I usually forgot to do this before I started playing, but it doesn't matter too much — the app still graphs your activity throughout the day, and shows when you were most active.

For instance, after an afternoon of playing ultimate Frisbee, the app told me I accomplished 19,000 steps, the equivalent of 9.27 miles (14.9 kilometers), which was 189 percent of my daily goal of 10,000 steps.

It's debatable how well the sensors in fitness trackers can monitor people's sleep, but the UP Move aims to categorize your sleep as "light" or "sound," depending on how much you move. You have to remember to put the tracker into sleep mode, so it's not automatic like the LifeTrak Brite R450 (although our reviewer found the Brite R450 had problems monitoring sleep at night).

I don't like wearing a wristband at night, so I clipped the UP Move to my pajamas when I went to bed.

The app also gives you tips about how to manage your health, such as citing a study from the U.S. National Institutes of Health on how camping in the wilderness helps you get away from artificial light and reset your circadian rhythm. The tidbits are cute, but with my busy schedule, I haven't made the time to follow the institute's advice.

I did have one complaint: I'm used to wearing a wristwatch, and like seeing the time in a glance. You have to click the UP Move twice to see the time, and it rounds it to the nearest 5 minutes using the LED lights. Sometimes I would click it twice, and the screen would give my step percentage instead, so it seems that the device doesn't always respond as it should.

Value of information: 7/10

It's useful having a pedometer that shows how well you're meeting your goals. I learned from the device that I usually don't move enough during the week unless I walk home or hit the gym after work. It's also fun to check your steps throughout the day, and I found myself clicking on the UP Move after I walked around the city or ran errands.

I found that counting calories is a task that would take a lot of effort, but I can see how it's helpful when tracking your overall health, especially for people trying to lose weight or maintain weight loss. If people are serious about improving their diet, pairing MyFitnessPal with the UP application could be an effective tool. The UP app also helps you set goals and reminders, such as to eat more fiber or go to bed at a decent hour. These activities, because they are created by the user, will likely be valuable to those individuals.

Unlike other fitness trackers, UP Move does not have an alarm or GPS, nor does it track temperature or heart rate. But for its price, it does help people track their exercise, calories and sleep with relative ease.

Enjoyment/inspiration: 7/10

I enjoyed using the UP Move, though mostly to check my steps and distance traveled. Depending on the weather, it can be hard to motivate myself to go outside. The UP Move is a reminder that it's healthy to stay active, which usually isn't a problem during the weekend, but can be a real drag on weekdays.

Unlike counting calories or checking my sleep quality, I'm inspired to exercise more with the UP Move. If I had the device for longer, I would probably challenge a friend to a workout contest, and then step up my game to stay competitive.

BUY the Jawbone UP in the Live Science store >>>

Editor’s Note: In February 2015, we changed the rating system we use in our fitness tracker reviews from a 5-star system to a 10-point system. Not all of our ratings were a straight conversion (i.e. 2/5 stars = 4/10 points). Instead, we adjusted some of them in order to give our readers a better idea of how these devices perform in relation to each other.

More Reviews: See all our Fitness Tracker Reviews to find the best one for your needs.

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

The LifeTrak Brite R450 is a new fitness tracker from Salutron that aims to provide a comprehensive view of health and fitness.

The R450 certainly does have a lot of bells and whistles — it tracks your daily steps, distance, calories burned, heart rate and workouts, and automatically detects when you fall asleep and wake up. The device vibrates to alert you when you need to be more active, and it includes an alarm that the company says will wake you up at an optimal time that's based on how well you've slept. The device starts at around $120 on Amazon, putting it in the middle of the price range for fitness trackers.

The Brite R450 is also one of the few fitness trackers that monitors your light exposure, including blue light. (It is thought that too much blue light exposure before bedtime could interfere with sleeping well.) The company also says the device can tell you when you need more natural light.

The device also has some smartwatch features, including alerts for incoming calls, texts and emails, as well as calendar reminders. And it is waterproof up to 90 feet, so you can wear it while you are in the shower or swimming. All of these features sound good in theory, but how does the device work in practice? I tested it for a week to find out.

Overall Rating: 5.8/10

The pros of the LifeTrak Brite R450 include automatic sleep detection, a vibrating alarm and an ambient-light detector that can tell you when you need more natural light.

The cons of the R450 include a slow syncing process, bugs in sleep detection and a strap that is somewhat uncomfortable.

Design/comfort: 7/10

The Brite R450 has a large, circular screen surrounded by a ring of metal that I thought looked quite sleek. The display is easy to read, and the screen is always on, so you don’t have to push any buttons to see the time of day. But if you're in the dark, you'll need to turn on the backlight by holding down a button on the side of the device.

I was disappointed with the device's strap — it has a plastic feel, and it is hard to put on. The strap is adjustable, but because it is somewhat ridged, I found it hard to adjust it to one of the smaller sizes.

The device has three buttons on the right side. When you press the top "mode" button, you toggle through viewing: your notifications about calls and texts, a graph of your hourly activity, a graph of your weekly activity and a screen to track your workouts separately. The middle "view" button lets you see your basic stats: total sleep time, distance walked, calories burned and total steps for the day. You see these stats on the bottom of the screen, below the time of day, along with a progress bar that shows how close you are to completing your goal for the day. Also, you hold down this middle button to check your heart rate. The bottom button is the "start/stop" button, which you press to start/stop your workouts. You also hold it down when you want to sync the device to your smartphone (which syncs wirelessly via Bluetooth).

People who do not have smartphones may find the Brite R450 more appealing than other fitness trackers, because although it helps to have the LifeTrak app, it is not essential for using the device — you can view your weekly activity on the device itself. You can even manually enter all your information (height, weight, etc.) into the device itself, without the app, as well as set your goals and alarms. But this does require a lot of button pushing, and it's definitely easier to enter your information through the app.

Unlike many other fitness trackers in its price range, the Brite R450 battery does not need to be charged — it lasts about six months before you'll need to replace it.

User friendliness: 4/10

The Brite R450 has three navigation buttons, and each performs a different function, depending on whether you press the button once, twice or hold it down. This makes for quite a complex fitness tracker. For this reason, you'll want to give the user guide a read before you strap the tracker on your wrist and head out the door.

Performing basic functions on the device, like starting workouts and viewing your stats, is pretty easy, once you've familiarized yourself with all those buttons.

However, I found it tricky to get the device to check my heart rate — I would often need to do a reading multiple times before it would show a measurement. This may have been because the device did not fit me properly, as I had a hard time adjusting the strap to fit my wrist. Also, unlike some other fitness trackers that also track heart rate — like the Basis Peak and the upcoming Fitbit Charge HR — the LifeTrak does not measure heart rate continually throughout the day. Instead, the Brite R450 performs a measurement only when you tell it to.

Syncing the wristband with the LifeTrak app proved frustrating. First, I attempted to pair the device with my iPhone 4S, but I kept getting the message "Pairing Failed," even after I tried suggestions from the company for fixing pairing problems. I then tried an iPhone 5, and my R450 was able to pair, but the syncing process took forever. Seriously, it was several minutes. This is much longer than many of the other fitness trackers I've used, which usually sync in a matter of seconds. Because it took so long to pair, I would sync the device and then go do something else. Sometimes it would take several minutes, and then tell me there was a problem, and I would have to start again. I can only hope that the time it takes to sync will improve with newer versions of the app.

I also encountered problems with the device's sleep tracking. You don't have put the device into sleep-tracking mode, because the Brite R450 is able to automatically detect when you fall asleep, based on your motion, arm posture and ambient light. This is an appealing feature for people who don't want to remember to put their device in sleep mode every night. The first night I used the R450, the automatic sleep detection worked well — the device seemed to be able to detect when I was asleep and when I woke up fairly accurately. But the next few nights, the device did not track my sleep at all (it said I got zero hours of sleep). After exchanging emails with the company, I was told there was a bug in the app that turns off sleep detection in some cases, which the company is working to fix. (A representative told me this update would be available fairly soon.) But on the device itself, I was able to follow some steps to turn it back on, and after that, sleep detection worked again.

The ambient-light detection is an interesting feature, but for it to work, you have to keep the watch face from being covered by a sleeve from your sweater, jacket or coat. Because I tested the device in winter, the Brite R450 was almost always covered by my sleeve when I was outdoors, so it usually didn't detect when I had been outside. This is not a criticism of the watch design, but I think that users in cold climates should be aware that the ability of the device to detect when you're outside may be a problem when you're wearing winter clothes.

Value of information: 6/10

Although the LifeTrak Brite R450 tracks a lot of things, it provides very little information about what your stats actually mean. For example, although the default step goal is 10,000 steps a day, LifeTrak does not provide information about how much exercise you need to "be healthy." Not everyone cares about this type of information, but those who are just starting to track their distance/steps may be interested in knowing more specifically what they should aim for, and other fitness trackers do give users more insight into their activity. For example, the Withings Pulse O2 explains that people should aim to get 150 minutes of moderate activity per week (as recommended by the World Health Organization), and the Fitbug Orb looks at your activity for the past week to provide personal targets for total steps, aerobic steps and calorie intake.

Also, although the Brite R450 is one of just a few trackers that can track ambient light, it provides very little information about what to take away from your data. A graph in the app shows you your exposure to "all light" and "blue rich light" over time, and the app tells you how many minutes you were exposed to "bright light." The app suggests you get about 30 minutes a day of bright-light exposure. But is it bad if you get more or less than that? The app does not say. Also, the device did not tell me whether I needed more or less blue light, or whether I was exposed to blue light at the wrong time of day.

Still, the device does provide some takeaways in the form of vibrating alerts on your wrist. It will buzz to tell you to "get more light" if you've been inside too much. Another alert will say, "let's walk now" if you've been sitting down too long. In this way, the device does let you know when some of your behaviors are less than optimal.

Enjoyment/inspiration: 6/10

The physical vibrations from the Brite R450 on your wrist, and the messages to "get more light" or "walk now" may provide the extra nudge you need to get moving throughout the day.

In the app, next to each of your metrics you'll see a circle that fills with color as you get nearer to completing your goal for that day. When you complete a goal, you'll see a green check mark next to that metric. This is a quick way to see how active you are throughout the day. On the device itself, the R450 also displays your progress with a progress bar. If you see that you've nearly completed your goal, you may be motivated to go out and walk a little more.

The device does not have a way for you to connect with friends, however, or share your progress on social media sites, which may be a motivation for some.

Editor’s Note: In February 2015, we changed the rating system we use in our fitness tracker reviews from a 5-star system to a 10-point system. Not all of our ratings were a straight conversion (i.e. 2/5 stars = 4/10 points). Instead, we adjusted some of them in order to give our readers a better idea of how these devices perform in relation to each other.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook& Google+. 

This story was updated at 1:30 p.m. ET on March 25.

The Moov fitness tracker aims to be more of a fitness friend. Dubbed the "personal artificial intelligence coach" by its creators, Moov can help couch potatoes get into the swing of working out, or challenge fitness fanatics to take workouts to the next level. The device tracks some of the same data as most fitness trackers — steps taken, calories burned and the amount of time spent working out — but it also provides spoken instructions on how to improve or sustain certain movements while exercising.

At $79.95, this device is more affordable than most trackers that feature a coaching component, such as the Nike+ Sportwatch GPS, which retails for $199.99. However, Nike's Sportwatch has a GPS feature, so it can track the total distance you cover during a workout, and it also displays the time of day. But unlike Nike's product, Moov isn't just for runners — boxers and swimmers can also use this tracker during their workouts (the device is water-resistant enough to take in the pool).

I tested Moov for a week to see if it could get me back into the swing of my exercise routine.

Overall Rating: 7.1/10

Moov is a great fitness tracker and virtual coach for anyone who needs a little motivation to improve fitness performance (or just get up off the couch). With sleek hardware and software, this budget-friendly wearable allows runners, boxers and swimmers of every fitness level to experience one-on-one coaching on their own schedules.

A fairly new product, Moov still has a few kinks to work out before it will be as useful as other wearables that track sleep patterns and heart rate in addition to workouts. This device could also be improved by letting users control how much they want to be coached and by making it easier to utilize the GPS feature on a smartphone during a workout to track distance or pace.

Design/Comfort: 5.5/10

Moov looks a bit like a wristwatch, and can be worn around the wrist or ankle. The tracker has no screen, so people who (like me) want a sleek, minimalist design while working out may prefer the Moov over some trackers with much bulkier designs. Since the Moov has no screen or buttons, you can focus completely on your workout with no distractions. However, for those who want to see their stats with a glance at their wrists, without having to lug out their smartphones, the Moov might not be optimal.

I used Moov for running and walking, and found that once I'd slipped the silicon strap around my ankle, I forgot the lightweight device was even there. Moov comes with two adjustable bands, one for the ankle (for running and walking) and one for the wrist (for boxing and swimming). The band was easy to strap on, and was notched to fit around limbs of all shapes and sizes. 

To connect the tracker to your phone or tablet, you press down on Moov's circular face until a thin band around the outside of the circle lights up. The device itself comes in black or white, and in the companion app, you can choose what color light appears on the tracker. 

User friendliness: 7/10

Getting started with Moov is easy. First, you need to download the appropriate app for the activity you want to track. Right now, Moov has three available apps — Run & Walk, Cardio Boxing, and Swimming. An app for cycling and one that tracks body weight are due out soon, according to the company. Moov apps were originally only available for iOS devices, but recently also made their way onto the Android platform.

The app lets you connect your Moov to your smartphone or tablet via Bluetooth, which was a seamless process. If you want the app to track your elevation and pace while you run, you need to turn on the GPS tracking (or location services) on your mobile device. This wasn't totally clear the first time I used the tracker, so I didn't get any feedback on my pace during that first workout, which I later lamented.

The streamlined design of the Moov wearable carries over to the app, which is simple to navigate, even while working out. I used Moov during my afternoon walks or runs, plugging earbuds into my iPhone so I could hear the tracker's coaching advice.

The "walk" workout feature of the Run & Walk app is set up to record three 2-minute intervals with 30-second breaks between them. Each workout also allots time for a warm-up walk at a brisk pace. Throughout these intervals, a coaching voice told me whether I was keeping up with the pace I had set for myself, and offered advice on how to move more quickly. When the three intervals completed, I could choose to keep going or switch to a different app feature, like running or sprinting.

My only complaint while using this tracker was that there didn't seem to be a way to pause my workout. This was a problem since I was pushing a jogging stroller, loaded with a needy 3-year-old. It would have been nice to put my coach on pause for a few seconds without ending the workout altogether and starting from scratch.

Value of information: 8/10

 Moov is marketed as an artificial intelligence coach, not just a fitness tracker, and I found that the wearable lived up to that claim. In addition to providing real-time tracking of cadence (steps per minute), impact (heaviness of steps) and range of motion (length of stride), the app also told me how to improve these metrics during my workout. For example, when I needed to increase my cadence to meet my goal, my coach told me so, providing tips on how I could move more quickly. I was surprised at how effective this approach was at getting me to improve my performance.

Other advice, like "Keep your spine straight," "Avoid swinging your hips" and "Look straight ahead with your chin up" got me going faster while also improving my form. There were even a few creative pieces of advice that inspired me to kick it into high gear (e.g., "Imagine you're walking over hot coals"). And instead of noting that my impact was too light, for example, my coach told me to "push harder off the ground."

I could have looked at my stats during each workout, but I like to just be in the moment, so I waited until afterward to see how I did. The app gives you a full activity report after each workout session, which provides data on things like your average range of motion, or cadence, and shows how your performance changed throughout the course of the workout. Descriptions for what these different metrics mean is conveniently located right in the app, so it all made sense to me instantly.

The app also has an icon that lets you know if your mobile device is connected, and whether your battery is fully charged. I found I needed to recharge only once during the week I used the Moov.

The Moov doesn't have a monitor that lets you know when you've reached your target heart rate, which would come in really handy. On its website, the device's creators say they'll soon be coming out with what they call a "third-party heart rate monitor integration," so perhaps in the future you'll be able to attach a heart rate monitor to the Moov wrist or ankle band.

For people who want to track the number of calories they are consuming, or how many hours they sleep, the Moov may not be the best fitness tracker, because it does not track those data.

In the pool

The Moov is the only fitness tracker I've tested that tracks advanced swimming metrics in addition to metrics from other sports. It records laps completed, calories burned, distance swum, total time in the pool, average stroke rate and average distance per stroke. All of this information is laid out in an easy-to-read format in the Moov Swim app, and is accompanied by useful tips on how to improve swimming technique. There's also a "lap breakdown" chart in the app that lets you compare every lap you swam to a 200-meter Olympic gold-medal swim. I didn't really find this chart to be very useful or practical, but I appreciate that Moov tries to give you some kind of standard for comparing your stats.

However, you can't see the information that Moov tracks as you swim until after you climb out of the pool, as the device doesn't have a display screen. You can only see how many laps you've swum, or how many minutes you've been in the pool, by looking at your phone. You also have to go into the app before your swim to start recording your workout. That means you need to bring your phone to the gym with you if you want to use Moov. Once you press record in the app, you can leave your phone in your car or locker. Moov can store up to 90 minutes of data and won't start recording your swim until you actually get in the pool.

Enjoyment/inspiration: 8/10

I had a blast using Moov and found that it really got me to jump back into a regular exercise routine with gusto. As a runner, I'm used to periodically getting advice from a coach, and I found that Moov offered me similar advice to that of my real-life coach: Remember to breathe regularly, keep your pace steady, don't forget to cool down.

Of course, sometimes I wasn't in the mood to be coached. But when I took my earbuds out altogether, I lost track of what interval I was on and whether or not I was on target to meet my goals. It would be nice if I could control how much the coaching feature talked. Surely, one of the advantages of having a computer for a coach must be that you can put it on mute. 

The Moov app lets you share your stats with friends after a workout, which is always a nice feature for those with a competitive streak. And for the users whose biggest competitor is him or herself, the app breaks your workout down into intervals, which makes it easy to compare your performance at the beginning of a workout to your performance at the end of a workout.

BUY the Moov fitness tracker >>>

Editor’s note: This story was updated on March 25, 2015 to include information about how this device performs “in the pool.”

Editor’s Note: In February 2015, we changed the rating system we use in our fitness tracker reviews from a 5-star system to a 10-point system. Not all of our ratings were a straight conversion (i.e. 2/5 stars = 4/10 points). Instead, we adjusted some of them in order to give our readers a better idea of how these devices perform in relation to each other.

Follow Elizabeth Palermo @techEpalermo. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+.

Editor's Note: On Aug. 3, 2016, the Basis Peak was recalled because of the risk that the device may overheat and cause skin blisters or burns. It is no longer being sold.

The Peak is the latest fitness tracker from Basis, and the wrist-worn device aims to provide users with a number of insights into their daily activities while motivating them to live healthier lives. This tracker is our "Editors' Choice" among all the fitness trackers we've tested because not only does it track a vast array metrics, such as perspriation levels, but also we found it to be one of the more motivating fitness trackers to use.

Like the previous Basis B1 fitness tracker, the Peak tracks heart rate throughout the day, but the new device features improved sensors that allow it to keep track of your heart rate while you exercise, without a chest strap. In this regard, the device is similar to the Samsung Gear Fit, and the upcoming Apple Watch and Fitbit Charge HR, which will also monitor heart rate during exercise. I wore the Peak for about a week, to test out its features.

Unlike many other fitness trackers, the Peak doesn't need to be put into sleep mode — it automatically detects when you're sleeping. It also automatically detects certain activities, such as running, walking and cycling, and tells you the duration of your activity as well as how many calories you burned. The Peak is also one of the only trackers to measure skin temperature and perspiration. At about $200, the Peak is on the high end of the price range for fitness trackers. [Best Fitness Trackers]

The company says that the Peak will soon have some smartwatch capabilities, such as the ability to receive notifications for incoming calls and texts. These features will be included in a future software upgrade.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10

The pros of the Peak include a screen that doesn't require button pushes to see the time, automatic detection of activities, including running, cycling and sleep, and the ability to track heart rate during exercise.

The cons of the Peak include the lack of an alarm, the lack of a way to track distance in miles/kilometers, and the omission of a way to share your information on social media.

Design/Comfort: 8.5/10

Compared with the previous Basis tracker, the Peak features a number of design improvements. Perhaps the biggest change is that the device doesn't have any buttons — instead, it has a touch screen. In addition, the device's screen is always on, so you don't have to push any buttons to see the time of day. (Many other fitness trackers require a button push to see the time.) And because the Peak can detect when you are exercising, the device will automatically show your steps, activity duration and heart rate, all in one screen, without any button pushes. This is very convenient when you're running or cycling, or just have your hands full.

The device's black-and-white display is large and easy to read, even in daylight. The Peak's screen also has a backlight so you can read it at night, but this does not turn on automatically. You have to swipe up on the right-hand side of the screen to turn on the backlight. I found that I would sometimes accidentally turn on the backlight when swiping on the screen to view my stats.

The Peak's breathable silicone strap feels soft and comfortable, and it can be adjusted to fit various wrist sizes. The straps come in only two colors, white/gray and black/silver, but you can also use your own watch straps if you wish, as the Peak has standard 23-millimeter watch-strap attachments.

However, the Peak's watch face comes in only one size, and it is rather large. As a petite female with small wrists and arms, the Peak looked big on me, and felt a little heavy. In contrast, the Apple Watch is expected to come in two sizes, including one for smaller people.

The Peak is waterproof up to 165 feet, so you can take it swimming. It is also fairly easy to charge — it snaps into its magnetic charging cradle, which connects to a computer or USB hub. It has up to four days of battery life.

Weirdly, the Peak doesn't have an alarm, which I would expect in a device of this price. But it does have the capability to vibrate, so perhaps an alarm will be included in a later software upgrade.  

User Friendliness: 7/10

To set up your device, you have to download the Basis Peak app, which is available for iOS and Android. The app walks you through the setup, but there is no additional video explaining how to use the device. I thought a video or an illustration of how to use the device would have been nice — it's not a particularly complex device to use, but there is a lot of swiping left/right and up/down on the screen that is required to view different stats, turn on the backlight and sync the device, and as a user you are essentially left to figure all of this out on your own.

By default, the main screen shows the time, and if you tap on the screen it also displays the date. You swipe left to view your heart rate, and swipe left again to view your recent activity. Swiping down from the heart rate screen also shows your total steps and calories burned for that day.

I found the device easily detected when I was walking or running. However, it sometimes took a while to measure my heart rate, and sometimes I could not get a reading. This may have been because the device was slightly loose on my wrist.

The app has a main dashboard that provides an overview of your daily activity (steps taken and calories burned), and also shows your recent exercise and recent sleep, as well as how you are progressing toward meeting selected goals, which Basis calls "Habits" (more on this later).

You can also view charts of your daily activity within the app, which shows you the time of day you were active, along with your heart rate, steps and calories burned. You can also choose to view your skin temperature and perspiration on the same graph. And you can zoom in on a particular part of the day to see your activity more easily. You can also hold your finger down on the graph to show your stats at a particular point in time, and then slide your finger along the graph to see how the stats change over time. 

The Peak was good at detecting when I was asleep. But I found that the app would sometimes break up my sleep charts — instead of showing me one chart of my sleep for an entire night, it would show me two charts, each a few hours long. This was rather annoying, as it meant I could not get an overall picture of a single night's sleep. 

I had one problem while using the Peak — when I first started to use the device, it did not display my calories burned, no matter how long I wore it. I was told this was a bug, and that the company was working to fix it. The support team provided me with a quick fix: I simply needed to change my height and weight information in the app, sync the device, then change the information back and sync again. My Peak tracked my calories after that.

Value of Information: 6.5/10

Within the Habits section of the app, Basis provides preset goals, each with an explanation of why that particular goal will make you healthier. For example, the Habit "Don't Be a Sitter" says "taking breaks to get up and move around, even briefly, can counteract the adverse aftermath of a sedentary job." The app also provides a few tips on how to reduce sitting time. I also liked the Habit "Regular Rising," which says "climbing out of bed the same time every morning (even on weekends) is the best way to establish a healthy and strong daily cycle."

This information is a good start, and goes far beyond what many other fitness trackers provide in the way of explaining the goals they set for you. Still, I felt that the app could have done more to help explain what my individual stats meant, and how to improve. For example, although the Habit "Get More Sleep" says you should aim to get 7.5 to 9 hours of sleep per night, the app provides no information or tips on how to improve sleep. Also, Basis does not explain why knowing your skin temperature and perspiration would be useful.

Perhaps the biggest thing missing from the device is this: If you're interested in knowing how far you ran during a workout, you're out of luck. The Peak does not provide information about distance in terms of miles or kilometers. It only shows how many steps you took. Also, the Peak app does not provide a place to enter information about what you ate during the day, so it does not track your calorie intake.

Enjoyment/Inspiration: 8/10

Like the previous Basis trackers, the Peak excels in the motivation department. The Peak uses a point system to help you become healthier — each Habit is worth a certain number of points, and you need to earn points to unlock more Habits. I found this system very motivating. Also, every time you open the dashboard, the app shows you how close you are to competing your step or activity goal for the day. And the app will send push notifications to your phone to congratulate you on completing a goal.

However, the Peak does not appear to have a way to share your information on social media, or connect with friends, which may be a motivator for some.

Editor’s Note: In February 2015, we changed the rating system we use in our fitness tracker reviews from a 5-star system to a 10-point system. Not all of our ratings were a straight conversion (i.e. 2/5 stars = 4/10 points). Instead, we adjusted some of them in order to give our readers a better idea of how these devices perform in relation to each other.

More Reviews: See all our Fitness Tracker Reviews to find the best one for your needs.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+.

The Zepp sensor is a small, wearable device that clips onto the top of your golf glove, and tracks all of the components of your swing — including club speed, swing plane, hip rotation, tempo and backswing position. The device is an option for any golfers who want a few pointers on improving their games, and it would be useful for avid golfers as well as those who only hit the green a few times a year. The sensor syncs with the free Zepp app, which lets you record both data and videos of as many swings as you'd like. Golfers can then compare the details of each swing, side by side.

The Zepp sensor is one of many new wearables designed to keep golfers at the top of their games. Other contenders include Game Golf, a digital tracking system that uses GPS data to track accuracy and swing performance over an entire course. While Zepp doesn't include GPS tracking, it does come with a lower price tag: Game Golf retails for just under $200, whereas Zepp goes for about $150.

Zepp's new sensor is a sequel to Golfsense, a much larger device that the company debuted in 2013. While neither of these devices has GPS capabilities (they seem to be designed with the driving range, not the golf course, in mind), one Zepp app feature does let you compare your swing to those of the pros. And the Zepp sensor can also be used with the company's apps for other sports, including tennis and baseball, making it an economical choice for those who dabble in more than one athletic pastime. [Best Fitness Trackers]

Though I'm not a golfer myself, my brother tees up every weekend, weather permitting. He graciously accompanied me to the driving range recently to see what Zepp could do for his game. Here's how it went:

Design/comfort: ★★★★☆

When I opened the box containing the Zepp sensor, I was pleasantly surprised by how small this wearable is. This device is a 1.1-inch (28 millimeter) square that's just 0.4-inches (11 mm) thick, and it's hard to imagine the wearable getting in the way. The sensor comes with an equally diminutive mount that clips onto the back of your golf glove, right on top of where you Velcro the glove closed. The whole apparatus weighs less than half an ounce (11.6 grams).

Perhaps because the device is so small, it was a little tricky for my brother, Robby, to get the Zepp sensor mounted on his glove. He tried to clip the sensor on his own glove a few times but finally agreed to stand still while I clipped it on for him.

Once Zepp was in position, it remained firmly in place, and Robby said it was so light that he couldn't even tell it was there. To turn the sensor on, you press on one of the corners of the device for about four seconds, or until a few small LEDs embedded in the sensor light up. Since he's right-handed, Robby kept the power button positioned in the lower right corner of the mount (closest to his body), in order to be able to turn it on with his free hand. Lefties may want to keep the power button positioned in the lower left corner.

User friendliness: ★★★☆☆

Despite being slightly awed by the sleek design of the Zepp sensor, I was a little disappointed that the box didn't contain of any kind of instruction pamphlet. To figure out how to use the device, I had to go online and find the support page. That turned out to be easy enough, but in my opinion, printed instructions are always a plus.

Before heading to the driving range, I downloaded the free Zepp app on my iPhone 6 and synced the Zepp sensor to my phone via Bluetooth, without encountering any problems. After we picked up a bucket of balls, Robby suited up with the sensor and I opened the app, which connected to the sensor right away. An icon appears at the top of the app to let you know that the sensor and the app are in sync.

Before you get started, the app will prompt you to adjust your grip. Using the arrows on the touch screen, you need to tell the app how you hold the club so it can more accurately track your swing. This is a nice feature, but as Robby pointed out, it's a little tough to hold a golf club and use an iPhone at the same time. So he firmed up his grip while I recorded this information on the phone. For the second time that day, we realized that using Zepp might be tricky if you don't bring someone along to help.

After syncing up, the app asks you to choose which club you'll be using, letting you choose from an extensive list.

Then came the fun part: Robby took his stance, and I stood a safe distance behind him and used the app's video-recording feature to film a few swings. Filming every swing isn't necessary since the Zepp sensor automatically records the data from a swing every time you hit a ball. But since there were two of us, we figured we might as well use the video component of the app.

What wasn't clear was how golfers might use the video feature when they're at the driving range alone. I suppose you could prop your phone or tablet up somewhere or set up a tripod, but that seems like a lot of work for a golf outing. The camera does have a timer that captures video in five-second increments. So if you do figure out how to record yourself, you can capture your swing without having to press record.

Value of information: ★★★★☆

Data from each swing you take while wearing the Zepp is automatically uploaded to the device running the app. The app assigns each swing a score, so you can tell right away how each shot compares to those that came before it. After capturing a few swings on video, I handed my iPhone to my brother so he could see his stats after every swing.

But as Robby soon learned, seeing your stats and understanding your stats are two very different things.  Robby wasn't sure what to do with the data in front of him or how to improve from one swing to the next. It wasn't until we left the driving range that my brother really appreciated what Zepp could do.

Inside the app are video tutorials that explain each metric (club speed, club plane, hand plane, etc.), as well as how you can alter each one to improve your swing. Robby said he found the tutorial on club plane particularly useful and was able to learn how he might be able to improve that element of his swing.

Using the video recordings I took, Robby was able to see his swing for the first time ever, which was extremely useful, he said. It confirmed what he had long suspected, he said: His hip rotation needs a lot of work. Fortunately, there's a video tutorial for that, as well.

All in all, my brother seemed pleased with the data the app collected, even though it was a little overwhelming at first. He said he could see himself using the sensor again on the driving range and would feel more comfortable interacting with the app in real time now that he knows a bit more about the metrics that Zepp displays.

Golfers should keep in mind that Zepp's diminutive size means the device's batteries won't last for 18 holes. The battery run time is about 2.5 hours, which is probably plenty of juice if you're using Zepp on the driving range.

Enjoyment/inspiration: ★★★★☆

One of Zepp's most enjoyable features is the pro comparison, which lets you see how your swing measures up to those of professional golfers. Although we confirmed that Robby isn't the next Keegan Bradley, my brother did say the device could get him to improve his game enough to stir up some renewed competition among his golf buddies. If he wanted to, he could even share the swings he's most proud of via email and social media.

Because the device was easy to set up and use, it didn't make a casual outing to the driving range seem like a homework assignment, which was a big plus. However, some of the data that Zepp records is highly technical, and for a golfer in training, a bit more context would be helpful. I found myself regretting that we hadn't spent more time interacting with the app's "Training Center" feature before hitting the range.

The app has a convenient feature called Lab Reports that lets you see how you performed on any given day. Once you have a collection of these reports, you can track your progress over time. Tracking progress is also made easier with a feature called My Swing Goals, which provides several pre-established swing criteria based on skill level. For example, the ideal backswing position for an amateur golfer is preset to 270 degrees, so you can easily see how each of your swings compares to this number.

Conclusion: 15 out of 20 stars

All in all, my brother and I agree that Zepp is a useful tool for anyone who wants to improve his or her swing without hiring a coach. The layout of the app makes it easy to track each swing, and the fact that you can also use this device to track your swing with a baseball bat or tennis racket makes Zepp even more useful for today's sports enthusiasts. 

But you'll want to make sure you understand the metrics the sensor captures before you start using this wearable. Otherwise, you may end up with a lot of data that you don't understand. And if what you're really looking for is video footage of your swing, you might want to enlist the help of a friend (or sibling) when using the device.

BUY the Zepp Golf Swing Analyzer >>>

Follow Elizabeth Palermo @techEpalermo. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

A wearable camera that hooks around the ear could become a constant meal companion for people who want to accurately monitor their diet.

Many fitness trackers and exercise apps include a diet component, but all of them require users to self-report how much they eat. That method can lead to unreliable data, as people may forget to report some meals, poorly estimate how much they're actually eating or underreport their meals on purpose.

Currently, people can "estimate diet and nutrient intake, but the primary method is self-reporting," Edward Sazonov, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Alabama, said in a statement. Sazonov is working on a new device that aims to solve that problem. [7 Biggest Diet Myths]

The device, called the Automatic Ingestion Monitor (AIM), is worn around the ear, like a Bluetooth earpiece. On the front of the AIM is a camera that can snap pictures of what you eat and drink. It also has a motion sensor that sticks to your jaw, under the earlobe, to sense movement.

The tracker ignores other jaw movements like talking and only registers chewing and swallowing. The sensor can tell the difference between talking and eating based on differences in jaw movement. The total mass and energy content of the food is calculated based on the pictures of the meals and how many times the person chewed during a meal.

"The number of chews is proportional to ingested mass and energy intake," Sazonov told Live Science in an email.

The image is analyzed by a nutritionist who identifies the food and estimates portion size, but eventually Sazonov hopes to make that process automated. A computer could calculate portion size using 3D analysis of the images.

So far, the prototype works, and Sazonov is working on developing a smaller and sleeker model for more testing.

Sazonov hopes the tracker will replace the unreliable self-reported data that many doctors and nutritionists currently rely on. He also hopes it could lead to the development of new weight-loss strategies and help researchers learn more about eating behaviors and eating disorders.

There are other high-tech diet trackers like AIM under development, including a wearable pin-on button called eButton that constantly takes pictures and uses 3D analysis to estimate the volume of food people consume.

But using a diet tracker like AIM or eButton could introduce an entirely new bias into the data, said Amy Subar, a research nutritionist at the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Control and Population Sciences division, who was not involved with the research. With a wearable device, people know their food intake is being monitored, and it's likely that awareness will influence what they choose to eat that day, Subar told Live Science.

To help avoid this bias, researchers can use the traditional self-reporting method to get more natural data. For instance, they can ask people what they ate the day before, when they weren't worried about their diet being tracked, Subar said.

Subar said there are also problems with using images to catalog the food a person is eating. Sometimes the images turn out too dark if the person is eating in a poorly lit area like a bar. It's also difficult to identify some foods based on a picture alone. For example, a picture may show that a person is eating a sandwich, but it's impossible to tell what's in the sandwich, Subar said.

Subar said new methods like AIM mark a step forward in diet analysis, but there are still many problems to work out. AIM will likely first be marketed as a medical device but could eventually become a consumer product for people who want to track their diet with more accuracy, its creators say.

Follow Kelly Dickerson on Twitter. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

The Go is a new fitness tracker from watch maker Soleus, and it tracks many of the standard metrics seen in fitness trackers today, including your daily steps, calories burned, distanced traveled and how much you sleep. But unlike some fitness trackers, the Go also tracks your workout time and pace, and it includes a few smartwatch features, such as alerts when you get a call or text, and even shows you the weather.

At $80 to $110, the Go is in the middle of the price range for fitness trackers. Here's what I found after testing the device for a week.

Overall Rating: 5/10

The pros of the Go include vibration alerts that remind you to move, the ability to receive alerts for incoming calls and texts, the ability to track workout times right on the device and the option to set the device to automatically enter sleep mode.

The cons of the device include a lack of information about what your stats mean, a cumbersome charging device and the need to press buttons multiple times to find certain information, such as your daily steps. 

Design/Comfort: 6/10

The Go is designed to be worn on the wrist, and it has an adjustable silicone strap. The Go fit me quite well, but it was a little difficult to put on at first — I initially had trouble snapping the clasp, but this became easier over time. Also, there is only one way to wear the Go: as a wristband. It cannot be worn like a pedometer (i.e., clipped on your belt or clothes near your waist).

The digital OLED display is bright and easy to read. The device has two navigation buttons on either side of the screen — one button that you press to see the time of day and your stats, and another button that allows you to cycle through the various modes of the device, showing you the time you've spent exercising, sleeping, etc.

A neat feature of the device is that it can vibrate to remind you to get up and move when you have been idle for too long. You can set the amount of time (such as 45 minutes) that the Go will let you sit before it buzzes you. The vibrate feature also serves as an alarm to wake you up in the morning.

The Go comes with its own charger, which I found somewhat difficult and cumbersome to use. The charger prongs align with metal pads on the back of the device, but the only way to get the charger to stay in place is to wrap an attached band around the Go, and clip it into place. You then have to connect the charger by a USB cable to your computer. I found that even a slight misalignment of the charger prongs would cause the device to stop charging. On the plus side, once you get the device charged, the battery should last seven days (and the device I tested still had some battery power left after a week).

Although the device tracks workouts, it does not have a heart-rate monitor. It is also not waterproof — it cannot be used to track swimming, and the company does not recommend wearing it while bathing or showering.

User-Friendliness: 6/10

The Go and its accompanying app are fairly easy to use. The device even stores a 30-day history of your activity on the device itself, so you don't necessarily need a smartphone to see your progress over time (although it helps to have one).

Within the Go App, you'll see a quick summary of your stats, as well as a circle that fills up with color (going from red to green) as you become more active — like a car speedometer. This is an easy way to see at a glance how much more activity you need to complete your daily goal. The app also has sections to show you more information about your activities, such as what time of day you were most active, and when you were in deep sleep versus light sleep.

However, on the device itself, the Go display does not turn on unless you press one of the display buttons, which is difficult if your hands are full, or if you're on a jog. What's more, I found that I needed to push the navigation buttons multiple times to find the information I wanted. For example, pressing the button on the right side of the screen once shows the time and how much battery life you have. Pressing the button a second time shows the date. It's not until the third press that you see one of your stats — how many calories you've burned. If you want to see the number of steps you've taken that day, you have to press the button five times. Many people buy fitness trackers to count their daily steps, so I think this information should not be so buried.

To switch modes, you push the button on the left side of the screen until you get to the mode you want (such as sleep tracking). Then, you hold down the button until you see the words Hold Start. Once you release the button, the device will enter the new mode (for example, sleep mode will start). This process is fairly straightforward, but it's still more steps than other devices require to start tracking in a given mode.

One feature I liked is that you can tell the Go to automatically enter sleep mode at a certain time — say, 10:30 p.m. This way, you don't have to remember to put the device into sleep mode. And since many people go to bed at the same time each night, it seems logical. With other devices that track sleep, such as the Jawbone UP24 and the Withings Pulse O2, users have to put the device into sleep mode each night. (The Basis Carbon Steel fitness tracker claims to be able to tell when you are sleeping without needing to set the device to sleep mode, but I found that it sometimes made mistakes.)

Before entering sleep mode automatically, the Go will flash "Good Night" on its screen. The downside is that if you happened to stay up later than usual, you'll have to exit sleep mode and re-enter sleep mode manually once you do go to bed. Still, I found that knowing my device would go into sleep mode automatically at a certain time gave me extra incentive to get to bed on time.

One problem I found with the device is, if you have it set to enter sleep mode manually, but you forget to actually put it into sleep mode, the vibrations that alert you that it's time to move will go off in the middle of the night (because it thinks you are not active). This will likely wake you up.

Value of Information: 4/10

Although the Go tracks your activity, it provides virtually no information to explain what your numbers mean. For example, the Go does not tell you how much activity you need to be healthy, or how much sleep you should aim for. Nor does it explain how it determines whether you are in deep sleep versus light sleep, or how much you should expect to get of each. The Go seems to be intended for people who are already active, or who have a good idea about what they want their goals to be.

The alerts that let you know you are getting a call or text seemed redundant at times (the watch and your phone go off at the same time), but there were a few situations where I found the alerts useful. For example, when I was washing the dishes, I could see on my wrist that I had a call coming in and could immediately run to pick up the phone.

Enjoyment/Inspiration: 4/10

The Go's vibration alerts that remind you to move are a good way to make sure you don't sit too long. The physical vibrations are also impossible to miss. (The Garmin Vivofit displays a red line to remind you to move, but if you don't look at your wrist, you might miss this alert.)

However, the device provides little else in the form of motivation — it does not send push notifications about your progress or goals to your phone, for example. There are also no awards or badges for when you meet your goals. In comparison, the Nike+ Fuelband rewards your progress with Fuelpoints.. The Go did tell me to "smile" when I completed my goal, though.    

Editor’s Note: In February 2015, we changed the rating system we use in our fitness tracker reviews from a 5-star system to a 10-point system. Not all of our ratings were a straight conversion (i.e. 2/5 stars = 4/10 points). Instead, we adjusted some of them in order to give our readers a better idea of how these devices perform in relation to each other.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. 

The Fit Smart is a new fitness tracker from Adidas that's intended for people who want to improve their workouts, whether those workouts involve running or doing fitness training for sports, including soccer, football and basketball.

Unlike other fitness trackers, such as the Fitbit and Jawbone Up, the Fit Smart does not count your steps or track your calories all day long. It is designed to be used only when you're working up a sweat. At $199, the Fit Smart is at the higher end of the price range for fitness trackers.

A key feature of the Fit Smart is that it includes a heart rate monitor, and uses your heart rate to give you coaching while you are training — the device prompts you to increase or decrease your workout intensity to hit your desired heart rate zone. It also tracks the number of calories you burn during a workout, along with your pace, stride rate and distance.

The Fit Smart syncs wirelessly with the Adidas miCoach Train & Run app that you can download to your smartphone. You can see information about your workouts and training plan on the app, or by logging into your account online. [Best Fitness Tracker Bands]

Overall Rating: 6.5/10

If you're training for a race or want to stay in shape for your sport, the Fit Smart may help you set a training schedule, and can coach you during your workouts. The app can provide you with a "Run Score" that's useful to compare your workouts over time, and predict your race times.

The Samsung Gear Fit is about the same price as the Fit Smart, and also provides workout coaching, but the Gear Fit comes with other smartwatch features than a person interested solely in working out may not find desirable.

However, if you want a more versatile fitness tracker that you wear all day to track your steps, calories and sleep, you'll need to look elsewhere, because Fit Smart is a dedicated just to workouts. The Fit Smart is also not recommended for swimming.

Design/Comfort: 6/10

The Fit Smart is designed to be worn on your wrist like a watch, and its strap is made of soft silicone, a material that feels comfortable against the skin. It's not very heavy, either — it weighs about 2 ounces (58 grams). It comes in only two sizes (small and large), and has an adjustable strap. However, I have small wrists, and even the smallest size on the "small" band was slightly too big for my wrist, so the device slipped back and forth a bit during my runs. I don't imagine this would be a problem for most people, but if you have small wrists like me, it might be.

The face of the device has three buttons: A center button that you press to activate the device and select options, and two side navigation buttons. Pressing the center button once will display the time, and pressing the navigation buttons will allow you to scroll through the workout options. You can select to start a coached workout, a "free" workout (meaning without coaching), or to view the stats of your last workout.

The device has a white LED display that's bright and easy to read in most situations, but I found it slightly hard to read in direct sunlight. The screen stays on during your whole workout, so you don't have to keep pressing buttons every time you want to check your time.

The underside of the device contains the heart rate sensor, which shines a strong green light into your skin to detect your pulse. (You cannot really see this light when you're wearing the device). The side of the watch face contains a strip of LED slights that change color depending on the intensity of your training session (displaying either white, blue, green, yellow or red).

To charge the device, you attach it to the charging cradle (which is magnetized) and connect the USB to your computer or other charging hub.

User-Friendliness: 6/10

The Fit Smart itself was fairly easy to use, but I sometimes found myself puzzled over certain terms displayed on the device, which required a little bit of research to understand. I didn't know that my "SR" was my stride rate, or that "AW" stood for "assessment workout" until I looked it up (more on this later).

You can create a training plan using either the app or by logging onto the website online, and miCoach walks you through which plan is best. I selected the "run a 5K" plan, and chose level 1, for beginners.

To start a workout, you first select whether you want a coached or a free workout.  Once you select a workout, Fit Smart will take your resting heart rate, and when that's finished, you select "GO" to begin.

If you're doing a coached workout, the device vibrates to indicate an alert, and the display will tell you to speed up or slow down. During a free workout, the device periodically vibrates and displays your heart rate. To end a workout, you hold down the central button, and use the navigation buttons to select the stop icon.

To calibrate your personal heart rate zones and pace zones, the device has you complete a 12-minute Assessment Workout, in which you run at a certain intensity for about 1 minute. You start off walking, and gradually increase your intensity when prompted by Fit Smart. I thought this was a good idea in order to create more personalized training zones.

However, none of this information is explained inside the miCoach app. So when my Fit Smart displayed "AW" after I selected a coached workout, I did not know what this meant. Even once I knew what this stood for, I still would not have been able to complete an assessment workout without reading the instructions, which I found by logging into my miCoach account, and reading the "Guidelines and Tutorials." The app does include a video to get you started with Fit Smart, but it is very brief. I feel that the video would be more useful if it included information about the purpose of Assessment Workouts and how to complete them.

Also, when I completed my Assessment Workout, the device told me that it could not determine my heart rate zones, because my "heart rate data did not show a steadily increasing pattern." I was very disappointed to have completed a whole workout and still not achieved the goal of calibrating my device.

The app says this can happen due to a "noisy signal" from the heart rate monitor. Also, I did slow down before crossing roads on my run, and I think this may have interfered with the heart rate intensity assessment, so I would suggest you do your assessment workout in an area where you'll be able to run without stopping for lights. It would have been nice to know this information before I did the assessment.

Fit Smart also does not have GPS — it uses an accelerometer to track your pace and distance. That means if you want more accurate distance information, or want a map of your route, you need to bring your phone along during your run. However, when I ran with my phone and my Fit Smart, the app still did not create a map of my route. I looked on the website and in the app, and its still not clear what I needed to do to get the device to track my route. (I've reached out to Adidas to ask them about this, and will update this story if they answer my question.)

Value of Information: 7/10

After you complete a workout, you sync Fit Smart with the app to see a breakdown of your stats, including your time, distance, average heart rate, speed, calories burned and steps per minute. The app also displays charts showing how your speed, heart rate and stride rate varied during your workout, and provides your mile splits. Some of this information may be more than enough for a lay athlete, but if you're training for a race, or want to improve your race time, you may find this information useful.

Another neat feature of Fit Smart is that after a free workout, the device calculates your "Run Score," which is a score out of 1000 that you can use to see if you're improving in your workouts. The Run Score can also tell you which training plan you should use. Although I initially picked a level 1 training plan, my Run Score informed me that I should pick a level 4 training plan. Run Score also predicts what your time would be in a 5K, 10K, half marathon and marathon. This would be particularly useful if you were training for one of those distances.

However, because Fit Smart is used only for workouts, it does not provide feedback about other daily habits that could affect your training, such as your diet or sleep.

Enjoyment/Inspiration: 7/10

If you set a training plan (for example, a plan to run a 5K), the app will create a training calendar that displays the days you are scheduled to work out. It also will send an alert to your phone to remind you that you have a workout scheduled for that day. These are useful features to help you stay organized and remember to work out. You can also share your workout stats to Facebook, which may provide extra motivation for those who like to keep their social networks in the loop about how their training is going.

However, the miCoach app seems to assume that its users are dedicated athletes, so other than notifying you that you have a run scheduled for a certain day, it does not really provide other encouragement in the form of alerts.

Editor’s Note: In February 2015, we changed the rating system we use in our fitness tracker reviews from a 5-star system to a 10-point system. Not all of our ratings were a straight conversion (i.e. 2/5 stars = 4/10 points). Instead, we adjusted some of them in order to give our readers a better idea of how these devices perform in relation to each other.

More Reviews: See all our Fitness Tracker Reviews to find the best one for your needs.

Follow Rachael Rettner @Rachael Rettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+.

The iFit Active is a fitness tracker that aims to measure your exercise, diet and sleep. The device is an extension to the iFit platform, which includes a website where users can create a profile and then track their activity and share their workouts with friends. Unlike most fitness trackers, the iFit can track the exercise you do on a treadmill, as long as you use one of the compatible machines (including ProForm, FreeMotion and Nordic Track brands).

I tested the iFit for about a week, and by the end of it I felt informed about my movement patterns and calorie consumption. The device costs $129, and is simple, comfortable and useful. But it doesn't include all the features that I'd like to find in a fitness tracker — it doesn't have a heart-rate sensor and, although resistant to sweat and splashes, it isn't waterproof. Here's a breakdown of how the iFit performed in several areas. [Best Fitness Tracker]

Overall Rating: 5.8/10

The pros of the iFit Active compared with other fitness trackers include that it syncs wirelessly with your phone, your daily progress is visible on the band's screen itself, and that it complements your Web-based account on iFit. For people who are already using the iFit compatible treadmill at their house or gym, the iFit Active has the extra benefit of being on the same platform.

The cons of the device include not having a heart-rate sensor, and bugs in the app when using the barcode scanning feature. The device also is not waterproof so can't be worn while swimming.

Design/Comfort: 6/10

In contrast to many trackers, which can be worn only on the wrist, the iFit can be worn as a wristband, or clipped to your clothes or simply carried in your pocket. I wore it on my wrist. It was difficult to fasten and unfasten the band, but once the device was on my wrist, it felt lightweight and comfortable. The device has an LED screen where you can see your data, such as steps taken that day, the percentage of your daily goal covered, calories you have consumed and calories you have burned.

The device syncs wirelessly with the iFit Track app on your phone as well as with your profile on iFit.com, so it is a lot easier to review your stats on the phone, compared with trackers that have to be manually connected to sync with their apps. The rubbery band of the device on the wrist comes in four colors, blue, black, red and white. It's not the most fashionable wristband I've seen, but it also isn't ugly and keeps a low profile.

The device is charged using a cable, and lasts about five days on a full charge.

User-Friendliness: 6/10

The iFit Active is pretty much ready to go out of the box. The mobile app is extremely simple and intuitive. But navigating the website can be a little bit trickier the first time around. Still, I managed to figure out how everything works on the device, the app and the website on the first day of using it.

On the website you can find workout programs, or create your own programs (such as a running route) and share them with others. You can log in your workout, and the mobile app and the tracker device will automatically get updated too.

Value of Information: 5/10

The iFit Active captures the data that most standard fitness trackers do. It tracks your daily steps and shows how far you are from your goal (usually 10,000 steps), lets you input what you ate, calculates how many calories you have burned, and tracks your sleep.

Like many other trackers, the iFit lets you set goals, for example, calorie-intake goals to lose weight. You can also change your goal for the number of steps taken daily. You can monitor your adherence to these goals and your progress toward your goals. The device vibrates when you achieve your goals.

The iFit's step count was fairly consistent with other trackers I have tested. For example, iFit and other trackers I have tested all say that I take about 1,800 to 2,000 steps to get from the subway station to my office every morning.

You can manually log the food you ate, and the app will calculate your caloric intake. The app also allows you to scan the barcode on food products to input nutritional information, but about half the times I tried to do this, the app crashed and I had to start all over. Once you manage to get the data on the food you ate stored (either manually or by using the barcode feature), the app shows how much you've consumed in each nutritional category, including fiber, saturated and unsaturated fat, sugar, protein, cholesterol and salt.

The app also shows you how many calories you've burned by moving around or when your body is at rest (sitting still or lying in bed).

For sleep tracking, the device records how much sleep you get each night, and aims to track the quality of your sleep by measuring the amount that was spent in "deep" and "light" sleep. But similar to the sleep-tracking features of other fitness trackers, your sleep patterns are interpreted from your movements during sleep, which may not reflect the exact quality and quantity of sleep.  

You can connect your Facebook or Google Plus profiles to your iFit profile, and if your friends use iFit, you can share your progress or chat with them too.

One feature that the iFit Active lacked was a heart-rate monitor, something that is useful if you are a runner or just interested in learning more about your cardiac fitness.

Enjoyment/Inspiration: 6/10

The iFit Active was informative and motivating. As with other trackers, the iFit made me more aware of my habits and daily patterns, and pushed me to improve on them. Its feature of letting you find new workout programs on the website and feeling part of a community was another motivating factor in using the iFit that not all trackers have.

The Apple Watch enters fitness-tracker territory by offering ways to monitor your heart rate and daily exercise, but the device doesn't necessarily mean the end of earlier trackers like the Jawbone UP and Fitbit, experts say.

Unveiled yesterday (Sept. 9), the Apple Watch will have a fitness app that tracks how many calories you burn in a day, as well as how many minutes you exercise and how long you stand, the company said. The watch also has a heart-rate monitor and includes a workout app that tracks the speed, distance and duration of workouts.

The Apple Watch doesn't quite match up to some of the other best fitness trackers on the market. For example, because of their long battery life (usually up to a week), many fitness trackers can track a person's sleep, whereas the Apple Watch may need to be taken off at night to be charged, said Dan Ledger, principal at the consulting firm Endeavour Partners. [Fitness Tracking Wearables Compared (Infographic)]

In addition, several fitness-tracker makers — including Jawbone — have announced they are opening up their applications to support other company's hardware. This means that, not only can data from a Jawbone UP band be transferred to the Apple Watch (if you have both devices), but also you could theoretically use the Jawbone application to analyze data from your Apple Watch.

The fitness-tracker industry is trying to promote the idea that "it's not a one wearable world," Ledger told Live Science. "This is a world where you may have and use two or more wearables."

The software from some fitness trackers that were previously physical bands (hardware) that people could wear may be incorporated into the Apple Watch. This seems to have already happened with the Nike+ FuelBand. This year, Nike announced it would not be making new hardware for the FuelBand. But yesterday, Apple mentioned that FuelBand technology would be available in the Apple Watch. "Nike has agreed to move its smarts into the Apple Watch," Ledger said.

Another reason the Apple Watch does not necessarily mean "death" to fitness trackers is that many fitness trackers are considerably less expensive. The Apple Watch will cost about $350 when it comes out next year, whereas the Fitbit Flex, Withings Pulse O2 and Misfit Shine each cost around $100, and the Jawbone UP costs $150. Some fitness trackers, such as the Fitbug Orb , are available for as little as $50. "[It's] in a different price category," Ledger said.

In addition, "a lot of the activity trackers might just appeal to a different crowd of people," Ledger said. For example, someone specifically focused on changing his or her activity habits might not be in the market for an Apple Watch, Ledger said. "I don't think their customer base overlaps 100 percent," he noted.

Shane Walker, an analyst at research firm IHS Technology, agreed that the market for fitness trackers, which are dedicated solely to activity monitoring, would continue to grow, even as multifunctional devices like smartwatches are released. "Even with the advent of these relatively new devices, I still predict growth within dedicated monitors over the next few years," Walker said.

But as a smartwatch — that is, a wearable computer that can run applications — the Apple Watch is unique and may have more success than any other smartwatch to date, Walker said.

"[It's] the most interesting watch we've seen so far in the smartwatch race," Walker said. The device has a unique interface that enables a lot of control in a small space, Walker said, including a "digital crown" that turns to zoom in and out.

Apple will also release a tool kit for building apps for the watch, thus allowing developers to come up with creative uses for the device, Walker said.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Apple's new smartwatch, Apple Watch, aims to get people to move more by tracking their daily exercise as well as sitting time, according to an announcement from the company today (Sept. 9).

"Being more active is one of the best things you can do to improve your health, and Apple Watch gives us the ability to motivate people to be more active," Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, said at the Apple Watch unveiling today in Cupertino, California.

Apple Watch has a fitness app that monitors a person's movement throughout the day, using the watch's accelerometer and gyroscope, and suggests activity goals to work toward. For example, it has an "exercise ring" that fills up with color as you complete more activity during the day. When you complete the recommended 30 minutes of activity in one day — either all at once or in bouts — you "close the ring," and complete that goal, the company said. [Fantasy Fitness Tracker: 8 Absolutely Must-Have Features]

The Apple Watch also has a "move ring" that fills up as you burn calories and a "stand ring" that fills up as you stand during the day. For the latter, if you stand for at least 1 minute every hour, during 12 hours of a day, you complete the ring. (An increasing amount of research has shown that in addition to not enough exercise, too much sitting is bad for your health.)

A separate workout app in the Apple Watch will track your stats during a workout, including how far you've gone, how fast you're moving and the length of your workout. Data from your Apple Watch can be stored on the iPhone's Health app, which can be accessed by third-party apps, the company said.

The device "gets to know you the way a personal trainer would," and delivers personalized goals as well as reminders to be active, according to a video shown during the announcement. The Apple Watch can also measure the intensity of your workout by tracking your heart rate.

Many of the health components in Apple Watch are available in fitness trackers, such as Basis and Withings Pulse O2, but the Apple Watch lacks the ability to track sleep found in these trackers. On the other hand, most fitness trackers do not have the ability to run apps, as the Apple Watch does.

The company also put a large emphasis on the style of the watch, which can be personalized for each user. The watch comes in three different styles: The Apple Watch, the Sport Collection (specialized for fitness) and the Apple Watch Edition, which is made from 18-karat gold. There are six different, interchangeable straps for the watch.

The Apple Watch also comes in two different sizes. This feature distinguishes it from other smartwatches, such as the Samsung Gear 2, which only comes in one size and may be too big for some people. Users can also personalize the face of their Apple Watch by choosing the image they want to display, along with information they want to appear on the home screen, including an astronomy screen that will zoom in on that day's moon and even show the entire solar system.

The Apple Watch "is the most personalized device Apple has ever created," Cook said.

The watch will sell for $349 when it goes on sale early next year, the company said.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

This story was updated at 2:00 p.m. ET on March 25.

The Runtastic Orbit is a fitness tracker that monitors both daily activity (steps, calories and distance) as well as your sleep habits, and is intended to help people optimize their health. It's the first 24-hour fitness tracker from Runtastic, a company that's previously made apps and products centered around fitness. At about $120, the Orbit is in the mid-level price range for fitness trackers, But in a market where so many fitness trackers claim to offer the same thing — daily activity tracking and lifestyle improvement — can the Orbit stand out? I tested the device for a week to find out.

Overall Rating: 5.4/10

The pros of the Orbit include a vibrating alert that reminds you to move if you've been sitting too long, the ability to wear the device while swimming and the option to wear the device in either a wristband or a belt clip.

The cons of the Orbit include a lack of information about what your statistics mean, a lack of information about how to use some of the features (such as ambient-lighting tracking) and a few bugs in the app.

Design/Comfort: 6.5/10

The Orbit is a 1.8 by 0.6-inch (4.6 by 1.5 centimeters) device that has a display screen and a single navigation button. Unlike some other fitness trackers that can be worn only on the wrist, the Orbit is designed to slip into either a wristband or a belt clip. The Orbit comes with a belt clip and two wristbands (in black and blue), and you can buy wristbands in additional colors (orange, yellow, red, green and white) on the company's website.

The wristband was comfortable and fit fairly well, and I liked having the option of wearing the tracker on a belt clip as well. It was a little difficult to push the Orbit in and out of the wristband/belt clip at first, but I got the hang of it after a while. However, I found that the navigation button would sometimes get stuck (I would press down and nothing would happen), and I had to fiddle around with it to get it to work again, which was a bit of a hassle.

You charge the device using a special magnetic charger (which is included), and the battery then lasts for about seven days.

You can set the device to vibrate to alert you if you are idle for more than an hour, which is a good way to make sure you don't sit still too long.

User-Friendliness: 5.5/10

The Orbit was pretty easy to set up. You simply press the navigation button once, make sure the device is charged and then download the accompanying Runtastic Me mobile app, which is designed specifically for the Orbit. (You have to create a Runtastic account to use the app.)

And the device itself is user-friendly. When you press the navigation button once, the Orbit will show you the time of day, and when you press it subsequent times, the device will display how many steps you've taken, how many calories you've burned and how many "active minutes" (of walking, running, etc.) you had that day. To enter sleep mode, you hold down the navigation button, and to exit sleep mode, you hold down the button again.

The device syncs wirelessly with your phone or tablet, thus allowing you to upload your data to the mobile app. You can see additional information about your activity on the app, such as the time of day you were the most active, and how many miles you walked. There is a circle at the top of the app — which goes around your profile picture — that slowly fills with color as you get closer to your daily step goal. (The default goal is 8,000 steps a day, but you can change this.)

After you track your sleep, a graph on the app shows you the time during the night when you were awake, and the time you spent in deep and light sleep. It also shows your total sleep time and your "sleep efficiency" — a measure of how well you slept (with 100 percent being a perfect night's sleep).

However, I encountered a few bugs when using the device and the app. My Orbit would randomly reset my steps back to zero in the middle of the day. (The steps should only reset at midnight.) And a few nights in a row, it tracked my hours of sleep, but the app did not show a sleep graph with my awake/sleep time. To fix these problems, I had to reset the device by pressing a button on the back, and download the app again. Fortunately, that did the trick.

One thing that confused me about the Orbit was that the company claims that the device tracks "happiness" and "ambient lighting." These claims are printed on the box the device comes in, and are found on the company's website. But information about these features is nowhere to be found in the instructions, nor in the app or on the device itself. I had to email a company representative to find out if these features existed. It turns out that they do exist, but in my opinion, they are in a very primitive form, at least with the version of the app I tried (1.0.2, and firmware 2.45).

For the happiness tracking, you simply press the navigation button twice, and a smiley face appears. A smiley face will then show up on your activity graph in the app at that same time of day (so you can see all the moments when you felt happy, I suppose).

To track the ambient lighting that you are exposed to during the day, you have to open the Sleep section of the app. In this section, at the very bottom of the screen, there is a horizontal gray line that goes slightly up or down depending on the amount of ambient light you were exposed to. The ambient-lighting measure has a different time frame than your sleep measure (all day, as opposed to all night), so seeing the two lines together (one on top of the other) is a little confusing.

Value of Information: 4/10

The Orbit tracks your activity well, but does little to provide information beyond the raw statistics. For example, there is no information about how much activity you need in a day to be healthy, or how much sleep you need, or what steps you should take to be more active or get better sleep. Other fitness trackers, such as the Withings Pulse and the Basis, provide this information.

I also felt that there was a missed opportunity with the ambient-lighting measure. There was no information about how much ambient light is "bad," particularly at times when you would want to avoid ambient light (such as before you go to sleep). I hope future versions of the app/firmware answer some of these questions.

In the pool

The Orbit is waterproof in water depths of up to 300 feet (91 meters), so you can wear it in the shower or while swimming, which is a plus for people who get their exercise in a pool. (Many other fitness trackers cannot be worn while you're swimming.)

The device tracks your "active minutes," including those spent in the pool. I wore it for about 30 minutes while swimming laps, and it recorded all of those minutes as being "active." But beyond recording my time in the pool, the Orbit didn't tell me much about my swim. It can't count laps or strokes like dedicated swim watches can. 

Enjoyment/Inspiration: 5.5/10

I like that the Orbit includes an idle feature — with a physical vibration — to remind you to move. If you are concerned about sitting too long at work, for instance, this is an appealing feature that helps make the device worth wearing each day.

But because the device did not offer much information beyond my basic numbers, I did not feel compelled to keep using it.

However, if you are already a user of other Runtastic products, such as the general Runtastic app (a separate app from Runtastic Me), then you might find the Orbit more appealing. The Runtastic app tracks workouts — including your distance, duration, average pace and calories burned in a workout — and uses your phone's GPS to map your route. The Orbit syncs with the Runtastic app, and serves as a "second screen" (in addition to your phone) to view your workout stats.

The Runtastic app can send push notifications to your mobile phone, to motivate you to be active. But the Runtastic app is intended for athletic people who want to track their workouts and training, and is not necessarily for people who are just interested in becoming just a bit more active. I think people should not be expected to download both the Runtastic and Runtastic Me apps to use the Orbit.

BUY the Runtastic Orbit>>

Editor's Note: This story was updated on March 25, 2015 to include information about how this device performs “in the pool.” Live Science Staff Writer Elizabeth Palermo conducted the testing and wrote that section of the review. 

Editor’s Note: In February 2015, we changed the rating system we use in our fitness tracker reviews from a 5-star system to a 10-point system. Not all of our ratings were a straight conversion (i.e. 2/5 stars = 4/10 points). Instead, we adjusted some of them in order to give our readers a better idea of how these devices perform in relation to each other.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+.

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Figures just out from communications regulator Ofcom suggest that tablets are becoming increasingly popular among the over-55s. It seems 28% of this group own one and for many, it has become a go-to main device.

The classic stereotype is that as people get older they are more likely to be technophobes – and, for a long time, reports like Ofcom’s seemed to indicate that this was true. But while this group still isn’t as digital as their children, the growth of tablets across the general population seems to suit them well. Designers should learn from this trend and think more about what older generations want when they produce products. Despite their spending power, these people are being systematically left out as we develop exciting new devices.

It’s really not surprising that some older people do not use digital products and services designed for younger people. For someone who has not grown up with digital devices, the sheer range of potential applications and functions on a laptop or desktop computer can be overwhelming. When it comes to tablets, the big attraction for older people appears to be the simplicity associated with the app model on which most run.

Instead of learning a complicated operating system for a general purpose computer, the tablet is more appliance-like. It comes straight out of the box in a simple state. Users simply click on pre-installed app icons to get particular functions going and if there are some they don’t use, they can simply ignore or delete them. They can go on to customise their tablet by installing more apps and rearranging them in a way that makes most sense to them. It essentially only does what you want it to do. If you really didn’t need anything more, your tablet could exist only as a camera.

Tablets are deceptively simple. They are really fully-fledged computers in disguise, whose functionality can be hidden or specialised to make it behave more like a single function gadget. The set-up stage for a new tablet is often more complicated than an uninitiated user would like, but it only needs to be done once and tech-savvy relatives are often on hand to help.

Our research shows why the tablet category is so attractive to older people but also suggests that all kinds of innovation is possible if tech manufacturers are willing to consider what they want. In a series of innovation workshops we showed various technology prototypes to both digitally engaged and digitally disengaged older people.

Back in autumn 2009, before the iPad was born, we showed a custom tablet aimed at older people. It supported a basic set of communication and web browsing functions and the interface could be easily adapted to display a larger font or play louder audio.

Not only did both groups love the concept, they re-designed it in ways we hadn’t expected. They turned it into a detachable wall display, an information book, a television remote control or an information hub with integral printer.

Tablets are often pitched at the young and trendy but there are lots of things tablet manufacturers could do to tailor their products to an older market. They could include wireless keyboards, articulating docks and accessories which unlock new services such as health and well-being monitoring, for example.

But the biggest thing they could do would be to involve older people themselves in the process of design, in something as simple as an extended focus group to re-design new product ideas. If that Ofcom figure is to climb higher, this group needs to be included at the level of technology design as well as technology use. Until this happens, large parts of our population will continue to be excluded from the best technology.

David Frohlich receives funding from the UK Research Councils and other funding bodies. The work cited in this article was funded by the New Dynamics of Ageing programme as part of the SUS-IT project, and the Nominet Trust as part of the Tailoring Technology project: http://www.dwrc.surrey.ac.uk/ David is a member of the Design Research Society, The Association of Computing Machinery and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google +. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Megs Bell started using a Fibit Flex this year, along with her whole family. The device worked well for about four months, but then it started to have problems holding a charge. The battery would drain after less than hour, leaving Bell unable to track her workouts and daily steps.

"It's really frustrating," said Bell, who lives in Maryland. "My family and I, we all compete," to get the most weekly steps, Bell said. So when she opens the Fitbit app and sees her step count dropping with each passing day, "it makes me really sad," she said. 

Bell's experience is not unique. While it's unclear how common the problem is, some Fitbit Flex users have posted on forums and social media sites about experiencing issues with their Flex holding a charge after just a few months of use. (The Flex battery generally lasts five days between charges, according to the company.)

The Flex is an older model now, which isn't really considered to be one of the best Fitbits in the range, but if you happen to still own one of them here's what to do to resolve the issue:

• Clean the charger contacts.
• Try charging from a different USB port.
• Try charging from a computer USB port instead of a USB hub.
• Reset your tracker. (For the Flex, this involves pulling the tracker into a USB port, and using a paperclip to press down on a small pinhole on the back of the charger, for three to four seconds.)

Both Bell and Hamilton said that they still experienced charging problems even after trying all of Fitbit's recommendations. If this is the case, Fitbit may replace the tracker free of charge. Hamilton said the company replaced her device, even though it was a gift.

"I love the product (despite the failed battery) but would not have gone out to buy a replacement," Hamilton told Live Science. "My fear of the same issue caused me not to want to make the investment. But I was highly pleased with the way the support team handled my case."

Bell said that out of the four members of her family, she is the only one with a charging problem. Bell also contacted Fitbit customer support, and received an email from the company saying that her Fitbit was draining unusually fast. Bell answered questions about her case by email, and Fitbit sent her a replacement tracker. The new tracker "works like a charm," she said.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

As more and more fitness trackers hit the market, many of these devices seem to excel in some areas, but fall short in others. We wondered: what if we could combine the best features of the most popular fitness trackers to make a "fantasy" tracker? Here are the top features we would include.

A screen you can see without pushing buttons

Our fantasy fitness tracker would have a screen that lights up without requiring the press of a button. A few fitness trackers and smartwatches have this feature — including Basis and Samsung's Gear 2 — their screens automatically light when you twist your wrist. This way, you can see the screen (and your stats) even if your hands are full, or you're in the middle of a workout. An alternative would be to have a screen that's always on, like that of the Garmin Vivofit.

Reminders to move you can't miss

The goal of many fitness trackers is to get you moving, and some even provide alerts to remind you to get up and walk around. But these alerts are not always obvious, and it can be easy to miss them — the Nike+ FuelBand flashes the word "GO" and your name, and the Vivofit shows a red bar that gets longer the more time you spend idle. But in both cases, you can miss the alert if you're not looking at the screen — for example, if you're working.

What you really need is an alert you can feel, like a vibration on the wrist. On this point, the Jawbone UP has the right idea, with a feature called "Idle Alert," in which the device vibrates after it detects you've been idle for a certain amount of time. We'd definitely want this feature on our fantasy tracker.

An alarm to wake you up

On a related note, our fantasy fitness tracker would also have an alarm you could set to wake you up in the morning. It's surprising how many pricey fitness trackers don't offer this simple feature. We particularly like the alarm on the Fitbit One, which quietly vibrates to wake you up.

The option to wear the device multiple ways

Many fitness trackers are designed to be worn on the wrist, and that's fine if you're used to wearing a watch or bracelets, but it's nice to be able to change things up once in a while. That's why we like the idea of having more than one way to wear a fitness tracker. The Withings Pulse O2 can be placed in a belt clip and worn on the waist, or attached to a wristband and worn like a watch. The Fitbug Orb and Misfit Shine also provide ways to wear the devices around the neck like a necklace.

Easy-to-see progress

Our ideal fitness tracker would visually display how close you are to reaching your activity goals, allowing you to see your progress with just a glance. A few fitness trackers, including Pulse O2 and Basis, have a bar along the bottom of the band that fills up as you make progress. The FuelBand has a similar feature — a string of lights, progressing from red to green, that light up as you get closer to your goal.

An adjustable strap

The wristband for our fantasy fitness tracker would have an adjustable strap, so that the device does not bounce around when you're active. While reviewing the fitness trackers on the market, we've found that some of those without an adjustable strap, such as the FuelBand and UP, come in different sizes to accommodate large and small wrists, but it's hard to beat an adjustable strap if you want a good fit.

Measuring heart rate on the wrist

More and more fitness trackers are including sensors that measure heart rate — either on the wrist, or the finger tip. We think a heart rate monitor on the wrist is more convenient, because it lets you check your heart rate on the go, without having to remove the device.

Meaning behind the numbers

Our fantasy fitness tracker would do more than track your steps and count your calories — it would provide some meaning behind those numbers: How much exercise should you be getting? How many hours of sleep do you need, and what can you do to sleep better? How can you get more fruits and veggies into your diet?

A few fitness trackers excel in this area: The app for the Pulse has a section that discusses how much activity you need (150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity per week, according to the World Health Organization), as well as tips to sleep better. The Fitbug Orb allows users to fill out a health assessment on their website that tells you not only if you fall short of health recommendations, but also what you can do to improve your health.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Most fitness trackers are designed for adults, but the devices might help researchers study physical activity in kids, experts say.

In a new study of 25 kids, researchers tested whether fitness trackers could be suitable tools for studying children's physical activity. The 7- to 10-year-olds tested three different fitness trackers — worn on the waist, wrist or upper arm — and one heart rate monitor. The children wore each device for a week, and later completed interviews along with their parents about which device they liked the best.

Children preferred the wrist-worn tracker, in this case, the Polar Active, over the waist-worn tracker, the Philips Actical, and the upper-arm tracker, SenseWear by BodyMedia. 

When studying kids' activity, even the best fitness tracker won't be useful if children don't wear the device, or can easily break it, so the goal of the survey was to find the types of devices that work best with kids, said study researcher Sara Schaefer, of the Foods For Health Institute at the University of California, Davis.

"A device, even if it works perfectly in theory, on a kid, it's a different story," Schaefer said.

"The [Polar Active] device was definitely the most popular among children," Schaefer said. "We got kids to wear it for an entire week, and got great data from that."

Kids said the Polar Active was comfortable to wear, and kept it on 98 percent of the time. The device also had a watch, and an animated figure that moved when the children moved, which the kids liked, Schaefer said.

In contrast, the SenseWear device did not fit well on many children, and it frequently turned itself on and off, and this made a noise that was sometimes disruptive. As a result, kids wore SenseWear just 28 percent of the time during the study.

The Polar Active was also the only waterproof fitness tracker in the study. It was deemed beneficial because it allowed researchers to measure water activities, and reduced the chance of kids taking off the device and forgetting to put it back on.

Based on the Polar measurements, nearly half of the children got at least an hour of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day. On average, the kids burned 1,590 calories per day, took a whopping 19,000 steps, and slept for nearly 10 hours.

Schaefer called the research a "stepping stone" for future work on wearable technology in kids. Since conducting this study, Schaefer has used activity monitors to study how physical activity levels in children relate to the risk of obesity.

Schaefer is also working in collaboration with the video game industry to develop a game that rewards children based on their activity data, for example, by giving them more "power" in the game for the number of steps they take. These types of games can help teach kids about their personal data, she said.

Today's fitness trackers have some limitations. For example, the devices detect motion with sensors called accelerometers, but these sensors do not accurately measure the work required to perform certain activities, such as pushing or lifting objects, or bike riding. In addition, some organized sports leagues prohibit players from wearing any devices during a game, which would prevent researchers from measuring that activity.

Schaefer is currently conducting studies in children to see how the Fitbit compares to the Actigraph, a device mainly used in scientific research settings, rather than by consumers.

The new study is published online today (May 22) in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease.

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The Pulse O2 is the latest fitness tracker from Withings, and is marketed as a way to track daily activity and improve health. The O2 is an update to the original version of the Pulse and includes a few new features.

The device tracks a slew of metrics, including steps taken, elevation changes, distance walked, calories burned, heart rate and sleep. It is also being marketed as the first fitness tracker to measure blood oxygen levels.

At $119.95, the O2 is slightly more expensive than its predecessor, which went for $99.95. Here's what I found after a week of testing the device.

Overall Rating: 6.8/10

The pros of the O2 include its ability to measure heart rate, the option to wear the device on either your waist or wrist, and the ability to set reminders to engage in healthy behaviors.

The cons of the O2 include the inability to check heart rate during exercise, the lack of an alarm and a lack of information about heart rate.

Design/Comfort: 7.5/10

The Pulse O2 is a small, lightweight device: It's 1.7 inches (4.3 centimeters) across and 0.8 inches (2 cm) high, and weighs just 8 grams (0.28 ounces). There are several ways to wear it: You can put it in your pocket, attach it to your belt/waistband with a clip, or slide it into the provided wristband to wear it like a watch.

Withings changed the design of its wristband for the O2. The original wristband was made of cloth and was intended to be worn only at night. (It was known as the "sleep wristband.") The new wristband is more like that of a regular watch — it's a silicon strap with notches, so you can adjust the size. The strap, which comes in several colors, is attached to a holder for your Pulse. Withings says that any standard watch strap can be attached to the holder, so you're not restricted to using the provided strap.

I preferred to wear the Pulse in the belt clip — it's so comfortable that I often forgot I was wearing it. The strap is comfortable too, but the smallest size was slightly too big for me, so I had to wear it looser than I would have liked.

Like the original, the O2 has a light-up display, so you can see your metrics on the device itself. It also has a touch screen, which you use for certain tasks, like putting the device in sleep mode. The display is easy to read indoors, but I found it difficult to read in broad daylight. The device also does not have an alarm, a feature that some people might want in a wrist-worn device.

User-Friendliness: 6/10

Both the O2 and its accompanying app are user-friendly. You get started with the O2 by downloading the Health Mate app to your smartphone (iPhone or Android), and the app walks you through the basics of how to use the device.

There is just one button on the Pulse, on the top of the device, and each push of the button changes the screen to display a different metric (steps, elevation, distance, calories burned and the time of day).

You can check your heart rate by placing your finger on the sensors on the back of the device. A new feature of the O2 is that these sensors also detect your blood oxygen level.

It's easy to check your heart rate and blood oxygen level when you're sitting, but it's difficult to do on the go — if you're wearing the device in the wristband or a clip, you have to remove it first. This means you cannot really check your heart rate while you're exercising (unless you stop what you're doing).

You can find more information about your daily activity — including what time of day you were most active, a chart of your heart-rate measurements and a graph of your sleep patterns — by looking at the app on your phone. When you view the Sleep section, the default setting displays your weekly sleep patterns, but I found it more useful to change the setting to view my sleep activity by day, so I could see how I slept over a single night.

A butterfly icon at the top of the app has four wings (representing weight, activity, sleep and heart health), which fill in with color as you add measurements. This provides a quick way to check your progress over the last week.

You can also log in to your account through the Withings website. There, you'll see your day broken down into chunks of time that are color-coded by each of your activities, as well as the intensity of the activity. This analysis — which is similar to what the fitness tracker from Basis does — allows you to see patterns in your activity.

You can keep track of what you eat to tally up your calories, but you have to download another app called MyFitnessPal, which connects with the Health Mate app.

Value of Information: 7.5/10

Through the Health Mate app, users can get some insight into what their data actually means and how they might change their behavior to be healthier. For example, selecting the butterfly wing marked Activity shows you how many more minutes of activity you need to complete to get 150 minutes of moderate activity per week, which is recommended by the World Health Organization. There is also a section in the app that provides definitions of "moderate" and "vigorous" activity, and explains why physical activity is important. The Sleep section of the app tells you how much sleep you need, and gives suggestions for how to improve your sleep.

Another section of the app, called "Reminders," allows you to set reminders for yourself to engage in healthy behaviors. There are many reminders to choose from — I chose to remind myself to eat fruits and vegetables at noon, and to go to bed at a specific time each day. You can also set reminders to weigh yourself, go for an after-dinner walk or drink water regularly. Reminders appear as notifications on your smartphone.

However, the app lacks information about heart rate. It does not explain in what situations measuring heart rate would be useful. Also, I found the blood oxygen level measurement to be rather unnecessary  — mine always read 98 or 99 percent. (Normal blood oxygen levels fall within a very tight range, from 95 to 100 percent). Withings says that mountain climbers and athletes training in high altitudes may need to know their blood oxygen levels to protect against hypoxia(which occurs when the body's tissues don't get enough oxygen), but this is a very small group of people. Withings also says that people with asthma or chronic bronchitis may benefit from measuring blood oxygen levels, which I found surprising, given that fitness tracker companies tend to steer away from marketing their devices for medical purposes.

Enjoyment/Inspiration: 6/10

I enjoyed using the Pulse. The device's display and touch screen make it fun to use, and the inclusion of reminders in the app provides a way to nudge yourself into living more healthfully. You can also challenge your friends to walk more steps than you, which may be motivating for people with a competitive streak.

However, there is no way to check off that you've completed a healthy behavior that you set for yourself — the reminder disappears once you swipe your smartphone screen. I think a way to check off behaviors, or get points for them, would have motivated me more to use the device.

Editor’s Note: In February 2015, we changed the rating system we use in our fitness tracker reviews from a 5-star system to a 10-point system. Not all of our ratings were a straight conversion (i.e. 2/5 stars = 4/10 points). Instead, we adjusted some of them in order to give our readers a better idea of how these devices perform in relation to each other.

More Reviews: See all our Fitness Tracker Reviews to find the best one for your needs.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. 

Many fitness trackers keep on tracking even after you've hit the sack, providing you with information about how long you slept, how many times you woke up and your overall sleep quality. But some trackers first need to be placed into sleep mode before they can collect this information. Here's how to track your sleep with some of the best fitness trackers:

Jawbone UP24

1. There is a button on one end of the tracker. Press and hold this button to switch from active mode to sleep mode.
2. You'll know the device is in sleep mode when the status light changes to show a moon and the device vibrates.
3. To take the device out of sleep mode, just hold down the button again until the active-mode light (a green, flowerlike symbol) comes on.

Fitbit Flex

1. Tap the device quickly, for about 2 seconds.
2. You'll know the device is in sleep mode when the screen shows two dimming lights and vibrates.
3. To exit sleep mode, tap the device quickly for about 2 seconds.

Fitbit One

1. Hold down the button on the One for about 2 seconds.
2. You'll know the device is in sleep mode when it vibrates and displays a timer (which starts timing your sleep).
3. To exit sleep mode, hold the button for about 2 seconds.

Misfit Shine

1. Tap the device three times to activate the sleep mode.
2. You'll know the device is in sleep mode when the lights around the edge of the device turn on sequentially (so they appear to radiate upward) three times.
3. In addition to sleep, the Shine can also track other activities, such as cycling and swimming, which you track with "activity tags." If you have selected one of these activities in the app under "activity tag," you have to re-select "sleep" in order to track your sleep.
4. The Misfit Shine automatically detects the end of an activity.

Basis B1

The Basis does not have a sleep mode. It automatically detects when you're sleeping and when you wake up.

Nike+ Fuelband SE

The original Nike+ Fuelband does not track sleep, but the newer Fuelband SE can track your sleep time. Here's how it works:

1. With the Nike+ Fuelband SE, you can track the start and stop of your sleep by starting a "session" for sleep.
2. To start a session, hold down the button on the SE until the display says START.
3. Now press that same button again.
4. You will know a session has started when the display says 3, 2, 1, GO!
5. To end a session, hold down the button until the display says END, and then press the button again.

Withings Pulse O2

1. There is one button on top of the tracker, which you press to see your metrics, such as steps taken and feet climbed. Each press of the button shows a different metric. Quickly press the button several times until the display screen shows a picture of a heart on the left and a crescent moon on the right.
2. Touch the picture of the moon.
3. The word "ON" will appear. Turn on sleep mode by sliding your finger left across the screen.
4. You'll know the device is in sleep mode when the display says "Good night!"
5. To exit sleep mode, press the top button twice. The word "OFF" will appear. Turn sleep mode off by sliding your finger right across the screen. The display will say "Morning!"

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