Is it time to move? If you’re not sure, taking a look at your watch should give you the answer.
Apple’s wearable technology innovation, The Apple Watch, is for obvious reasons making quite a name for itself as competition in the fitness-tracking industry heats up. And while the watch isn’t perfect it has clearly caused a lot of conversation about the direction of personal fitness.
You may be thinking to yourself, “is all this really necessary?” After all, you’re not a superstar athlete and don’t have any need to know your heart rate at any given moment during the day. Why do you really need to know how many steps you’re taking while you’re at work?
Take a minute to consider three ways that the Apple Watch might make your healthier.
1. It fuels your competitive side
For some people, there is nothing like having a goal to beat. The functionality of the Apple Watch makes it easy to track motions throughout the day. If you’re the type of person who likes to beat your own scores and best times in anything you do, you have a perfect way to know how much you need to move and how many calories you need to burn to beat your previous total.
And, if you’re ultra-competitive, share your information with a group of friends, seeing who can take the most steps during the workday or burn the most calories in a pick-up basketball game.
2. It reminds you to move
It’s no secret that people move less these days. Reports have shown kids spend 50% less time doing unstructured play than in the 1970s. Adults, also, are prone to long periods of sitting due to both work and recreational activities.
The Apple Watch can alert you when you or your children have been sedentary for too long and issue a reminder it is time to get up and move. If you’ve been sitting at the desk, it will notify you it is time to stand up and stretch your legs. Take advantage of that reminder to go for a walk or take the kids for a bike ride. There are endless possibilities to get you moving, and the Apple Watch serves as the perfect reminder to do just that.
3. It adapts to you
We all know Apple loves to build its products around the human experience. One of the ways the company sets itself apart is by considering how to make a product that affects people rather than a product that is simply useful.
A major advantage of the Apple Watch is it establishes goals based on a user’s prior activity. Most other fitness watches either provide a blanket goal for all users or require the user to set a goal themselves. The Apple Watch learns the habits of the user, setting up modifiable goals for the day and week based on previous information. This creates an intuitive experience for wearers by focusing on the user rather than the technology.
The Apple Watch does more than simply track your workouts. It reminds you movement is a natural, important part of your day. It finds manageable goals for you to achieve and helps you see exactly how much you move.
In the current days of the deskbound employees and videogame-obsessed kids, we all need a reminder to get up and get out. More than that, we need a way to see an honest picture of how much physical activity we’re truly getting in a day. With a glance at your wrist, and sometimes an alert when you’re too busy to look, you can keep yourself on track for the type of healthy lifestyle you know you should be living.
Feature image courtesy of Yasunobu Ikeda