Here’s where things got interesting. None of these bands have the built-in GPS technology I’d recommend looking for if you’re training for a race and want to rely on a watch during your runs. Still, they all offer estimates of how far you’ve gone—so I hit the track to do four laps and see what each of the devices measured a mile as being.
This wasn’t as easy as it might seem. Since you can’t zero out your distance for the day on any of these trackers to conduct a test like this, I had to drag my boyfriend out to the track with me, read off all of the starting distances to him to write down in a notebook, run a mile, then (without moving at all), read off all of the ending distances to him (thanks, Matt!).
I also tested the Apple Watch and the Moto 360 twice: once without keeping my phone nearby to see how they did without any help from a 4G connection and once with my iPhone in-hand. Here’s how the fitness trackers did:
Each fitness tracker logged a mile as:
|
|
| Withings Activité POP |
0.02 miles* |
| Moto 360 |
0.74 miles |
| Fitbit Charge HR |
0.83 miles |
| Apple Watch |
0.97 miles |
| Pivotal Living |
0.99 miles |
| Jawbone UP 3 |
1.1 miles |
| Misfit Shine |
1.1 miles |
*This corroborates my theory that the watch's app uses your smartphone's built-in technology since I ran without my phone during this mile.
Turns out, the Apple Watch and the Moto 360 don’t actually appear to use your phone’s GPS unless you turn on an app specifically designed to track your run. (Womp womp.) Since the Moto 360 doesn’t have a built-in app to do this (although this will change when the Moto 360 Sport is introduced with GPS technology), its reading came out virtually identical during my second mile: 0.73. When I used the Apple Watch’s “Workout” app, its reading actually came out slightly less accurate than the first time around: 1.06. *Shrugs*
