Physical activity can be recorded, stored, and portrayed via a collection of devices.There are wearable devices - worn on wrist, around waste, around chest. etc. - than can measure your movements (or lack of), heart rate, sleeping patterns, changes in altitude (stairs climbed), body temperature, breathing rates, and other fitness related metrics. Some devices have also included a watch and small display for monitoring results.
These devices then send this information to a smartphone app or computer software for detailed reporting, measuring, and forecasting. And, some fitness apps use the sensors in a smartphone to detect movements and measure activities, and blend them with data from other sources. The activity information can also be combined with dietary, weight, height, and other information, on a 24/7 basis, to create not just a complete picture of wellness, but rather a complete movie or "live reality TV event" of wellness.
Fitness equipment – such as treadmills, bikes, ellipticals, TreadClimbers, etc. – can also measure activity like a wearable and often provide much more accurate measurement - and then submit the information to the same smartphone app or computer software.This measuring can be done by monitoring the machines actual movements or via chest strap monitors, palm monitors, etc.By measuring the actual speed of and time on a treadmill, the distance covered measurement from the treadmill will be more accurate than a sensor detecting steps and then using an averaged stride length etc. to calculate distance.Further, treadmills can measure incline (hills) far more accurately, and thus are better at measuring your additional calories burned, stemming from the additional effort require from runninguphill.
Some wearable manufacturers are:Apple, Fitbit, Garmin, Jawbone, LG, Microsoft, Nike, and Polar.
Some Apps or data platforms are:Active Trac, Apple Health, Google Fit, My Fitness Pal, Map My Fitness, Nautilus Connect/Portal, and Under Armour Record.
The following is a sample list of fitness equipment manufacturers and some various compatibilities.
LifeSpan
Data that comes from LifeSpan fitness equipment can be viewed or shared across multiple locations—Active Trac, Apple Health, My Fitness Pal or Map My Fitness. You can literally view workout data that you did on your LifeSpan equipment in your favorite fitness app such as My Fitness Pal. See here.
All of their new units other than the TR1200i will have Bluetooth Capability (via an optional adapter that plugs into the console that makes it "Bluetooth compatible") that will allow you to stream workout data to their app called Active Trac. The key is, the Active Trac app is compatible with Apple Health and Google Fit which are two platforms that centralize data storage. Essentially they "play nice" with other fitness apps and wearable devices.
LifeSpan roducts that work with wearable devices and fitness apps:
TR2000e treadmill
TR3000e treadmill
TR4000i (new version) treadmill
TR5000i (new version) treadmill
E3i elliptical
E2i elliptical
Schwinn:
Schwinn products that support MyFitnessPal
170 & 130 upright bike
270 & 230 recumbent bike
470 & 430 elliptical
870 & 830 treadmill
Nautilus:
There is a great blog item by Nautilus' CEO Bruce Cazenave on "How digital tools are moving the needle on health and fitness" at here.
Nautilus Products that support MyFitnessPal
U614 upright bike
R614 recumbent bike
E614 elliptical
T614 treadmill
Nautilus products that support MyFitnessPal, Apple Health, & Google Fit
U616 upright bike
R616 recumbent bike
E616 elliptical
T616 treadmill
SportsArt:
SA WELL+™ is a smartphone app and an optional upgrade feature which can be built into almost every SportsArt cardio machine. The machine equipped with it can communicate and send training data to the application. Using phone app you can collect you training data like: distance, time, calories, pace, etc. You can also set your personal daily or monthly goals, see your achievements in a graphic form and share it via Facebook.
The SA Well+ is its own entity. It does not have compatibility with other apps or wearable. The SA Well+ is an app that syncs with the equipment to read Calories / Distance / Time, etc. A wireless transmitter is required to send the signal to the users device that scanned the QR code.
To install the app you will need an Android or iOS smartphone, however the feature works also with a USB drive. Additionally you can also manually input data of your strength training.