Johannesburg - Just when you thought the only when way of measuring your body composition was to take your shoes and socks off at the gym and stick your entire arm into a machine – along comes the Touch from GPS navigation-maker TomTom.
The TomTom Touch is one of the most sophisticated fitness bands available which measure steps, sleep, exercise activity and heartrate.
The Touch is neat and fashionable, and definitely among one of the best-looking fitness bands available today.
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It's easy to forget that you are wearing the device because of its lightweight and comfort on the wrist.
The device has two buttons, after pairing it with a smartphone.
The button on top of the device is used to wake it up. Swiping the screen then also toggles through various options, which include time and step count, exercise start, body fat measurement and heart-rate.
Unlike many devices available on the market, the heart-rate monitor works very efficiently and starts reading from the top of the wrist almost instantaneously.
To measure body fat, the wearer places and holds their finger on the body fat measurement screen and the device will start to attain the wearer’s stats.
While the Touch is highly accurate in most instances, TomTom could have made the product better in numerous ways.
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One such way could have been by introducing a bigger battery into the device as its battery life lasts only a few days.
The main menu of the device, which displays time and step count, also shows the time and step count. However, the step count is not displayed as numbers on the device but rather through a circle charting progress toward the 10 000-step-a-day goal.
Navigating the menu while using the device when running or performing another sporting activity becomes slightly difficult, and harder to track, because of the swiping and the small screen.
The app for the fit band itself takes some getting used to – for first time users at least. But after frequent usage, it offers a simplified snapshot of the user’s fitness profile and updates.
The TomTom Touch is a highly accurate device that compliments many fitness routines, especially for first-time fitness tracker users.
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