in this period, due to forced isolation for corona virus auto isolation, I'm doing some fitness.
The first thought was to find the correct instruments to measure the results: calories, fat burn, etc.
I analyzed various solutions, assuming these pre-requisites:
- each possible device (smartband, sportwatch, cardio fitness chest belt, etc) must be fitness oriented, f.e. a smartwatch with 4G/3G connectivity is unuseful because is often not IP68 (i.e. you cannot swim)
- notifications for whatsapp/calls/etc could be present, but they shall be unused (disabled) ... two reasons: a) during run/walk/etc activities calls and the whatsapp/SMS/email notifications are interruptions, they're deprecated, b) notifications are always not fully correctly managed: emoji, incorrect visualization ... at the end use your phone or do fitness
- the GPS sensor is not mandatory/useful in a smartband or a sportwatch (i.e. a fitness targeted smartwatch) and should be avoided, for two main reasons: a) it drain battery faster, b) if I'll walk/run outdoor I'll have surely my cellular phone, that has a better (precision and fast to fix) sensor and definitely more battery
- the fitness tracker must have a battery capacity able to cover more days, at minimum 3-5, because it should monitor continously trough the day (calories, sleep quality, etc)
- the tracker should be independent (except for GPS outdoor activities) from cellular, it must have an internal memory to store a fitness session; during indoor activities both fitness (tapis roulant, cycling, free fitness) and ordinary (walking, sleep, etc) ones, I don't want to worry about wearing the cellular
- swimming, waterproof, etc are often incorrectly used: I need a fully IP68 wearable device, swimming compatible; a lot of time I found: a) IP67, this is not waterproof, it's only dust and spash proof (i.e. washing hands with carefully), b) outdoor swimming in the sea is OUT OF SCOPE from my perimeter (salt water is corrosive, to find the correct device require to pimp up the budget)
- Huawei Honor Band 5:
- it's a smartband with at least 3 days of battery capacity, doing a) 24h real time heart monitoring ("smart" monitoring measure at different intervals according to the activities using a smart algorithm to find the correct moment), b) notifications disable, c) sleep monitoring, d) about 1 hour of fitness activity per day
- proprietary app is the "Huawei health" v. 10.0.2.333
- trough various I discarded XiaoMi Band 4 that lack SpO2 measurement, and Huawei Watch GT or GT2 seeing a few extra feature with a low battery duration and an higher price
- Polar H10 (it's an H9 with internal memory):
- it's a cardio chest belt that is able to transmit at the same time to bluetooth, ANT+ and Gymlink (5.3 KHz) devices; I'm keeping disabled the ANT+
- two mobile apps (I use only Android 9.x): "Polar Beat 3.4.4" normally used during fitness activities, with some basic plans/indications to improve resistance/power/etc, and "Polar flow" to better analyze the results
- Polar beat keep the mobile screen on and it's comfortable for real time tracking; I'm able to cycle trough bpm/calories, fitness and fat burning zones
Tapis is able to induce the speed in step of ".1" Km/H, i.e. kilometers for hour (not minute for kilometer) as an ordinary car, and inclination from 0 to 12.
First of all keep in mind that firmware is important, because it enable last features and fixes (trough the story various bands miss or fail some measurements, or lack some features), a complete comparison could not ignore this, so:
- Band 5: firmware 1.1.0.122 (upgrade trough app), "ebay" street price 30 euros (03/2020)
- Polar H10: 3.0.50, "amazon" street price 61 euros (03/2020)
- pre-defined "Tempo" Polar training plan: 5/warmup-fat+5/aerobic+20/anaerobic+5/fat; tapis inclination 2-3
- 3 mins of fat burn; inclination 0-2
- 3 mins of extreme (> 10 km/h); inclination 2
- 14 mins of rest and walking (fat burn) till to 55th minute; inclination 2-0
| \ | Polar H10 | Band 5 | Tapis | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Distance | - | 5.35 Km | 6.64 Km | Band counts 6.597 steps (I'm 1.70m taller). Band/tapis difference was constant, it could be a zero start error. |
| Calories | 581 | 437 | 476 | Polar calories are higher from beginning. Tapis know inclination and I suppose correct distance. |
| Fat burn | 21 mins (16% of cals) | 20 mins | - | BTW no one show how much "grams". |
| Bpm | X | X +/- 5 | - | Tapis rarely receive H10 5.3 KHz signal |
First of all I tried to follow the Polar "Tempo" training (to develop speed and stamina) during first 35 minutes:
 |
| Polar pre-defined "Tempo" training |
Now the bpm graphs to compare Band 5 vs H10 precision:
 |
 |
| Huawei Band 5 | Polar H10 |
I overlay the two graphs:
 |
| Polar H10 light red vs Band 5 dark red |
As you can see:
- differences are very minimal; keep in mind that it's an indoor run so velocity vs beat should be very constant
- a little H10 over measure (see below about this period) in the initial warmup 0-10, and a visible Band 5 over measure after the 3 mins extreme peak (it should be a rest/fat-burn phase where I tried to keep the beat as regular as possible)
- about 1st period, I experimented two spurious consistent spykes from Huawei Band 5 (below the original graph); I thought to a Polar error, but subsequently I observed two times the similar error, and both the time during the same initial period (4-8 minutes)
 |
| Band 5 dark red - incorrect spurious spyke 4-8 min |
Just to make another comparison I had a Lidl/Crivit chest belt and it seemed easier to moisten to get in contact with the skin and take the measurement.
What's a reason to use Polar H10 in place of H10 ? The Polar beat show real time beat graph/values, so if you're oriented to respect specific fitness level zones (fat burn, etc) prefer this ones (the band5 also show the beat and the zones, but you need to switch on the screen, because the app is not in realtime).
regards,
gino
