Since their breakthrough into the mainstream, fitness trackers have undergone a series of step-ups in design, size and most notably functionality.

The first ones could track basic aspects such as number of steps made and calories. Contemporary devices are fitted with accelerometers, barometers, GPS trackers and pulse sensors. These measure speed and distance covered during running sessions, count number of stairs and flights, track route and monitor heart rate and sleep cycles. Some have even been programmed to study your patterns, guesstimate your current mood and recommend better habits.

The most comprehensive fitness trackers can perform virtually all tasks any function-specific tracker can execute. Most include smartphone connectivity too and have been designed to work in sync with it for better delivery. Manufacturers that have managed to pull that off in their devices include Fitbit, Garmin and Polar. Apple too are heading in the same direction with the Apple Watch Series 2 by adding GPS and water resistance into the mix.

The Future of Fitness Trackers

According to Time, a great deal of people are not yet ready to invest in a fitness tracker simply because they can’t find the essence of owning one. Others think the gadgets are too complicated while others don’t even know what a fitness tracker does or just how it looks.

Regardless, a study shows that in 2018, manufacturers will ship an estimated minimum of 60 million fitness trackers, approximately thrice the figure of 2015. What the researchers are ascribing this projection to, is the expected improved awareness by then which will see the user-base expand immensely. What makes the forecast even more realistic is the inevitable prospect of having more sophisticated fitness trackers in the foreseeable future. The most imminent could be feature sophistication but then design and size might follow in less than half a decade.

Pill-sized implantable and swallowable devices are particularly what we suspect will make for the next breakthrough in the self-care field. Perhaps cloths too will come fitted by default with sensors that can track and share data with medics directly through IoT, which hopefully will have developed that much before the next decade.

Also, I wouldn’t rule out surprise advancements either. We have seen it happen before. For more information about the current state of fitness trackers, please visit “The Fitness Tracker Manifesto”.