So I am standing in line on New Years Eve at Dicks Sporting Goods to return some items that I got for Christmas that didn’t fit.  While in Line I see a pamphlet for a device that promises to tract the calories I burn while I do normal activities and store them on a personalized website for me to track my progress.  Furthermore, it tracks my steps and also the level of intensity of my day to day activities.  I thought to myself, how nice would it be to know exactly how beneficial (or not) all that time I spend in the gym really is.  I figured that if I didn’t like it, I could return it.

Needless to say, I purchased one of these gizmos.  It is called Go Wear Fit and it is pretty cool.  I have been using my now for two weeks.  I have worn it pretty much constantly, except for the shower, since it is not water resistant.  The device is worn on your left arm with a strap.  There are two sensors on the underneath side the device that sense your body temperature and other metrics and store them directly in the device.  The manufacturer claims that the device will hold up to 14 days of data with continuous use, but I have not been able to test that yet.

To transfer the data from the device, you use a USB cable that is provided in the box.  In addition, you need to sign up for their service that processes the data from the device and charts your progress.  The package I bought from Dicks came with a three month subscription in the box.

The reporting on the site is pretty good.  It displays your caloric burn for the day, the number of steps you took, since the device has a 3 axis accelerometer in it, as well as you activity level measured in METS.  You can also track you weight and your weight size in the tool as well.

This really is a great device in that it provides valuable insight into how well you are burning calories whether in the gym, walking around the office, or doing activities with the kids.  Whatever it is you are doing, as long as you are wearing it, it is recording you activity level.  Furthermore, if you take the device off say, to go swimming for an hour in the lap pool at the gym, you can add that activity into the device manually.  It detects when you are not wearing it so you can manually fill in those gaps later.

You can find out all about the science behind the device as well as its level fo accuracy by going to their website, www.gowearfit.com or you can check out the device in Dicks.  Besides their website directly, Dicks is the exclusive retailer for the device at the time of this blog post.  So far I really like the device and the insight it has provided me.  Now, I need to back away from the computer and go to the gym, tomorrow morning.