The holiday season is upon us and while this period of the year mostly entails leisurely activities like resting, eating, and spending time with your loved ones, it’s also associated with some less enjoyable tasks such as avoiding your mother-in-law and shopping for gifts. While there’s little you can do about the former, the latter can be much more bearable if you inform yourself and know what you’re doing. As we’re currently well into the 21st century, gadgets and other consumer electronics are not only appropriate holiday gifts but are also available in all price ranges suitable for every budget. What’s more, there’s one particular product category that can serve as a universal gift in virtually all holiday scenarios – fitness trackers. While wearables may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about tech gifts, these gadgets can certainly deliver on this front.
Price is an important factor in any purchase decision and is even more instrumental in the context of gifts that you’re usually buying in bulks, with your budget already being stretched thin. In this regard, a fitness tracker can be a perfect choice for concluding your gift shopping list when you’re down to less than $50 or even make the majority of it; products like the Huawei Smart Bracelet and Xiaomi Mi Band 2 go for between $10 and $35, thus being extremely inexpensive choices when it comes to making sure no one is left out of your holiday gifting spree while avoiding scenarios in which people feel like you gave them something that was literally bought with pocket change.
Despite the entry-level segment of the fitness tracker market entailing rather affordable products, there are a few gems that punch well above their weight in this price range and deliver a much more premium feel and user experience than what you’d expect when you saw how little they actually cost. The aforementioned models are great examples of such devices which offer great value for money, with another one being the Huawei Band 2 Pro. All of these wearables will set you back under $50 while still serving as gifts that your loved ones can find both useful and memorable.
The second factor when considering fitness trackers for gifts is directly related to that last point and has to with how versatile these offerings are. Regardless of whether you know someone who wants to lose weight, start leading a healthier lifestyle by doing cardio, or is already taking steps toward meeting either of these two goals, fitness trackers are tools that they should really find useful. Even the most inexpensive units like the ones listed above are capable of tracking your steps and burned calories, then provide you with analytics that can help you exercise more efficiently.
The Xiaomi Mi Band 2 and Huawei Band 2 Pro even sport heart rate monitors and are the most affordable such devices to do so that money can currently buy, in addition to boasting robust builds resistant to dust, sweat, and even water submersion, thus being suitable for showering, swimming, and diving. If you know someone who you think would appreciate a fitness tracker but would prefer to wear something that’s more stylish than a band with a screen, there’s an entirely separate product category precisely for them. The Moov Now and Amazfit Equator are currently the most popular products in this segment, providing you with versatile fitness tracking capabilities while being designed in a manner that allows them to blend with outfits and jewelry.
Thirdly, fitness trackers are suitable for all age groups and can be a correct choice regardless of whether you’re looking to gift a young person who’s in the process of getting ripped, a middle-aged one seeking to lose weight, or a senior who needs an incentive to stay active. In all of those cases, traditional fitness trackers such as Fitbit’s Charge 2 and Alta HR will be able to show them the results of their hard work even before they start seeing and feeling them, thus essentially serving as portable motivational tools. Fitbit’s offerings in particular are always a good choice for gifts because despite the fact that even the cheapest wearables aren’t prone to breaking down, you can rest assured that even if they do, you gifted your loved ones products from a company with a stellar customer support record and they’ll never associate your present with a poor after-sales experience some nameless brand may provide.
Finally, even in the context of luxury gifts for that very special someone, fitness trackers deliver in two forms – ultra-premium smart bands like the Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro that can do everything the cheaper products can while simultaneously being capable of standalone operation and playing music even without being connected to a smartphone and high-end gadgets that are essentially smartwatches with identical fitness tracking capabilities. The latter product category recently received some notable refreshes in the form of the Fitbit Ionic and Samsung Gear Sport, both of which are premium devices that do everything their fitness-tracking counterparts do while simultaneously adopting form factors of highly stylish watchers your significant other, friend, or a lucky family member will be proud to wear.
The Garmin Vivoactive 3 is another such offering and while none of these fitness watches can be described as cheap, they’re also the kind of gifts that people remember for many years to come, primarily because they’re likely to spend a long time using them and will recall your generous gesture every time they look at their wrist. And when you have something like the Gear Sport, Ionic, or the Vivoactive 3 on your wrist, you’ll definitely be looking at it a lot.