Heart Rate from the Wrist: Fitbit Surge
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The “Fitness Super Watch” from the San Francisco based tech company, Fitbit, makes tracking not only your training rides, but everyday exercise as well as sleep at night a no brainer.
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A relatively new introduction from Fitbit, the Surge, which incorporates their pure pulse heart rate technology take directly from the wrist – once in bike or activity mode, the device will read heart rate every one second instead of five when in the normal mode. Battery life is seven days during standard usage and when the GPS is turned on, approximately ten hours of data collection can be expected. With the click of a button, synching the ride to the Fitbit app, Strava and other tracking software is seamless and the data integration is clean. The Fitbit website itself is quite robust for monitoring and organizing your training progress.
The multi-sport functionality and smart track technology automatically recognizes activity based on heart rate zones so the Surge makes it easy to track every aspect of training – just don’t get in trouble with the coach for that extra ride that automatically records. Not only for activity tracking, the Surge is sleek enough to wear during a night out on the town for a recovery meal.
Text and call notifications can be turned on or off depending on how connected the athlete wants to be. If music helps dial in interval workouts, the sound controls are intuitive with the user interface as well.
We all know how important it is to wakeup on time for the early morning workout, so an integrated silent alarm makes rising easy. When worn to bed, the Surge will monitor how long and how well sleep cycles are night after night. Data such as time spent restless, awake and deep sleep are measured and analyzed via the app for review the next morning. The syncing is smooth to smartphones and displays recovery trends in the form of detailed charts on the Fitbit dashboard.
What more could we want form a self-titled fitness super watch? Cycling specific metrics such as cadence and power would be nice, but the Surge is not exclusively marketed to riding enthusiasts – it’s meant for athletes that pursue multiple disciplines and are looking for a less bulky do-it-all GPS watch. However, the #PelotonServiceCourse will still look for a cycling specific unit in the future from this fast growing Bay Area company. Three colors; $250; fitibit.com