If you’ve decided now is the time to make some healthy changes to your life and you’re seeking out some tech assistance to help you on the way, the good news is that there’s plenty of accessories that can do just that.
Fortunately, Apple has done the very handy job of picking out some of those health and fitness-focused devices on its own storefront that promise to help you make sure you’re drinking enough water, help recognise when you’re feeling under the weather and should take things easy and even keep a close eye on your heart.
In this guide, we’ll take you through some of that health and fitness kit to find out just how well they work and see whether they’re really worth adding to your current collection of Apple-friendly kit. This is our verdict on the health and fitness accessories you can pick up from the Apple Store.
The quick list
1. HidrateSpark Pro Steel
A big smart water bottle that does a good job of making sure you don’t forget to keep on top of your daily hydration needs.
Best smart water bottle
We think the HidrateSpark Pro Steel is a useful bottle to have around if you’re bad at remembering to drink enough water during the day. It’s hard to ignore the glowing reminders when it’s time to top up on your hydration.
It’s bigger than your typical water bottle, but the stainless steel exterior and secure lid feels like it’s built to last and helps to justify that pretty steep price tag. It’s easy to set up with an iPhone with a companion app that clearly presents your water intake and whether you’re hitting your daily goals. The big glowing LED ring around the sensor base can be customised but it’s a shame you have to pay for a subscription to adjust the colour. You can at least control the brightness if you don’t want it proving a distraction in more public places.
While you can’t store hot drinks in it, it does manage to keep colder ones chilled for a day and the battery life can last a few weeks before you need to remove the sensor base to power it up again. The Apple Health integration to track water intake alongside your other health tracking devices is a nice touch too and gives this water bottle added value to have around glowing at you to make sure you drink up.
Best heated coffee mug
The follow-up to the first-generation temperature-controlling Ember Mug notably boosts battery life to keep hot drinks at your preferred temperature for longer, along with tweaking the design of the all-important charging coaster.
We found the ceramic look and stainless steel core offered a bold look that is a little heavier than your standard coffee cup. Like its predecessor, it’s a shame that the onboard components means you can’t stick it in a dishwasher but if you can live with manually giving it a clean, the temperature technology alongside the cleanly presented app makes it very easy to start putting this mug to good use.
The phone notifications work well to let you know when it’s hit your desired temperature and the built-in LED light at the base clearly lets you know when it’s adjusting to your desired temperature. It also gives you a heads-up to the battery status, which is 80 minutes for the 40z version we tested. If you drink a few cups in a short period though, that battery might become a problem, putting a greater reliance on dropping back on its coaster charger.
Ultimately it does work and is satisfying when you’ve forgotten about a hot cup of coffee you made. You just have to be willing to pay the pretty steep price and be willing to charge it or keep that coaster nearby.
Best smart thermometer
The Withings Thermo is your larger-than-average thermometer and offers a way to non-invasively check your temperature and then store that in the Withings Health companion app. From there it can help identify trends and spot if you’re coming down with a fever.
It’s a clinically validated device that we used alongside a traditional oral thermometer and found that measurements were nicely in line. Taking a reading is really easy to do, but does first require setting the Thermo up with the Withings phone app before you can proceed to swipe the array of 16 infrared sensors across the forehead.
Readings take seconds and are displayed on the built-in display, which does also support the ability to scroll through up to eight different users, making it useful if you’re trying to monitor multiple people at one time.
It does feel like a lot of money to pay for a thermometer, but if you’ve been looking for a non-invasive option that’s quick and easy to use, well-built, and offers strong battery life, that’s what the Thermo offers.
Best smart scale
The Withings Body Comp isn’t your average smart scale and while it will tell you about things like muscle and fat mass, it takes things further by letting you also closely monitor your heart and nerve health.
It does that from a pretty sleek design that’s topped with tempered glass and has a larger display than most smart scales. That means Withings can expand on those body composition, heart and nerve health readings to give you a sense whether they’re normal or not so normal.
Those measurements are all taken in less than 30 seconds and can be synced over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to the Withings Health app where Withings does a really good job of detailing what those most recent measurements tell you about your current health. If you don’t know what your latest vascular age means or you don’t understand your basal metabolic rate, then you’ll get a much clearer idea of it here.
We’ve used the scales over a period of a few weeks and this is certainly a slick smart scale operator. There are cheaper smart scales in Withings’ own collection, including the Body Smart, which offers similar features for less. If you want those extra metrics though, then the Body Comp is a great smart scale supported by an overall useful and insightful app.