Rajat Kokane
Recruit
I need it for my dad. Lately, he gets tired easily so I need a watch that can monitor his vitals. I checked Amazon but there are so many watches, I can't decide on one.
Need recommendations for a smart watch for fitness purposes under 5k
- Thread starter Rajat Kokane
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desiibond
Skilled
Sub 5k ones are very inaccurate for vitals, especially for medical need. They are like those 5 lens and 4 lens smartphone cameras. Good only on paper and beaten by proper hardware. Actual accurate heart rate monitors are strapped to chest and they are bloody accurate.
Instead of wasting money on psuedo smart watches, visit doctor and take his/her guidance.
StygianClaw
Disciple
I would not trust anything less than an Apple Watch for that purpose. At the very least something like a Fitbit Charge 5. Even then these are nowhere near dedicated medical equipment.
My dad had an emergency angioplasty done recently. Luckily he was home and we spotted the early signs and took him to the hospital on time. I'm planning to eventually switch him to an iPhone and Apple watch so that there is an additional safety measure in place if he has to travel or stay alone for unavoidable reasons. It's expensive but personally for me the peace of mind is worth it.
I highly suggest you to take him for a proper health checkup at a hospital if something seems unusual. If you have Health insurance, they might include periodic free full body checkups at their network hospitals. Check with your agent to see if you are eligible.
My dad had an emergency angioplasty done recently. Luckily he was home and we spotted the early signs and took him to the hospital on time. I'm planning to eventually switch him to an iPhone and Apple watch so that there is an additional safety measure in place if he has to travel or stay alone for unavoidable reasons. It's expensive but personally for me the peace of mind is worth it.
I highly suggest you to take him for a proper health checkup at a hospital if something seems unusual. If you have Health insurance, they might include periodic free full body checkups at their network hospitals. Check with your agent to see if you are eligible.
blr_p
Skilled
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Emrebel
Adept
Cheaper Pulse oximeters can also be inaccurate as they are often not calibrated properly.
blr_p
Skilled
The one above i think is better than cheaper non brand oximeters
desiibond
Skilled
Forgot to ask, did you get a full body health checkup for your father? If doctor had diagnosed heart condition, okay. Otherwise, there are many factors that make one feel weak (vitamin deficiency, thyroid levels, general age related weakness, low bp, diabetes etc). If you have not taken health checkup and not consulted doctor, do that first. Also, get a BP monitor from Omron. You get accurate blood pressure and heart beat readings.
In smartphone terms:
Health check and doctor diagnosis are like iPhone/Pixel camera lens. Powerful and accurate, you can rely on these.
Cheap watch under 5k for heart beat monitoring are like 108mp camera on budget Android phones. You can take decent photos but cannot match the good ones.
If you still want a wearable heart rate monitor, get something like these:
bigb123
Disciple
Check this researcher out....he performs accuracy tests on smartwatches...you would be shocked to see the results from well known brands....at your 5k budget i think according to tests performed by this guy, honor watches are more accurate than the competition...
Do brands like beuer need calibrations? + @blr_p
Are these gadgets, the links posted by you, accurate?
+ @desiibond
How are Samsung watches in terms of accuracy?
StygianClaw
Disciple
The sensor accuracy of Samsung and Fitbit are in the same ballpark as the Apple watch I believe.
I prefer Apple since their abnormal heart rhythm notifications, fall detection, Family notifications and health data sharing are more reliable and easier to use. There are far more online accounts of Apple watches saving lives compared to Samsung or Fitbit.
Monitoring accuracy is one aspect. Notifying the user or their family that something could be wrong and helping them get assistance in case of an emergency is also very important.
desiibond
Skilled
There is a catch here. You need to have an iPhone to use an Apple Watch. It will not work with Android.
I have not used/tested these so would not know. But such devices that are strapped to the chest have lot better accuracy than wrist watches. Same reason why doctors use stethoscope to check your heartbeat, not wrist band or anything. Chest is where you get most accurate heart beat as the beat is clearly audible there. But it has its own headaches as not everyone is comfortable.
Most of Samsung's latest watches features are activated only when you use a compatible "Samsung" phone. Even the Garmin chest strap needs compatible Garmin device to sync data to. You also have to check which of these devices have continuous heart rate monitoring.
I have Amazfit GTR 2e. Readings change accordingly to how tight the watch is, where on the wrist the watch is. It even used to show under 70bpm when my heart was pounding at its highest heartbeat. Reason: it was not strapped at the right location on wrist. This is how bad these 'me too' wrist watches are. For every ride I take, the readings are all over the place (constantly moving, sweat, watch shakes etc).
Did you get a diagnosis from your doctor regarding your father's condition? Without this, you are just shooting in the dark. The best person who can give you suggestion on what kind of monitoring is requires is the doctor who checked your father.
blr_p
Skilled
I have the BT version of that model. Just used it out of the box. More important is knowing how to use it and how to interpret its results.
Smart watches (Apple included) will never compete with oximeters for blood oxygen. The method used to measure blood oxygen isn't the same
OP should be consulting with his doctor.
I have jumped across multiple brands over the past 6-7 years. It is difficult to generalise considering the different product ranges, but I will still share my opinion.
The Apple Watch I am using presently is simply a lot more consistent and accurate. It doesn't overcount and you can basically compare the data easily over a time period. You can use other apps on the App Store to supplement basic functionality like sleep tracking or use of offline maps for exercise tracking. The inbuilt functionalities are quite accurate though if looking at it from a medical standpoint. If you are focused only on fitness, then the Garmin ones make a lot more sense. Hence, the main point of using it is the smartwatch functionality. I take calls on the watch itself when the phone is in another room and haven't heard anyone complain about the quality. Besides that glancing at notifications, OTPs means skipping the usage of the phone a lot. The SP02 measurements are also reliable but not that consistent compared to an oximeter, so it is probably most useful during sleep as lower levels might indicate issues like sleep apnea.
I haven't used the Fossil Android watches but the Hybrid HR that I used for a time was completely inaccurate and essentially pointless.
The Fitbits I had before that (two of them) were good for tracking but the step count is generally exaggerated. The sleep tracking is great. However, the OS itself was quite problematic and not completely responsive. Customization is also limited. However, it works well for general fitness tracking.
The Samsung ones I had (Tizen) were generally not good at any of the fitness features, but worked well as smartwatches. So, wouldn't use those for serious tracking, but as a companion device.
Haven't used any from the Chinese brands because I generally don't want personal health data to end up on Chinese servers.
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The cheaper watches will have cheap all-in-one sensors which will not be accurate or consistent. More than that though, the most important part is converting the raw data from sensors into meaningful data which requires a lot of effort on the software side of things. The cheaper devices simply use easily available generic algorithms.
Kafkaesque
Recruit
Even though smartwatches aren't as accurate as dedicated health equipments, they do give you a fair idea if something is off. You can also look for Omron Smart Watch that is extremely accurate to watch vitals.