Here are 14 of the best smartwatches and fitness trackers you can use on Discovery Health

[mylesillidge]

Best fitness bands you can use on Discovery Health

Discovery Health customers get access to the company's Vitality offering, which rewards clients based on physical activity. However, its customers need a supported fitness tracker to maximise the rewards points they can accumulate.

The cheapest fitness tracker supported by Discovery Vitality is the Garmin Vivofit 4 at R1,399, while the most expensive is the Apple Watch Ultra, for which prices start at R19,999 in South Africa.

 

[3WA]

Gotta get a cheapie for the wife. Can’t put her on an Apple Watch like me, cause then she’ll just lose both our chargers.

 

[Dolby]

Gotta get a cheapie for the wife. Can’t put her on an Apple Watch like me, cause then she’ll just lose both our chargers.

But don’t you charge it automatically over night? Routine? Muscle memory?

Is there any point for her to take the charger out?

 

[Danie_V]

Wonder if any have replaceable batteries? Batteries are the Achilles heel of expensive wearables.

 

[3WA]

But don’t you charge it automatically over night? Routine? Muscle memory?

Is there any point for her to take the charger out?

I do. She prefers a life of chaos.

 

[eboo]

Any idea if/when Vitality will support the Xiaomi Smart Band?

 

[neoprema]

Wonder if any have replaceable batteries? Batteries are the Achilles heel of expensive wearables.

My Apple Watch is 3 years old and battery is fine? And its time for a new one anyway so why have a replacable one?

 

[Grubscrew]

Wonder if any have replaceable batteries? Batteries are the Achilles heel of expensive wearables.

My ticwatch pro is going on 4 years and still has acceptable battery life.

 

[Dolby]

My Apple Watch is 3 years old and battery is fine? And its time for a new one anyway so why have a replacable one?

'Apple fine' ...

 

[Danie_V]

My Apple Watch is 3 years old and battery is fine? And its time for a new one anyway so why have a replacable one?

At least with Apple you can take it in and pay for them to fit a new battery. That's not an option with Fitbits.

 

[superskully]

The Apple Watch sucks when it comes to health features. Samsung and garmin much more accurate

 

[Danie_V]

The Apple Watch sucks when it comes to health features. Samsung and garmin much more accurate

"Sucks" is really an opinion without some proper evidence to back that up. Actually both Apple and Samsung's devices are not medical devices, but they do compare fairly favourably with each other, when compared to other devices. Sometimes Apple is slightly better, and sometimes it is Samsung. As each releases their newer models, they will also pull ahead of the competition, so it is a bit of a moving target. This at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8854369/ is at least the type of report comparison I'd like to base any choice on. But words like "suck" and "much more accurate" really do need something a bit more tangible to grasp onto. But if you have access to a better comparison, let me know where it is, as I'm looking for a new watch in 2023 and certainly am always open to whatever could be best.

 

[epah]

The Apple Watch sucks when it comes to health features. Samsung and garmin much more accurate

Sure big guy.

 

[prod]

The Apple Watch sucks when it comes to health features. Samsung and garmin much more accurate

They actually don't, unless you disagree with this guy who does scientific tests using all these devices?

 

[superskully]

I am sure there many websites, you-tube videos and so on, fanboys praising apple health. There are many more that publicize to not trust the health measurements. My story though, i have tried and tried (with Apple health from USA and sending watch to CORE (who are absolutely useless)) to try and understand why the heart rate does not want to go over 155 bpm. It is also mind numbing slow to react to change in heart rate when exercising. It also underestimates all the other measurements, i really should be worried about my health according to the watch. The health analytics is also poor, Samsung gives you a weekly report and provides benchmarks etc.
Point is, everything about the apple watch is perfect, except health. If you want a watch for health, buy a Garmin (1st) or Samsung (2nd).
P.S: Dont tell me about fit, calibration etc. I have been on many calls and tried everything.

 

[Danie_V]

I am sure there many websites, you-tube videos and so on, fanboys praising apple health. There are many more that publicize to not trust the health measurements. My story though, i have tried and tried (with Apple health from USA and sending watch to CORE (who are absolutely useless)) to try and understand why the heart rate does not want to go over 155 bpm. It is also mind numbing slow to react to change in heart rate when exercising. It also underestimates all the other measurements, i really should be worried about my health according to the watch. The health analytics is also poor, Samsung gives you a weekly report and provides benchmarks etc.
Point is, everything about the apple watch is perfect, except health. If you want a watch for health, buy a Garmin (1st) or Samsung (2nd).
P.S: Dont tell me about fit, calibration etc. I have been on many calls and tried everything.

I was looking specifically at graphs showing measured heartrate response of the Galaxy Watch and the Apple Watch, both calibrated against the same Polar Chest strap (more accurate than a watch), and yet the Apple Watch was sticking closer to the response on heartrate change than the Galaxy Watch. Your point was around accuracy, and not the better software reporting) - the correlation line clearly shows the Apple Watch closer in response than the Galaxy Watch, although not by a wide margin (the Galaxy Watch is pretty dismal at sleep cycle stats though - from an accuracy perspective). So whilst we can fault Apple on their terrible reporting (it's why I had to install 3rd party heartrate apps), their accuracy has not really been in dispute, and neither their realtime aFib monitoring. As a very long time Android user, and a LG and TicWatch user, that was the chief reason why this time around I actually bought an Apple Watch (and ditched my Pixel phone so I could pair with it).

My heartrate when exercising is easily clocking just over 170 on the Apple Watch. So my experience has not been the same as yours then. But I'm certainly going to recheck the various tests in 2023 and see if the Galaxy Watch gets better by v6 as I would not mind going back to Android. But right now I'm not convinced in 2022 from what I've seen. Too many just look at the features, and that is why it was good that actual accuracy was raised as a differentiator here.