Striiv Play Joins The iOS Fitness-Tracker Dongle Race

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There’s never been a better time to get fit, thanks to the wealth of fitness tracker options available to work with your iPhone. That’s not strictly true — first, it’s always a good time to get fit. And second, the more choices there are for fitness trackers, the more opportunity there is for procratination.

Still, the Striiv is a welcome addition.

The Striiv Play is a little clip-on Bluetooth dongle, just like the new FitBits. It also packs a display, a three-axis accelerometer and an altimeter to track your every move, and sends the data to your late-model iPhone or iPad (3 or 4) via that low-powered Bluetooth 4 connection.

And that’s where the similarities with the FitBit end. First, the clip is metal (I lost my FitBit thanks to unwanted unsupervised unclipping), and while the app does monitor your progress, calorie count etc, it is much more game-ized than the FitBit

You can personalize various goals and “striiv” towards them, pitting yourself against “friends” from around the world. You can also log your food intake (via the excellent MyFitnessPal), and track every aspect of your progress on charts, right there on your iDevice.

Better still, the dongle costs just $70, and the app is free.

I have great things to say about these trackers. I dropped around 15 kilos (63.4 cups) in a couple months over the summer using a FitBit and the MyFitnessPal app, and have dropped a couple more since then thanks to the great habits I got into.

It might not be for you, but chances are that i you’re reading Cult of Mac then you have some level of nerdiness in you, and this fitness-by-numners approach might suit you too.

Available from today.

Source: Striiv Play

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