Modern technology and gadgets have certainly made our lives a lot easier and better. Whether it's staying in touch with friends and family, cleaning the home, listening to music or just about anything else, there's a gadget available for everything. Even if you want to get in shape, there's a gadget that can help you do it. Yep, we're talking about fitness trackers.
There are a plethora of them out there, available across nearly all price segments. Nearly all fitness trackers cover the basics such as tracking sleep and counting the steps walked. But the new TomTom Touch claims that its Body Composition Analysis feature gives it the edge over the competition.
Launched recently in India, TomTom's new fitness tracker can track your body mass composition. This means that it can tell you the %age of muscle and fat in your body. Of course, standard fitness-tracking goodies like a step counter and heart rate monitor are part of the package too. But as great as this sounds, is it worth the asking price of Rs 13,999?
We find out, in our in-depth review of the TomTom Touch.
TomTom Touch is made up of two parts - tracker module and wrist band. The band itself is made from a soft yet tough latex-like material. It sports a metallic button (with TomTom imprinted on it) on one end, which has two small fastening pegs that push into any two of the many consecutive and tightly spaced holes on the other end of the band, securing the Touch around the wrist. And having worn the TomTom Touch on my wrist near-continuously for over a week, I can say that its wrist band is one of the most comfortable that I've come across. It's quite flexible and doesn't cause even the slightest bit of itching on the wrist.
As for the tracker module, it's shaped like a cylindrical pill that fits snugly into the groove in the middle of the wrist band. The tracker can be removed from the band and directly plugged into a USB cable for charging it up. The top panel is made of Black glass which hides a small vertical OLED touchscreen. The bottom end of the tracker (just below the touchscreen) has a multipurpose circular 'dimple' button, which is how the TomTom Touch tracks body composition (more on that later).
The underside of the Touch has the heart-rate sensor, along with a flashing LED beside the tracking chip. The upper side is where the microUSB port used for charging the tracker is located.
In summation, the design and build quality of the TomTom Touch is pretty great.
Tracking performance and companion app
As is the case with nearly all fitness trackers, the TomTom Touch works in conjunction with its own companion app. Dubbed MySports, the app is where all the fitness-related data logged by the TomTom Touch shows up. All you need is a TomTom account for syncing your fitness data, and the same can be created pretty easily. MySports app is available both on iOS and Android and syncs with the tracker over Bluetooth. You can also login to your account on TomTom's website and check the recorded data on the web dashboard.
Pairing the TomTom Touch with any smartphone is a relatively simple affair. Provided the former has Bluetooth turned on, all that it takes is launching the app, letting it search the tracker and entering the pairing code that appears on the tracker screen. Once done, the Touch synchronizes the logged data every time the app is launched. The paired smartphone must have internet connectivity and Bluetooth turned on for this to work.
TomTom MySports has different sub-sections which can be easily accessed via a drop down menu, triggered by tapping on a three-dot menu in top left corner. The sub-sections include Activities, Goals, Progress etc., with the Activities section being the default landing page. This is where information like Daily/Weekly step goal, Running goal, Body Composition measurement and Calories burnt/run show up.
Once you've created your personal health profile (with data such as height, weight, DoB), you can simply wear the TomTom Touch on your wrist and it will take it from there.
Having extensively tested out the Touch for a bit over a week, we can say that it's really good at tracking nearly all supported health metrics. The touchscreen on the tracker can be swiped up or down to access different options. While swiping up lets you access step count, calories burnt, distance walked, activity time and sleep duration, swiping down can be used to access Sports mode, Body composition measurement and Heart rate. The home screen shows a clock and a circular visual indicator of the default daily step goal of 10,000 steps.
TomTom Touch features all-day heart rate tracking, which actually measures the heart rate (bpm) on a regular basis. All you have to do is swipe down until the heart icon appears and wait a few seconds as the heart rate is calculated.
Other metrics like as calories burnt, steps walked and sleep duration every night (provided the tracker is worn when sleeping) are tracked by the TomTom Touch automatically. During our testing, we found the logged data to be pretty accurate. The daily goal progress resets to zero at midnight each day.
The Sports mode on the TomTom Touch is a start-stop mode, which can be used to track things like heart rate and calories burnt within a specific time duration of doing sports activities. The tracker issues a vibration alert when sports tracking is started and stopped.
The USP of the TomTom Touch is its capability to measure Body mass composition. It provides an estimate about the %age of muscle and fat in the body. The company claims that the tracker should be worn on the wrist for at least 15 minutes before measuring the body mass composition.
Once you've created your personal health profile (with data such as height, weight, DoB), you can simply wear the TomTom Touch on your wrist and it will take it from there.
Having extensively tested out the Touch for a bit over a week, we can say that it's really good at tracking nearly all supported health metrics. The touchscreen on the tracker can be swiped up or down to access different options. While swiping up lets you access step count, calories burnt, distance walked, activity time and sleep duration, swiping down can be used to access Sports mode, Body composition measurement and Heart rate. The home screen shows a clock and a circular visual indicator of the default daily step goal of 10,000 steps.
Other metrics like as calories burnt, steps walked and sleep duration every night (provided the tracker is worn when sleeping) are tracked by the TomTom Touch automatically. During our testing, we found the logged data to be pretty accurate. The daily goal progress resets to zero at midnight each day.
The Sports mode on the TomTom Touch is a start-stop mode, which can be used to track things like heart rate and calories burnt within a specific time duration of doing sports activities. The tracker issues a vibration alert when sports tracking is started and stopped.
The USP of the TomTom Touch is its capability to measure Body mass composition. It provides an estimate about the %age of muscle and fat in the body. The company claims that the tracker should be worn on the wrist for at least 15 minutes before measuring the body mass composition.
To get started, all you need to do is swipe to the screen with a %age sign and press the circular dimple button with the tip of your finger for about 10 seconds, until a checkmark appears. The measurement is synced to the MySports app, whenever the tracker is synced to the smartphone it's paired with. We found this to be a really great feature, as it actually gives you insights about whether your fitness activities are actually bearing any results or not.
TomTom Touch supports vibration alerts for events such as incoming calls and messages. During our testing, the alerts worked great.
As for the battery life, the TomTom Touch's battery lasted around 3.5 days on a full charge with all-day heart rate tracking and smartphone notifications enabled. While it may not be the best, it's still quite decent.
Verdict
TomTom Touch is a pretty solid fitness tracker that ticks nearly all the right boxes. It has an understated design and comes with features like all-day heart rate tracking. Also, the body composition analysis feature is really nifty and can help you track the %age of fat and muscle in the body.
That said, TomTom Touch isn't without its shortfalls. These include requiring multiple taps and swipes to access basic metrics like steps counted, and an app with a little weird navigation.
If that's something you can live with, the TomTom Touch is every bit worth the asking price of Rs 13,999. If you'd rather go for an alternative, the Fitbit Charge 2 is a great option as well.
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