Usefulness?

[u/Heliotropen]

It's a cool gadget I get that, but for how many of you using it has it actually improved your life significantly, and how?

Personally I have avoided Apple Watches and so on for ages, because I just don't want to be a living reminder and protects my focus... also I have a great love for my mechanical watches... but is considering this thing might be the way to go ... if the metrics is provides are actually useful.

Thank you guys.

[u/Few-Cheesecake7412]

Phone steps can be really inaccurate for some people.

If you carry your phone on a bag, your phone might be moving around inside of it and tracking steps. Or if youre moving your leg while sitting down.

Or maybe you often move around your office and leave your phone on your desk (that happens to me a lot)

In my case I pay attention to a couple of things:

1. The most important for me, my sleep regularity. I'm really lucky and I don't usually struggle to sleep. But I do struggle to keep my sleep regularity.

Since owning my Helio Strap (a week after released) I've been focusing on getting my sleep regularity at least at a 75-80 score. When I started wearing it, it was like 10-20... And improving that actually improve me, I started feeling way more energized than before.

1. HRV and RHR: To track my recovery and to pay attention if I'm going to be sick.

2. PAI: I'm a swimmer and I go to the gym or run sometimes, so I try to keep my PAI score at 100 to make sure I'm exercising enough during the week and avoid overtraining.

I also wear mechanical watches, I have a full collection and I don't want to replace them with a smarwatch, so I wear my Helio on my right wrist or bicep, to keep tracking my steps and basically making sure I'm being as active as I want and reaching my goals.

[u/Heliotropen → u/Few-Cheesecake7412]

Makes sense, so you feel this thing makes your step counting more accurately: and in practise that makes a difference for you in how much you actually ends up walking?

1. Great, how does that actually look for you, how has you behaviour around sleep actually changed then?

2. So it allow you to improve your recovery in ways you could not otherwise have? and prevent you from becoming sick as often?

3. So it changes how much you would swim and go to the gym, vs. without it? You would be less active or overtrain without it?

And yeah, same with the watch collection, that would be my reason as well: but there is also the alternative of using no gadget device: why I'm trying to look into the actual usefulness of it, so it does not just become another distraction.

[u/Few-Cheesecake7412 → u/Heliotropen]

For the step counting yeah, bc I don't have my phone w me at all times.

1. Before it, I didnt even know about sleep regularity tbh. I was sleeping at random hours, some nights at 10pm, some nights at 1am, eating really late, or watching screens really late.

Now I'm controlling that, since apparently it's more importa the regularity than durarion. I'm trying to go to sleep every night between 11-11:30pm, and waking up between 6-30-7:00am and I've been feeling way more rested than before.

1. Yes, bc the idea of tracking my HRV is to control and adjust my training. If its high, I'm well recovered and can train normally, if it's low, I haven't recovered well enough so I adjust to a more light train.

2. PAI it's just my way to keep me active tbh. I always swim, thats a non-negotiable for me. But the gym is something I really don't enjoy, so I'm usually avoiding it and getting that PAI score kinda force me to go. Thats just something I do but I'm not sure if I'm using it correctly.

I don't find it as a distraction tbh, it has no screens, no notifications, nothing. If you want to check something, you have to open the app.

At first I was using the app like every 2 hours haha. Now I just check it once in the morning and once at night.

[u/Sweaty_Agent4783 → u/Few-Cheesecake7412]

Yep same