Track what you're made of

“Track what you're made of, not just your steps.” So goes the tagline of TomTom’s new Touch fitness tracker, released earlier this fall as part of a new line of wearables. As TomTom and other companies step further into the world of fitness wearables, we’re seeing a host of new features that make the quantified self more achievable than ever.

• Body Composition TomTom’s Touch intends to get an edge on the market by adding bioimpedance analysis - a technology that uses a small electrical current to measure body composition. Place your finger over the device’s only button and the Touch will record your percent body fat and muscle mass, and sending the data directly to an app on your smartphone.
• Built-in heart rate monitor Of course the Touch also comes with a built-in optical heart-rate monitor, a feature that is increasingly common in fitness wearables. While today it is almost a given that your wrist wearable will track your heart rate, it wasn’t long ago that a chest strap was the best option. The big advancements now are about battery life and continuous monitoring, with the Touch boasting 5 days of 24/7 heart rate data on a single charge.
• Sleep tracking Out of the ten devices featured in PCMag’s 2016 roundup of fitness wearables, only one doesn’t feature sleep tracking. Still, the sleep tracking capabilities of traditional wearables are pretty limited. The Misfit Ray is said to lead the pack, but it really just tells you when you were sleeping and when you weren’t. Competing products attempt to track phases of REM, light, and deep sleep, but their accuracy is still limited.
• GPS Navigation companies like TomTom and Garmin are increasingly blending location tracking and wearables, usually in the form of the GPS watch. TomTom’s Adventurer was announced in September, just one day after Garmin released its Forerunner 35. Both are marketed as fitness watches with a built-in heart rate monitor and activity tracking.

As fitness wearables incorporate a host of new and old features, it is easier than ever to quantify your life. The trend seems to be towards the all-in-one device - something with a long battery life and continuous monitoring capabilities - a wristwatch that is sleek, stylish, and versatile, a subtle companion you can take with you everywhere.

Beyond TomTom’s new addition of body analysis, a single device can now monitor your heart rate, steps walked, calories burned, and hours slept - truly making it easier than ever to track what you’re made of.