Health Tech | Gear Diary

Chris Leckness Talks Vaping

WARNING: The products discussed may contain or use nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical; in many cities and a few states, you must be 21 to purchase vaping products and/or products containing nicotine. Please familiarize yourself with and obey the law in your location. Hello, esteemed Gear Diary readers. My name is Chris Leckness, and I am a 43-year-old certified geek. I will not bore you with the long story of geekdom that I have lived out, but I will share a little about my online life as a geek.

Reviews

K-Vape Micro-DX Vape with Digital OLED Display Review

WARNING: The products discussed may contain or use nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical; in many cities and a few states, you must be 21 to purchase vaping products and/or products containing nicotine. Please familiarize yourself with and obey the law in your location. If you prefer to enjoy your tobacco (or other loose leaf herbal products) products via a vape rather than actually burning the leaf. then you might be interested in the new K-Vape Micro-DX. This vape has a digital OLED display, heats in half a minute, and comes with a lifetime warranty. This feature-packed vape is currently…

Health and Fitness

Garmin Announces the ForeRunner 225 with Wrist-Based Heart Rate from Mio

For years Garmin had an unassailable position with their GPS watches representing the ‘gold standard’ for runners. The move to low-cost Bluetooth activity trackers rocked the industry as it pushed manufacturers to include more features, wireless syncing, and lower prices. Garmin pushes the envelope again with ForeRunner 225, the first major running watch with integrated optical heart-rate sensor from Mio.

News & Features

Viral Fame Turns on Boston Marathon Runner Turned Parental Schooling Hero

You may have seen the viral letter from a dad whose kids skipped school so they could watch him run the Boston Marathon. The school sent a “this was an unexcused absence” form letter, and the dad fired off a passionate letter explaining why his kids learned more from Boston than in school. They may have also learned to cheat.

News & Features

Tensio’s Apple Watch App Helps Manage Your Blood Pressure

You’ve probably read hundreds of articles about the Apple Watch this week, and the companion apps for them, as there are now over 3000 that are compatible for the popular smartwatch, but the Tensio app for Apple’s wrist wear is in a class all its own; it helps you manage your blood pressure.

Health and Fitness, Reviews

TCL Pulse – Small, But Powerful Enough to Wake a Sleeping Teenager!

If you have teenagers, you’ve probably struggled with getting them out of bed in the morning. With my older son, it’s like an arms race of alarms vs. his ability to sleep through them! So when I had the chance to check out the TCL Pulse, I was skeptical – ok, downright dubious – that it would actually work.

News & Features

Jawbone Rolls Out the UP2 and UP4 Fitness Trackers

Jawbone is quite busy these days. In addition to finally launching the UP3 Fitness Tracker that’s been delayed for months, they decided to get ahead of themselves and release two more trackers at the same time: a fairly simple UP2 device, and a high-end UP4 that tracks your fitness AND acts as a mobile payment device!

Health and Fitness, Reviews

5 Reasons I Love the Garmin VivoActive SmartWatch & 3 Reasons I Don’t

Just as Apple Watch opened for pre-orders, the Garmin VivoActive arrived in stores and the hands of runners and athletes everywhere. I had written up announcement at CES, so I was thrilled to get one in my hands to play around with. Now after a week, I want to check in with my initial likes and dislikes of the VivoActive.

Reviews, Yum Log

Is Graze Worth the Price for Healthy Snacks?

I explored Nature Box as a way of having healthy snacks on hand. Working from home helps in that I choose what’s on hand. Graze is another healthy snacks service like Nature Box, except the default is single serving packages. Is the service worth it? The answer is … it depends.

News & Features, Yum Log

The Orange Chef Countertop System May Be the Kitchen’s Operating System

A new and exciting kitchen device coming out this fall, is the Orange Chef Countertop. It syncs with your everyday kitchen appliances as well as your activity tracker to provide personalized recipe recommendations, helping you cook step-by-step, as well as keep track of your nutritional intake. It is now available for preorder at $99.95, 50% off future retail price.

Game Diary, Health and Fitness, News & Features

Game Benefits! Dig Rush to Improve Amblyopia

People with amblyopia (“lazy eye”) will soon get treatment from the first therapeutic video game called Dig Rush from Ubisoft and Amblyotech Inc. Amblyopia (“lazy eye”) affects approximately 3% or the U.S. population (about 9 million people). It’s condition where a person sees out of one eye instead of two.

News & Features

The Basic Fitness Tracker Market Is Fitbit’s to Lose

My wife, Sarah, recently decided to get a fitness tracker. She’s been going to the gym more, and heading out walking, and wanted a way to view her activity on a daily basis. I showed her various fitness tracker options, ranging from Misfit to Jawbone to Fitbit, and she specifically chose a Fitbit Flex, almost purely on the Fitbit name.

Crowdfunding, News & Features

Emvio Smartwatch Wants to Help You Manage Your Stress

Stress is a big part of everyone’s life, whether you’ll admit to it or not. Emvio wants to help you keep track of your stress and help you control your stress. Emvio is a watch that measures your heart rate variability, blood pressure, pulse, and rate of physical activity. You can make a pledge today at their Kickstarter campaign.

Health and Fitness, Outdoors

Anatomy of ‘Extreme Sub-Zero’ Runner – $750 of Winter Running Gear

While it has been more than a week since I wore three layers over my face, I am still layered up against mornings in the teens with wind chills close to 0ºF. At the same time, I am seeing big clearance sales popping up on winter running gear, so I thought it would be fun to look at my gear!

News & Features

Five Things You Can Do for National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day #NYHAAD

April 10th, 2015 marks the 3rd annual National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day (NYHAAD), and the countdown begins now!

Editorials

What’s the Future of Outside Companies and Apple’s HealthKit?

Late last year, Apple gave Fitbit the boot from Apple retail stores. There was a lot of speculation as to why Fitbit was kicked out, but most people assumed it was due to Fitbit pulling out of Apple’s Healthkit initiative. Competitors (and Healthkit partners) like Jawbone, Mio and Nike remained in the stores. Until this week, when everyone was booted!

News & Features

Ahead of Apple Watch release, Nike Fuelband and Jawbone UP Removed

Many expected this already, but Apple plans to do away with some of their competitors by removing them from some of their brick and mortar Apple Stores. On Apple 24th, Apple will be releasing the Apple Watch, and one of the highlighting features will be its fitness tracking capabilities.

Editorials

My Quest for a New Fitness Tracker; Which Will It Be?

I tested the fitness tracker waters with the Pivotal Living 1 and stuck with it despite the bugs. Unfortunately, I forgot it wasn’t waterproof, and a dip in the pool brought on the death of the PL1. It’s time to replace it, and I’ve narrowed my choices down to the Fitbit Charge HR, Withings Activité Pop, or Garmin Vivosmart.

News & Features

Who Is Nature’s Intent, LLC, or, the Saga of the Mystery Quinoa

We were in Costco a few weeks ago, and the quinoa they were carrying was a different brand than we’ve bought in the past. We set out to find out if the new quinoa was safe for our son’s allergies, and we learned two things: Amazon and Costco are very nice, and no one can track down “Nature’s Intent, LLC“.

News & Features

Always Review Safety Techniques Before You Work Out!

We’ve talked about safety and gear when running outside before (Mike has done a great job of covering the important points), but it’s important to remember safety doesn’t get checked at the gym door. If you’re doing anything, from treadmill running to weightlifting, make sure you know how to be safe. I learned that the scary way this weekend!

News & Features

HTC Announces the HTC RE Grip GPS Fitness Tracker

HTC is busy at MWC this year; first they announced the One M9, and now they have a companion fitness product, the HTC RE Grip. It’s a fitness tracker with GPS, and it syncs with Under Armour (which means it will work with My Fitness Pal as well as the MapMyFitness products).