Looking for a European smartwatch for health monitoring - what are your thoughts?
Hi everyone! I’m on the hunt for a smartwatch that’s great for monitoring health - things like blood pressure, stress levels, sleep quality, and physical activity. However, I’d prefer to avoid products from overseas and focus on something available in the European market. There are plenty of smartwatches, rings, and fitness bands out there, but I’m not sure which ones are actually worth considering.
In addition to Polar and Suunto, Finland also has Ōura on the ring side. I tested their V1 long ago, and was impressed. The ring form seemed to allow for better measurement of heart rate to the point of reliably using HRV for “readiness” predictions, and temperature to the point of possibly being applicable for basal temperature for ovulation detection, something I doubt any watch could do as accurately simply because of form factor. Then again, I haven’t tracked progress lately.
If you are more concerned about your money and data staying in the EU than the brand, I’d also suggest a used device supported by Gadgetbridge; I used to have good luck with used Mi Bands (newer models may not work, or at least need installing the default app and digging up a code).
You’ll probably stumble upon withings, but as an owner of a watch for 8 years now I can not recommend. Their app is horrendous and pushing really hard on buying their plus subscription and just getting daily or historical information is convoluted… Okay haven’t opened the app in like 3 months now and apparently it looks quite a bit better now… I just lost trust in them. Their now older watch that I own tracks step counting terribly and heart rate monitoring is unstable.
With that said, their hardware has lasted for over 8 years now so theres that as a good thing.
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Interested on this too. I wanted a smartwatch to pair with my phone. I liked the garmin brand but I read they are american so I like them way less now.
Doesn’t Garmin leak data like a sieve too?
I have a Polar Ignite 3 which is basic but largely sufficient for my needs.
You can pair your Garmin with GadgetBridge and it will all be offline and watch to phone only. I bought a Garmin watch, never logged into the official app and only use it with GadgetBridge without issue.
That’s interesting, but it’s also giving money to an american company. Something I’d like to avoid.
Polar looks interesting as brand.
Is Pebble American? It’s open source, so no sharing of your health data with 3. parties.
