Surf report: best fitness gadgets and apps

Alice Truong, Special for USA TODAY | USATODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Surf report: Find your Inner Balance HeartMath's Inner Balance uses an earlobe sensor to help you pace your breathing so it's in sync with your heart rhythm. Alice Truong reports.

Inner Balance app helps you pace your breathing

Basis wristwatch keeps track of steps%2C calories and more

MapMyFitness plans workout routes

Now that warmer temperatures have arrived, it's the perfect opportunity to revisit that new year's resolution. You know, the one about getting healthy. Here are five fitness gadgets and apps vying for your attention in the crowded health-tech marketplace.

App helps you find inner peace

Doesn't meditation look like the easiest skill to master? Close your eyes, breathe deeply and belch out a resounding ooommmm from within. But the high strung among us might have some trouble doing so.

Making nirvana more within reach, HeartMath's Inner Balance ($99) monitors your heart rate variability, which is reflective of a person's emotional state, according to the company. But unlike trackers worn on the wrist or attached to clothing, Inner Balance uses a sensor that clips onto the earlobe and connects to a 30-pin iOS device (Lightning ports will require an adapter).

The app uses real-time feedback to help you pace your breathing and shift your heart rhythm. When both are in beat, the app sounds a high-pitched chime and shows a green dot to signal what it calls high coherence. Medium coherence is indicated by a lower-pitched chime and a blue dot; low coherence with the deepest chime and a red dot.

When you've finished meditating, double tap the screen to get detailed stats on the amount of time you spent in each state of coherence and a chart of it over time. Settings allows you to adjust the challenge level and pace of breathing. On the easiest settings, just altering your breathing patterns will lead to high coherence, but the hardest settings require you to clear your head and reach a certain level of zen.

Wristwatch tracks activity, sleep and heart rate

The proliferation of health trackers has some people calling for ever-more comprehensive monitors that work seamlessly throughout the day.

Stepping up to the plate is Basis, a supercharged wristwatch that on top of telling you the time also keeps tabs on steps, calories burned, heart rate and overall sleep quality. Because it is so feature filled — in particular, the inclusion of an optical sensor that reads heart rate differentiates Basis from its competitors — it sports a heftier $199 price tag.

Water resistance means you don't have to worry about damaging this in the shower, but there are a number of shortcomings. Ignoring the watch's bulkiness, the most glaring is the syncing process. Doing so is an (almost) old-fashioned process that requires connecting the watch to your computer via a clunky USB charging cable (wireless syncing is a feature that could come with future iterations, I've been told). Short battery life means you'll have to repeat the process every three to four days to charge it up. The lackluster and dim screen is not only hard to read but also difficult to navigate between menus. To date, users still lack a functional mobile app, though the company demoed an Android version back at CES.

Finally, what's most annoying about Basis is that it leverages gamification (every time you say "gamification," a unicorn dies) to keep you engaged and motivated. The idea behind this is to instill long-term behavioral change. The Web interface will slowly introduce new healthy habits over time once previous ones have been ingrained into your lifestyle. In essence, when users earn enough points, they unlock new habits. Not only does this come off to me as condescending, but Basis is effectively tampering my enthusiasm when I'm most excited about a product — as a new user.

A platform for all your health data

If you and four of your friends are using different health gadgets and apps, you all end up missing out on their built-in social components. On the flip side, if you have no friends and use multiple monitors, how do you keep track of data from these different sources?

A health-tech platform with more than 10 million members, MapMyFitness has grown into an extensive suite of tools to record, chart, map and share workout routes (so far, more than 80 million globally). MVP, a premium feature unveiled in January ($5.99 a month or $29.99 a year), drills down on data to an even finer level of detail. Owners of heart-rate monitors will be able to see in-depth analytics that include minimum rate, maximum rate, average rate per mile and time spent in different heart rate zones. Other helpful MVP offerings include the ability to track custom splits and recommend new routes for jogging or cycling.

Keeping a pulse on your BP

While waiting to test Withings' newest scale, which began shipping Wednesday, we decided to revisit an oldie but a goodie.

Withings Blood Pressure Monitor ($129.95) connects to your iOS device (30-pin or with a Lightning adapter) to read your BP. First released in 2011, the monitor is still a marvel of a gadget, with Apple-like aesthetics and ease of use. After donning the blood pressure cuff on your arm, start up the app and it'll begin squeezing your arm — feels just like being in a doctor's office (or in the grip of a boa constrictor).

For accurate results, it's recommended you take a measure at roughly the same time each day — right when you wake or when you're about to retire for the night. An optional automatic mode will take multiple readings in succession for consistency, but its Health Mate app never seems to remember this setting, requiring you to find and check it each time. Though this data is charted over time, I'd love to see the app offer at-a-glance context for how healthy (or not) your stats are.

Jawbone UP adds Android app, international availability

On Wednesday, Jawbone made a few announcements signaling major expansion of its wristband tracker UP ($129.99), which monitors activity, sleep, workouts, food intake and more. Android users won't feel left out anymore, with the availability of a new app for the operating system. Furthermore, UP, which is already available in Europe, will be making its way to Asia, Australia and the Middle East in the next month.

E-mail Alice Truong at techcomments@usatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter: @alicetruong.