Why You Can Trust CNET New year, new you, new fitness and health tech deals
From Home Deals: Looking to get healthy in the new year? We have a selection of deals that can help you shed the pounds while keeping the dollars.
Welcome to Home Deals, where we pick out the best deals on things you need for your home, garden and beyond. Like our cousin, the Cheapskate, we'll give you a regular selection of smoking-hot deals, but for house and home. This time, we deals for that new year's resolution to get healthy.
Like many of you, my new years resolution is to take better care of myself. I'm not planning to run any marathons, but I do want to try and get myself into better shape. Technology can help, in the form of many devices that can help you monitor the vital statistics of your body. And, in the post-holiday sales, there are lots of deals out there that can help you.
Get the heart rate going
The Mi Band 2 is water resistant, which means it can take a splash, but not a swim.
One good measure of the effectiveness of a workout is your heart rate. Here's a cheap way to monitor this: Gearbeast has the Xiaomi Mi Band 2 on sale for $22.79, with free shipping. They have a limited number for sale at that price, though, so go for it if you want in. This ships from China, so it will probably take some time to get to you. We reviewed this new fitness monitor recently, and it's a good (if basic) pick, monitoring heart rate and steps taken. You don't get fancy features like GPS or logging of the heart rate, but it's a well priced pick for watching how exercise is affecting you.
If you are looking for more sophisticated monitoring of the old ticker and related bits, the Fitbit Charge HR is our top pick for general fitness monitoring. There are some good deals out there on this model at the moment: StackSocial has a refurbished Fitbit HR for $69.99. That doesn't include shipping (and hopefully they'll have washed off the previous owner's sweat stains), but it's still a great deal on a fitness monitor that usually retails for $130 or more.
Under (blood) pressure
Doctors call hypertension (high blood pressure) the silent killer, and with good reason: You often don't realize you have it until something unpleasant happens. So a blood pressure monitor should be an essential part of any fitness monitoring kit. And in these digital days, there are lots of devices out there that can monitor your blood pressure and log the data. The Omron 10 series is the top-rated upper arm blood pressure monitor in many roundups, and the BP786 from this series is on sale at Jet.com for $64.99. Jet.com is also offering a 15% off coupon for new users, which can lower the price to $58.69. You do have to create an account with the site to get this price, though.
The scales of justice
The Withings Body Scale, which you can pick up for under $100 on Amazon.
There are plenty of cheap bathroom scales out there, but what you really need is a set that can log your weight and other information by connecting to an app like Apple Health or Google Fit. Rakuten has the Withings WS-30 Body scale for $75.99, but note that this is an older version that Withings itself doesn't sell any more. That doesn't mean it doesn't work, though: It's still supported in the app for tracking your weight.
If you look carefully, you can get the latest Withings Body model for less than $100, though. Go to the Amazon page for the product, then search for coupon. Click the link and it'll add a coupon that saves 25% on the scales. When you then add it to your shopping cart, the price will go down to $97.46. That's a nice $30 off the usual $129 price of this high-end scale.
Have you spotted any great deals for monitoring your health and fitness? Let us know in the comments below!