Reading that Lifespan book, there was a particular paragraph that inspired me. Sinclair predicted a near future in which we can wear bands or sensors that will monitor our heartrate, blood, and sweat in real time to feed the information into computer analysis that will then provide early detection of imbalances, illness, and life-threatening conditions. “That sounds like an easy way to keep on top of your health markers” I thought.

The next day I walked past an electronics shop that had Fit Bands in the window. Oh, right. These things already exist! I remember seeing Tom Xants wearing one a year ago and chastising him for the obvious faggotry when he could’ve had a chunky r-select watch instead. Well, 2021 is the Year Of Krauser Faggotry as evidenced by my use of Vitamin C facial serum and an almost total ban on alcohol [1].

I investigated.

It quickly became clear there were essentially two types of fitness tracker bands: watch-like expensive ones by recognised high street brands, and cheap band-like ones by dodgy chinks. Naturally, I favoured the latter. At least until I get a better idea of what info I want. It seems they all do basically the same three things: pedometer, heart rate monitor, sleep tracker. It’s the last of these that interest me most now that I’m currently reading Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep. He lists so many health ramifications of poor sleep that I felt I was developing Type 2 Diabetes and Insomnia just reading it.

So, 2021 is the year Krauser optimises his sleep.

After comparing all the chinky slant-bands on the internet and by Serbian shop prices, I settled on the Xiaomi Smart Band 5 for a tidy £35 [2] and it had upgraded features from the Smart Band 4 (namely it can differentiate sleep types) and it matches my phone, a Xiaomi Mi Somethingorother. I slapped the bastard on my wrist, synched to the Mi Fit app and watched the magic happen.

Here’s my sleep data so far (open to get higher res image)

Fairly promising in terms of being in the better half of my peer group and getting just about the recommended 20% REM sleep and 15%+ NREM deep sleep. I also have the right profile, of getting most of my deep sleep early and the REM sleep later in the night. It seemed rather odd to me that a wrist band can track such things based on your wrist’s pulse when scientists such as Walker use an ECG to measure brain waves to detect the distinctive signatures of REM, deep, and light sleep. Is this device accurate? Here’s a dorky kraut who actually compared my band to the readings given by scientifically approved instruments:

His conclusion:

1. Pedometer is very accurate
2. Heart rate monitor is accurate for everything except short bursts of frenetic activity, such as weightlifting. This is because it only measures every minute rather than continuous, and thus can miss much of the short spike in heart rate [3]
3. Sleep tracker undercounts REM and NREM Deep sleep. This is actually great news because it means my sleep is even better than the Smart Band registers.

The hun said he’ll do another more detailed comparison based on a much longer sample size in a few weeks so I’m keen to see his results. If the band is consistent in it’s sleep tracking error then I can easily adjust for it. If, however, the errors are erratic then it’s of limited use.

As for heart rate, I’m doing just great. My resting heart rate is around 50bpm which puts me in the athlete level of fitness according to experts [4]. The graph below shows a nice steady low beat when I’m sleeping and then nothing too excitable when doing hard training – though with the proviso that this Smart Band apparently fails to capture some of the higher spikes.

So, everything looking pretty good so far but I wish to optimize. I’m already looking into a few tweaks that I can talk about later

Nothing optimises daygame better than my Daygame Overkill video instructional series available here. It contains ten in-field recordings of me pulling hot skirt and detailed analysis of what you see in them.

[1] Not to mention shagging.
[2] £26 on Amazon but you might as well be buying a lottery ticket with Serbia’s postal service.
[3] That spike is indeed short on a fit cunt like me.
[4] A chart I found by Googling.

NOTE: in case you’re wondering about the stress levels, I’m doing just great, thanks for asking.