When I first got my hands on the Basis fitness watch ($199 direct), I was floored by how much information the activity tracker captures. It continuously gauged my heart rate, and measured my skin temperature and perspiration (all helpful in estimating calorie burn). It even kept an eye on me while I slept. A recent major firmware update now lets the tracker distinguish between walking, running, and bicycling—all automatically. That was my number one missing feature in fitness trackers, and, by golly, the Basis now does it. And with that, the Basis Carbon Steel Edition earns our Editors' Choice for wrist-worn activity trackers. If you're excited about fitness technology, you should buy a Basis straightaway, especially if monitoring heart rate matters to you or you bike frequently.

One big drawback to the Basis is price. Our favorite wrist-worn activity tracker in the more affordable category was the Fitbit Force, but it's no longer available due to a voluntary recall after some users experienced a skin rash from wearing it. Existing Force owners do have the option to keep their devices, which are operatationally fine. The Force doesn't track heart rate, but it measures everything else health-minded people want to know about their fitness: steps taken, stairs climbed, distance traveled, calories burned, and how well they slept. 

Basis Design
The Basis Carbon Steel Edition comes with a black leather strap. Its predecessor, the Basis B1 Band, came with either black or white matte polyurethane straps, and the newer edition is by far of finer quality. The device itself is black with stud-like silver buttons on the four corners of the face. I'd call this watch casual and straightforward. The all-black body has an unassuming chicness about it. You can swap in a variety of more fashionable straps for a little extra ($24.99-$49.95). 

Pressing either of the right-side buttons on the face of the watch scrolls through the collected data: heart rate (real time), total calories burned for the day so far, steps taken, and a summary of your most recent auto-logged activity. For example, right now, my Basis shows 1 hour 28 minutes of active walking time, which burned 403 calories. It says "Walking" right on that page, and has an icon of a walking body, too. While the Basis does measure perspiration and skin temperature, those details are not shown on the watch, but can be seen in your Web account.

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The bottom left button toggles the display back to showing the time or date. And the top left button illuminates the screen, but only barely. It's really dim, and with my poor eyesight, I need a second or two to focus on the display and tilt it to adjust for glare to be able to read it in daylight. It looks better at night. In stark contrast, the Fitbit Force has the sharpest display of any fitness tracker I've seen. 

A row of four round connection points on the Basis dots the left edge of the watch, where it attaches to its base station for charging and syncing. The underside has six raised metal sensors that touch your skin to collect data, and an optical sensor that takes your pulse by measuring the volume of blood flowing through your veins. Every so often, you can see it glowing green.

Several wrist-worn activity trackers, such as the Jawbone UPSEE IT and the Larklife, don't include readouts on the device itself, which is part of what makes the Basis so much more useful.

Another reason I'm a big fan of the watch form factor is how it looks. Back when I tested the BodyMedia Fit Core, I cringed with embarrassment every time someone asked me what that putty colored device strapped to my arm was for. A wristwatch is nearly as inconspicuous as the petite Fitbit One, which covertly hides in a pocket or gets clipped to the front of a bra where no one can see it.

A slightly better-built fitness watch, in terms of design and structure, is the MIO Alpha BLE. The screen is brighter, the straps are sturdier, the shape is sleeker, and colored lights indicate when your heart rate is within your target range while exercising. On the other hand, the MIO Alpha isn't a pedometer. It only read heart rate and time, including stopwatch functions, and it doesn't connect to its own online system where you can analyze your fitness trends over time, although you can sync the data to some other apps.

The Basis is water-resistant, but not waterproof, so you don't have to worry about it getting wet in the rain, but you do need to remove it for swimming and other in-water activities. If you want a tracker for swimming, get the Misfit Shine, or the TomTom Multisport if you swim competitively.

Syncing and Charging
With Basis, you have two options for uploading data: wireless syncing via Bluetooth to the iOS or Android app, or connecting the watch via an included USB cord to your computer. (More details about device compatibility can be found on Basis' site.)

The same USB cable used for syncing your activity data doubles as the charger. It's a proprietary design, so if you lose it, you have to buy another one—it's not like you can just pull out any old micro USB cord. Proprietary chargers are a minor inconvenience, and are common among activity trackers.

I tested the iPhone app, but I experienced some trouble syncing, particularly when outdoors and not connected to Wi-Fi. You can see a lot more detail in the Web account anyway, so that's my preferred view, but the app is helpful when you're on the go. 

Basis in Motion
Out of the box, you'll need to charge the battery by removing the top wrist strap and sliding the watch into the included cradle, which is made of thin plastic. The cradle connects via a USB cord to your computer—and keep in mind that you actually need a computer to charge the Basis Carbon Steel Edition. The Jawbone UP and Jawbone UP24, meanwhile, only sync to smartphones (iOS and Android), which I find much more limiting. I like seeing my data on a full-sized screen.

During the short setup for Basis, you install a small piece of software on your computer that uploads data from the watch to your Web account, where you can see your fitness habits over time. You can also sync data via Bluetooth to the mobile app for iPhone and Android, but the Web account is where you'll see amazingly detailed data.