People wear wedding rings but take them off for pull up bars and so on. But a fitness tracking device you need to take off to... Do some fitness exercises... Is not a smart idea in my book.
If you make program with a bunch of different exercises, and are modifying your program a lot, it can be a pain to keep track of what your next exercise should be.
If you are automatically tracking reps, it can just announce whatever the next thing in your program is, and start rest timers automatically...
It's not really about tracking reps as much as tracking where you are in a program that it is useful for...
It never occurred to me that I'd want to automatically track reps. I mean, it could be kinda useful, but I'm also taking 45 to 60 seconds cool-down between exercises anyway, so it's not like it gets in the way.
That also moves the app onto the next exercise in the programme. It's manual, but it's not intrusive and can't be wrong, like a fitness tracker, that definitely can be. So shrug, just personally, auto-tracking reps isn't something I need and wouldn't be a big selling point for a band/watch over a ring.
Even if it is just for swiping or pressing buttons to switch between exercises in your program. But there are other uses for accelerometers.
I wear an Oura Ring for the complete suite of telemetry, not just for tracking workouts.
I also lift, I’ll take the ring off for heavy lifts, and keep it on for every other exercise (unless I feel there’s a risk that the ring could get caught on the equipment, in which case I’ll take it off for those reps too). Granted this is in my home gym, so there’s no inconvenience to me doing this.
I’ll rest between exercises and that’s when I make the call to keep the ring on or not [for the subsequent exercise].
I still get most of the insights and the Oura ring app lets me to tell it that I was doing strength training, which allows it to guesstimate calorie usage based on duration.
Of course that’s not perfect, but it’s good enough for people who are interested in health metrics without being obsessed with them (which is just probably a better idea unless you’re a pro athlete).
The workout tracking is kinda the least interesting aspect for me. It’s more about the long term trends of activity, sleep, heart rate, stress, etc.
Also, it’s worth saying, I went with a ring rather than a watch or a band because I like to wear a real watch.