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The Vert 2 activity tracker knows if you're making the effort
The original Vert was all about the jumping, and it was quite accurate measuring said jumping. The wearable is getting a 2016 refresh, with an expanded repertoire of metrics that not only includes the frequency of intense movements (sensors are accelerometers and gyros), but also the intensity of the movements themselves. It'll even distinguish between high and low intensity, giving you a total for both at the end. Surges of activity per minute is yet another metric on hand, and one that may prove useful as the company continues to get its wearable tech employed by the NCAA and ESPN for in-game analytics.
When you jump, VERT tells you how high
The majority of fitness wearables concern themselves with walking or running, but what happens if your exercise is more vertical in nature? Step forward VERT, a wearable jump-rate monitor that tells you how fast you can jump, how high you can jump and, er, additional jumping-related measurements. Clip the Fitbit-sized unit to your shirt and connect to the companion iOS app and you, or your coach, will be able to see how well you're leaping into the air and how best to improve. It may be a niche technology, but it's already being used by the US women's Volleyball team, so if you want to join in, you can grab a unit for $125.
Daily iPhone App: Vert, the beautiful conversion utility
There's no shortage of unit conversion apps on the iPhone. Matter of fact, a unit conversion app was the first app I ever downloaded -- and that app has remained on my iPhone since. That is, until I found Vert. Vert is the most beautifully designed unit conversion app I've ever found. I'll let the screenshots speak for themselves, but as you can see, a lot of care went into the design. Best of all, its flat looks make it a perfect fit for the new iOS 7. But design is one thing. What people want from a unit conversion app is a wide array of categories. Vert has 30 categories with over 700 different units. Not only do you have your normal weight, length, speed, time and volume units, you also get some units I've never seen before in a conversion app including Hats & Caps, Radioactivity, Shirt & Blouses, Shoes, Suits & Dresses, Typography and Viscosity. What is great about each category is you can favorite whatever ones you want so you can quickly just view a list of your most frequently converted items. Moreover, inside each category, you can favorite your most-converted units of measurements. For example, if you only use the Teaspoon US and Ounce UK units, you can favorite them so you don't need to scroll through the entire list of units each time. Other nice features include letting you view your conversion history, support for automatic currency updates for 164 currencies from 249 countries and regions, unit conversion precision up to seven decimals, multiple color themes and sets of unusual units, such as Kardashian, donkeypower, manpower, shot glass, fully loaded 747, Manhattan city block and more. Additionally, Vert will soon be updated with new features, such as the ability to combine units like foot + inch, mile + foot, hour + minutes and pound + ounce; icon view for categories; a new category just for rock climbers; and an organized list of categories (Units of Measurement, Clothing and Other). Vert is the best unit conversion app I've ever used and is available from the App Store for US$0.99.
