Christmas gifts for tech lovers: the best wearable gadgets

The hottest wearable this Christmas? Snapchat Spectacles, of course, through which the wearer can record video. However, since they’re only available in the US at the moment – and then only via pop-up vending machine ‘bots’, you need to harass your friends or relatives living there pronto if you are going to get your hands on one in time for Christmas.

Happily, there are plenty of other weird and wonderful options; how about the Narrative Clip 2 (HK$1,544, getnarrative.com) wearable camera, or the ‘dressable’ Qlippie Q1 (HK$846, smarteasy.hk), both of which attach to clothing and take HD photos and video.

More mainstream than wearable cameras, though still firmly in the “lifelogger” category, are smartwatches. This is a world of smartphone notifications, in-wrist mapping and phone-free music control, and the most famous is surely Apple’s waterproof Watch Series 2 (from HK$2,088, apple.com/hk).

Its biggest challenger is the sleek Pebble Time (about HK$$1,650, pebble.hk), which will suit Apple fans who are annoyed at the ubiquitous popularity of their beloved brand.

Androiders have many more to choose between, from the stainless steel Huawei Watch (HK$4,988, vmall.hk) – which is surely the best looking smartwatch around – to the Samsung Gear S3 (HK$2,895, xpansys.com.hk). If you’ve got (very) deep pockets, the titanium Tag Heuer Connected (from HK$10,790, chrono24.hk) is the smart watch of choice among the jet-set.

The line between a smartwatch and an activity tracker starts to blur with GPS running watches. The Garmin Forerunner 35 (HK$1,699, foresoon.com.hk), TomTom Spark 3 (HK$1,330, escapade.com.hk) and Polar M600 (HK$2,490, yohohongkong.com) will all suit runners, each has GPS and provides exhaustive metrics. The latter is also Android Wear – Google’s smartwatch operating system – which straddles the two genres. The multisport Garmin Vivoactive HR (HK$1,968, yohohongkong.com) wins the day for athletes; there are few sports it can’t collect data on.