Episode 1 What to Buy and Why

Welcome to the Olympic Park in London,

for the show that asks the top professionals

what you should be spending your money on.

In this New Year,

we Brits will spend over £1.5 billion on gear to get us in shape.

But before you put your hand in your pocket,

we've enlisted the help of elite athletes

to road test the latest fitness equipment for you.

Whoo! Here's what else is coming up.

Was that OK?

Sh!

Here's what else is coming up.

I'm Cherry Healy, and for the next six weeks,

I'll be travelling to spectacular locations around Britain

to ask the country's best experts

to show you how to shop like a pro.

From TVs, steam irons and toasters

to bed linen, hairsprays and lawnmowers,

our specialists will push the most popular products to their limit

to help you choose what to buy and why.

Tonight I team up with former Olympians to ask,

do you need an expensive activity tracker to keep fit,

or can a free app on your phone do the same job?

Is everyone ready? THEY CHEER

OK, let's get this over with!

Investigative reporter Naga Munchetty conducts the ultimate test...

They're going to be dropped from space.

..to find out which mobile phone cases protect your screen best.

Plus London's top basketball team

try out the latest must-have health items - bullet blenders.

Can you get away with a budget option?

-This could be the worst one.

-LAUGHTER

And scouring the country,

we ask the industry professionals to reveal their tricks of the trade.

A cheap and easy way to shine you leather shoes

is using a pair of old nylon tights.

So if you want the inside track on the latest products

from the people really in the know,

then look no further.

This is What To Buy And Why.

# Since I came to know you, baby

# I've been telling you how sweet you are. #

Half of all British adults say

they intend to do more exercise in 2016,

and unsurprisingly, there are a whole raft of products on the market

that pledge to help achieve that goal.

The most popular are monitoring devices

that measure things like the distance you walk,

the number of steps you take

and the calories you burn.

25 million of them were sold worldwide last year.

But are they worth a chunk of your hard-earned cash?

I have the perfect person to help me find out.

2012 Olympic triathlete Lucy Hall.

Triathlon, it consists of three discipline,

so, swimming, cycling and running.

And we pretty much do all three each day.

How important is it for you to be able to monitor your exercise?

Do just know in your head what's going on, or do you need help?

I definitely need help.

Especially with the amount of training you do each day,

your mind can be all over the place.

So being able to have that kind of measurement,

it's just really important to get that right.

So, if you also want something to keep on top of your progress,

there are two main choices.

A fitness tracker - it monitors all movement and activity 24/7

and costs from £20 to £200.

Or a sports watch - it collects performance data

like distance, speed and heart rate.

It's pricier, ranging from £45 to £300.

But there is a cheaper option.

There are numerous free apps available on a smartphone

that claim they monitor your physical activity in the same way.

So if I can do it for free on my smartphone,

do I need to pay for anything else?

So that's what we're going to try and find out -

are these devices useful and can free apps compete?

If only I could find a place round here to conduct

a mass participation step count challenge...

Perfect! The ArcelorMittal Orbit - Britain's largest sculpture,

with its walkway of 350 metres and 556 steps.

And a load of fitness fanatics.

OK, we're going to walk up and then we're going to see

how accurate all of the different fitness trackers are.

-Is everyone ready? ALL:

-Yeah!

OK, let's get this over with!

CHEERING AND LAUGHTER Come on!

My group are wearing the £99 Fitbit Charge HR activity tracker.

Lucy's team are wearing the £200 TomTom Multi-Sport Cardio GPS watch.

And a final gang are wearing a fitness monitoring app

to see how their accuracy compares.

Because we have the precise measurements

of the journey up the sculpture,

we know what figures each should record.

Waiting at the top to analyse our results is sports scientist

and nutritionist Freddy Brown, from the English Institute of Sport.

We gather the data from our devices and it makes for an interesting read.

Now, in terms of accuracy,

there's a large amount of variation between individuals.

A lot of the numbers, when it comes to steps

and distances, are all over the place.

Not one of the trackers or apps recorded the correct number of steps.

There are 566, but we got scores

ranging from 433 to 619.

The smart watches measure distance

and they should have recorded 350 metres, but instead...

Anywhere between 428 and 700 metres.

That's a lot of variation.

A freak one-off?

Let's see if we get more accurate results as we head back downstairs.

-Ready? ALL:

-Yeah!

Go!

Once again, the data is very varied.

On average, the Fitbit was out by 47 steps,

the apps by 70 and the watch by 50 metres.

But most people had almost exactly the same figures

coming down as they had going up.

We tried it out several times

and it always remained the same.

So, the devices were wrong,

but by roughly the same amount every time.

It's kind of consistently inaccurate, if that makes any sense.

Meaning the figures WOULD give you a record of your progress over time.

Not necessarily accurate, but repeatable,

gives you some useful information.

Yeah, if I really wanted to know exactly how many steps

I'd done in the day, I think these aren't going to tell me that,

but if I want to know that I've been really active,

monitor which day I've been more active,

I think it's useful.

So, for accuracy, the free apps look like they're better value

than the pricey wearables.

Later we'll see how the apps compare to the trackers and watches

during more strenuous activity

so that you know what to buy and why.

Throughout this series, we'll be introducing you

to professionals who really know their stuff.

Passionate experts with years of experience

whose hints and tips could save us money

and make stuff we own go further.

Sharing their tricks of the trade with us tonight -

a bunch of cobblers.

I'm Al. In 2015, I travelled to Jacksonville in Florida,

and I won the Shoe Repair World Championship.

That makes me the current Shoe Repair World Champion.

Your suede shoes can start to look really tired.

A great way to take out these deep marks

is to use a small piece of sandpaper

and take it very lightly to the nap of the suede.

If you haven't got sandpaper, you can use a nail file.

I'm Martin. I've been repairing shoes since I was 17.

I've owned my own company since 2004.

If you scuff your favourite shoes, rather than throw them away,

buy some nail varnish of the exact shade,

simply paint it on,

and those nasty scuffs have disappeared.

When you get your shoes wet, it's natural

to just throw them in front of a heat source to dry them out.

Avoid this at all costs, especially with leather shoes,

because you'll find the nice, supple bend of the leather

will go brittle and hard and it'll ruin your shoes.

The best thing I can suggest in this situation -

pack your shoes full of newspaper,

put them in a cool, dry place and let them dry naturally.

Still to come - inventor Tom Lawton

deconstructs a £10 toaster

and one that costs £270

to ask what you're really getting for all that extra money.

But first, the protective phone case industry

is worth a whopping 75 million a year.

But are they all they're cracked up to be?

Here's our investigative reporter, Naga Munchetty.

I paid about £10 for this case.

My husband dropped my phone.

Sure enough, it cracked.

Would it have come out unscathed if I'd paid a bit more?

Just how much protection do these things actually offer?

I think it's time for a crash course in smartphone survival.

They tend to be made from five main materials,

so we're going to put the most expensive cases

we can find for each to the test.

We have...

plastic,

foam,

leather,

an aluminium case worth £65,

and one made from polycarbonate,

costing a whopping £84.

And just for good measure, we're throwing in

a simple plastic screen protector too.

OK. Phone's in hand, it's time to get...

..on with the test.

Drops like this are the most common cause of insurance claims

for mobile phones in this country.

But here, all the cases did their jobs,

with only a few scratches to the outside.

So, a good start across the price range.

Let's up the stakes.

Believe it or not, the other most common cause of screen smashing

comes from people doing this.

Let's hope my six phones are ready for a road trip.

Let's see what damage has been done.

Amazingly, all of the phones survived,

with one exception.

Lots of scratches - it's obviously had an impact in this corner.

So, the one with the simple screen protector

has failed to, well, protect.

And so, it's our first casualty.

You're more likely to sustain damage

if your phone hits the deck face down.

So that's what we're going to do next.

And the results are somewhat unexpected.

A very, very cracked screen, and a chip.

Even the glass has flown out of the screen.

So, it's curtains for plastic, our cheapest case.

Not a scratch.

Screen intact.

But the foam, our second cheapest, performed admirably.

Ah.

The screen has come away a little bit.

Leather bit the dust.

But at the upper end of the price scale...

Not a scratch on the screen.

Our £65 aluminium case survived.

Unlike the £84 polycarbonate one.

Not good news - the screen has cracked.

There are cracks all over it.

So with the most expensive case out of the race,

it's foam versus aluminium,

£25 versus £65

in our final ultimate phone case challenge.

So, for the final test, we're really going to push their limits.

In fact, we're going to push the limits of gravity.

We're going to take these cases and send them into space.

Yes, they're going to be dropped from space.

Ready?

Here you go!

Good luck!

Yes, from this specially chosen remote launch site

clear of built-up areas, our GPS-enabled weather balloon

carries our phones towards the upper atmosphere.

One small step for phones, one giant leap for case-kind.

So, throw some numbers at me. How quickly will it be travelling?

So it's going to be going up currently at about

5.5 metres per second.

Meaning an hour and a half later,

our phones have reached a height

of 91,863 feet.

Whist on terra firma, we follow their progress.

But then, phones, we have a problem.

As the atmosphere thins, the weather balloon bursts,

sending our payload back towards Earth.

Even with a parachute to slow them down,

the 126mph descent

will be the biggest phone drops ever.

Right, so we're off to find these cases. Let's go!

I'm not hopeful either will have survived

a fall from 17.5 miles above the Earth.

Well, the phones are still attached.

So this is the aluminium one, the second most expensive.

It's been to the edge of space

and dropped and hit hard ground,

and it's absolutely fine.

Let's see how the foam one is.

This is the second cheapest.

And there's not a scratch on it.

Just a bit of mud,

but it's absolutely fine.

Which means, at £25,

foam has to be the winner.

Does paying more for a case increase the chance of survival?

Based on our tests, no.

Is there an element of luck involved, depending on how

and where a phone lands? Possibly.

But if a material can withstand a fall from the edge of space

and not break the bank, then I'll tell you what,

that's good enough for me.

Back down to Earth at the Olympic Park, I've come inside

the Copper Box Arena,

home of professional basketball team the London Lions.

They might be smooth operators with the ball,

but I need their help testing a must-have health gadget

that's changing the way we consume fruit and veg.

Yeah!

Of course, I'm talking about personal smoothie makers,

otherwise known as bullet blenders.

Blending a drink into one cup which you grab and go,

the biggest seller is the NutriBullet.

John Lewis says they sell one every four minutes.

But there are numerous other makes and models available,

costing up to £400.

So, can those at the bottom end compete with the one at the top?

With my health huts in place, I set the challenge.

And no sniggering at the back about my height, please!

Gentlemen, let's see who can make the best smoothie.

I'll see you in a minute. Good luck.

On the left, four blenders costing less than £50.

And on the right, four costing 100 or more.

Both have identical ingredients,

including tough to blend items such as ginger, kale and ice.

Whilst they get prepping, our expert nutritionist Freddy Brown

explains why these machines make such healthy drinks.

They whizz up your vegetables and your fruit to such a fine degree

that you're still getting a lot of the fibre in the finished product.

Whereas a juice would just extract a lot of the sugar,

a blender will actually give you the whole fruit.

Nothing is thrown away.

You get all the goodness from all the fruit and veg.

I do love the fact you can bung everything in and it's

already in its own container.

Ultimately, the finished product needs to be pleasant to drink,

so we will be judging them based on their overall smoothness.

Houston, blast off!

Oh, yeah, look at all that green stuff.

Before we tackle the budget options, Demond and Nick mixed together

smoothies on the £100-plus machines to set our smoothness benchmark.

-It's very, very well blended. Cheers, everyone.

-Cheers.

-Mmmmm!

-Mm.

-THEY LAUGH

-Cool.

Unsurprisingly, all four performed pretty well.

So let's see if four machines costing less than 50 quid can match them.

It looks very appetising(!)

First up, the £29.99 Sport2Go from Kenwood.

Can we just listen to the noise that is making as it comes out?

-Thick.

-Yummy.

Not too bad, but you do have to chew.

Will the 30 quid Breville Blend-Active do any better?

-Kale.

-It's not good.

No, it's not. Yeah.

'So the Breville didn't break down the kale.

'How will the £40 Salter Nutri Pro 1000 do?'

-It's completely different.

-Mm.

-That tastes like a smoothie.

-It's a lot better.

The flavours are blended together. That's really good.

-Yeah, I actually like that one.

-That tastes more like it.

Like you say, the consistency really affects the flavours that come out. So...

'At last, a silky smoothie from a budget blender.

'But will our final option,

'the £40 Tefal Fruit Sensation, also punch above its weight?'

-This could be the worst one.

-HE LAUGHS

I don't know if it's you or if it's the machine.

'Unfortunately, it's the machine.

'The drinks from this one are perhaps the lumpiest of the bunch.

'So, what's the verdict from our expert nutritionist?'

Which was your favourite?

I'd have to stay the Salter, because of the price,

but also the similarity in quality with the very expensive blenders.

Yes, in terms of smoothness of drink,

this budget blender really does impress.

So if you are looking for a New Year bargain,

the Salter Nutri Pro 1000 is a bit of a slam-dunk.

Kenwood say that their 2GoSport blender is

perfect for anyone aiming to achieve their five-a-day,

fitting seamlessly into an active lifestyle.

Breville told us that the Blend-Active range has many positive reviews online

and that it remains confident it offers ease-of-use,

good performance and value for money.

Tefal say their machine is a blender/grinder/chopper

and wouldn't be expected to outperform single function products.

It says changing ingredients, blending time

and accessories would improve results.

More money-saving cheats from top professionals now.

This time, florists.

I'm Mairead and here we design flowers for corporate events

and weddings and film and TV.

Sometimes roses can just droop.

It's not because they're old,

it's because they've got air bubbles in their stems.

So, you cut the stems at an angle, dip them into boiling water,

leave it there for about ten seconds

and then dip it back into cold water.

Leave it alone for a while and eventually it will revive.

My name's Joanna Rhodes, we have designed the flowers for

high profile events and even historic royal palaces.

If you've got slightly taller vase and shorter stem flowers, don't fret.

Use the cellophane from the flowers that you've bought,

insert it into the vase,

push it all the way down to the bottom, like so...

Add some water on top, then literally just

place your stems on top of the cellophane.

Perfect.

Don't put flowers next to fruit because fruit produces

an ethylene gas. Ethylene gas causes flowers to grow old quicker.

Similarly, take any old flowers out of the vase,

because they produce the same gas.

If you get pollen on your clothes, don't worry.

Blow off all the excess pollen, get a little bit of Sellotape,

roll it around your hands

and literally dab the garment to lift the excess pollen.

A really simple way to prevent your clothes from staining.

Next, we've asked top product designer

and inventor Tom Lawton to take apart some toasters to find out

what the extra money gets you when you buy top of the range.

So, this is the cheapest toaster I could find.

At £9.99, it's pretty cheap and cheerful. But it makes toast.

This one is at the other end of the scale. 265 quid.

So, it's 27 times more expensive.

So, is the toast you get that much better?

Tom starts by testing the sliced bread on each

timer setting on each machine.

This is my time versus darkness comparison.

On the bottom here, I've got the budget toaster.

Along the top, I've got the more expensive toaster.

You are probably already observing that the results are pretty similar.

So, what are you paying the extra money for?

Are the components more advanced, longer lasting

and altogether more durable?

So, we're under the bonnet of the expensive toaster here.

You can basically see that it's like

two toasters which have been put together.

Inside this, we've got the heating element,

which is a nichrome wire that heats up tremendously.

That is shielded behind these mica plates that make sure that the heat

goes onto the toast as opposed to heating the room around it.

The budget toaster uses the same nichrome wires to produce the heat,

uses the same mica plates to project that heat onto the toast.

It's basically the same inside.

We extended this test across 18 popular toasters at different prices

and discovered that the majority have almost identical heating mechanisms,

with the only major difference being how many lines of nichrome wire there are.

So, what does the extra money get you?

It does bagels, cheese toasties, it defrosts your toast,

it elevates the toast when it's ready.

It gives you LED feedback and makes a ding when the toast is ready.

DING!

The housing is much more impressive on the more expensive model.

It's got a really good build quality to it.

But really, it's just a couple of motors that allow

the motion to go up and down, present your toast.

It has all sorts of sensors and electronics to it.

There is some LED panelling behind here,

but does it really justify 27 times the price?

It's a really nice design.

Some of the extra features are really quite neat.

So, if you can afford it, by all means go for it.

Do you really need your device to do lots of other things?

If you don't, then you may as well just go for the cheaper option

and you could save yourself some money.

Back at the Olympic Park, Team GB triathlete Lucy Hall is

helping us work out if the kind of fitness monitoring offered by activity trackers

and sports watches can be replicated by free health apps.

Thus far, it's neck and neck.

Our trip up the Orbit proved all three are useful

when measuring steps and distance, if a little inaccurate.

But what if you want more detailed analysis of your workout?

Can the free apps really compete with the wearable devices?

I'll meet you there!

First up, we hit the Aquatic Centre to see how well

they analyse a workout in the pool.

I'm wearing Fitbit's £120 Charge HR Activity Tracker,

while Lucy has the £210 TomTom Multisport Cardio GPS.

We're pitting both against the most popular free swimming app. Hello.

-Hello.

-Fancy meeting you here!

But straightaway, a major snag for the apps.

So, we want to track our activity in the pool.

Obviously, we can't bring our phones into the pool.

And perhaps surprisingly, it's the same problem for my fitness tracker.

It isn't waterproof, so I can't bring it in.

So I have to enter my activity manually afterward, which is

a bit of a faff. No such problem for the sports watch though.

I can wear mine in the water, it's waterproof.

When I'm swimming lengths, it tracks that.

It also syncs to my devices on my iPad or laptop.

-Ready?

-Let's go.

All these devices store their data on the internet

but whilst the watch uploads it automatically, with the apps and

tracker, we have to input how far we swam and for how long afterwards.

-How many laps did you do?

-28 lengths.

-I did not do that many, I did ten.

Or thereabouts.

Not ideal if you haven't really been paying attention as you go.

So that's one up for the sports watch.

Next, to complete our mini triathlon, the bike.

All three measure duration of ride, calories burned

and can track distance using GPS.

The apps and tracker using your mobile and the watch having it built in.

Unlike the apps, the wearable devices can also measure your heart rate.

After a few laps around the Olympic Park,

we've built up plenty of data,

so it's back inside to meet sport scientist Freddy Brown to see how

the free apps have fared overall against the devices you have to buy.

First up, Lucy's sports watch.

For the distance against me, the duration and again with the heart rate.

It's all really good stuff and it's also accessible for nutritionists

and all the other support team I've got round me, so that's great.

Add that to the extra detail like speed and elevation,

the data analysis offered by the sports watch is a good bet for athletes.

But for us non-Olympians, who just want to monitor health

and progress, do we need that kind of detail?

What does the Fitbit tell us?

Let's have a look at the data.

We've got an accurate measure of distance from using

the GPS as well as the duration of your exercise. So quite basic.

To be honest with you, I don't need any more information than that.

That's a general overall idea of my health.

But the big question is, were the free apps able to do the same

job as either my tracker or Lucy's watch?

It gives you very similar data in terms of the distance that you

covered, the duration of exercise, the calories that you burnt off.

Considering that's nearly £100, this app really does do the same job.

That's great for you, but I think in terms of performance for an

elite athlete, it really is the watch that does the best job for me.

So whilst wearing a tracker is a useful way to motivate yourself,

if you just want to keep across general daily activity

and even the odd workout, on this evidence, the apps

are an equally good and totally free alternative.

But if your training regime is a bit more serious,

then the sports watch is fantastic.

And could potentially carry you to the Olympics.

THEY LAUGH You, not everyone.

In response, Fitbit says their device gives a fuller exercise picture,

phones can be forgotten, but a tracker is a constant reminder to keep active.

It says it's easy to wear, offers instant data access, an online

community to share progress and the heart monitor will appeal to all.

TomTom points out that its latest sports watch does now

offer 24/7 activity tracking.

It says it will appeal to both the non-competitive person

and those with serious training in mind.

Next week, the expert ground staff responsible for the fabulous

gardens of Osborne House road test cordless lawnmowers

and tell us if it makes sense to pay for the most expensive models.

It's the best mower, has the best finish, the best cut.

Don't think it's worth the extra money.

Naga heads to Paris to find out if we pay more for our cosmetics,

and we'll have more money-saving tricks of the trade.

To bring your wrinkly lemons back to life,

boil them in water for a few minutes and leave them to cool.

They will be as good as new.