Overwhelmed by the number of available activity trackers.

Marianna93637

I want to buy a tracker, but I'm overwhelmed by the 50 + (supposedly) different trackers, and I still have some questions about them.
The ones that track calories, how do they actually do that? I think tracking heartrate would be one way, but most of these don't have that.

Could anyone recommend one or some for me based on these preferences?
- water resistant so i can wear it 24/7
- small design, like the Fitbit band, so it's not so clunky
- I'd like one with the heartrate monitor
- don't care for the nutritional tracking since I'm already doing that
- I'd like to spend under $100, maybe even just 50?


Some more questions: the ones that say they track the overall daily calories burnt, does it mean they calculate how much I burn when I'm sitting, sleeping, walking, etc?
How do they actually track sleep in a way that they tell light sleep / deep sleep patterns?

I can find any info on this, and i don't want to spend $50-100 on something that I don't understand exactly how they work
Thank you

kcd1961

I would spend a little more and wait for Jawbone Up3

sympha01

You won't get an activity tracker with a heart rate monitor for $100 or less. The going rate for that function in an activity tracker is $150-$200.

You can get a heart rate monitor that does ONLY that (no all-day activity tracking) for <$100 easily.

Also if you want the heart rate monitor function, you won't get something low profile. The heart rate function will make it clunkier, at least a little. Fitbit's "Flex" is small, but does not have heart rate. Fitbit's upcoming "Charge HR" will have heart rate (sort of -- reports from beta testers and a few people who got some in a pre-release last month suggest the heart rate function is really inaccurate) but is rather bigger.

The calorie burn from activity trackers is not accurate AS calorie burn. I strongly discourage anyone who's dieting to get an activity tracker primarily as a way to know how much you can eat on your plan. As a number that's fairly consistent in regards to how active you are, sure, there's a useful function there that they call "calorie burn" but in my experience not accurate in terms of how much I burn or how much my burn affects my ability to eat and meet my goals. My fitbit vastly OVERestimates my burn from walking, and vastly UNDERestimates everything else. On the other hand, over the past 16 months of tracking I personally have also come to the conclusion that trying to really pinpoint my exercise burn from specific rounds of exercise or activity is 1) an exercise in futility in any case and 2) not psychologically healthy in terms of keeping a healthy attitude towards eating and exercise. Much better to set a weekly goal for overall activity (active minutes and intensity zones), stick to that goal, watch my progress, and use more of a TDEE method for estimating how much I should eat. YMMV.

What activity trackers ARE good for is helping you track how sedentary you are -- especially if you are currently VERY sedentary -- and encouraging you to get gradually more active over time. They're particularly good as, essentially, fancy pedometers: most of them seem to be calibrated to track walking and step-based exercise pretty well, and my Fitbit anyway does a pretty good job tracking what I call "puttering around" (doing chores etc.) but don't do a great job (if at all) of detecting other types of exercise like biking, calisthenics, sports, any kind of aerobic dance, yoga, etc. and they're particularly bad at estimating what's going on when you're doing resistance-based exercise. But if you primarily want to keep track of how many minutes a day you spend moving as opposed to sitting, they're excellent for benchmarking and tracking how you're doing towards fitness goals like that.

fat2strongbeth

I am also overwhelmed by the variety. It really depends on what you goals are for using one. I found this article today on lifehacker. It should help you decide.

http://gizmodo.com/the-best-fitness-tracker-for-every-exercise-1673000514

Marianna93637

Thanks everyone! Maybe I don't even need it, or maybe just a simple heart rate monitor to to check my HR time to time, especially when I exercise. For some reason I also don't care so much how many steps I make in a day, because when I'm at school (teacher) I walk around a lot (or at least standing, and I can definitely start circling the classroom, it would keep my students more engaged as well lol) and then when I go for a walk with my dog, I always track that.

Thank you! You guys saved me $50-100

Marianna93637

Thank you Betharin for the link, it really explained things well. It looks like you get what you paid for, obviously the $200 one is the best. It's just too much for what I really need.