Fitbit So Expensive!

punkiee

ATT has fitbits for 20% if you order online by the 19th of February. Use promo code FITBIT15

makelemonade14

The misfit and jawbine are newer, less expensive options depending on the features you want.

I have a fitbit flex and it's been worth it for me. It gives me a general idea of my activity level from day to day, and factors into my food decisions. Eventually I will move to maintenance and have a much better ideas of calories in vs out without the gadgets and consent food logging. Theoretically.

SherryTeach

I don't walk around wearing my phone when I'm cleaning house, cooking or generally cleaning, often wearing my pajamas or some workout shorts with no pocket. My fitbit was the best investment I've ever made in keeping me moving. My Ultra lasted over 2.5 years, which was a pretty good $85 investment. Fitbit replaced it once, giving me a complimentary replacement for the one my dog ate. In the end, you get what you pay for.

135by60

I bought the Misfit Flash a few weeks ago for $50 and I love it. I've heard some people have lost it out of the wristband but I only use the clip and it's all good. It's waterproof to 30m which is good as I plan to start swimming laps in a few months. I clip it on as soon as I get up in the morning and take it off at bedtime. It syncs with MFP although it took me awhile to figure out how that all works. It has made a huge difference in my activity level and I have the app on my mobile, my ipad, my PC and my Mac. Love it!

jim180155

Solar_Cat wrote: »

Good recent article about this:

Science Says FitBit Is a Joke
Your smartphone is much more accurate and consistent than wearable devices.

FitBits, FueldBands, and other wearable fitness trackers promised to enhance the health of the wearer by accurately monitoring every step, calorie, and sleep pattern. But, according to a new study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the apps on your smartphone do the job just as well, or even better—at least in terms of measuring your steps and your calories.

It's a joke, alright. It's a couple of jokes.

The first joke is getting your science news from Mother Jones.

The second joke is running activity tracker/ pedometer comparison tests on a treadmill. If they had known anything about activity trackers they'd know that many of them, such as a Fitbit, have an accelerometer in them detecting motion through space in three dimensions. Treadmills can be problematic because the user is not moving forward, backward, or side to side. It's a vertical motion only.

This is from the linked article in EurekAlert:

Each of the study participants, all healthy adults recruited at Penn, had the following devices on during the treadmill trials:

Waistband: one pedometer and two accelerometers

Wrists: three wearable devices

Pants pockets: two smartphones, one running three apps and the other running one

At the end of each trial, step counts from each device were recorded. The data from the smartphones were only slightly different than the observed step counts (with a range of -6.7 to 6.2 percent relative difference in mean step count), but the data from the wearable devices differed more (with a range of -22.7 to -1.5 percent).

Note that the phones measured an error span of 12.9%, from 6.7% too few steps to 6.2% too many steps. The activity trackers measured an error span of 21.2%, from 22.7% too few steps to 1.5% too few steps. The activity trackers recorded too few steps. In part, because they were tested on a treadmill!

This is bad science.