Pros / cons from your experience with Fitbit/Jawbone?
FindingMyself92
Posts: 61 Member
Ive been looking into these, and am wondering from people who use them if they would reccommend them 
And if you have it connected to your MFP - and the benefits or the missed opportunities you find ?
Thanks all!
And if you have it connected to your MFP - and the benefits or the missed opportunities you find ?
Thanks all!
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Replies
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I found the step counting to be massively inflated when I wore one (Jawbone) on my wrist. I'm much happier with my Withings Pulse Ox, which I clip to my clothing and is more accurate.
I do kinda miss the extra calories the Jawbone gave me for lifting a cigarette to my mouth though ;-)0 -
I loved the Fitbit -- it was spot on in estimating my TDEE (predicted my loss rate perfectly), even if the actual step count wasn't perfect (and even though mine didn't count stairs, which always annoyed me, since I live on the 4th and 5th floor). It was also helpful in motivating me to sleep more (something I struggle with) and when I first started using it to walk more.
Mine broke around the time that I was no longer relying on it so much -- my walking is pretty consistent and part of my lifestyle, I wasn't eating back calories from exercise but doing TDEE method, I was transiting into maintenance and was kind of tired of the look of it -- so I haven't gotten it fixed (although I understand customer service is good). However, I am really pleased about the investment overall.0 -
I hear lots of people say the Jawbone UP grossly overestimates calories. I find that to be false for me. Mine is pretty darn near accurate, and sometimes UNDERestimates. I highly recommend a Jawbone. The app is great, and it's comfortable on your wrist. You get used to it very quickly.0
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I use mine for the reminders and motivation to get in more steps. I don't really care how accurate my Jawbone is, as long as it is precise. It seems to be very precise.0
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I'm happy with my Jawbone. I don't have the heart rate version, just the more basic UP2. It's helped me get a handle on my activity level, works as a good motivator to get moving. I think it's fairly accurate (though I don't eat back many of the extra calories).0
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My jawbone doesn't over estimate. It relies on a certain movement and if you are swinging your arm hard enough while smoking to get a reading wow...
I found it accurate for my TDEE as well...even when I was smoking...
I love the reminder to move (set for 15mins) and the silent alarm and the fact it syncs with Mapmyfitness etc. And it brings my extra calories in here.
Customer service has been amazing...too easy to blame hardware sometimes...but replacements are easy to obtain if needed.
Waiting on the kinks to get worked out of the new 3/4 before I upgrade tho.
I have a fitbit zip as well and find it grossly under estimates my movements in comparison to even my phone.
When I walk 5 miles my phone and jawbone say 5 miles...fitbit...maybe 8...and I clocked it with my car. It goes on my clothing as well similar to the Pulse...0 -
I've got an UP24. I like it because I walk a lot for work and it's interesting to get a quantification but I'm skeptical about how accurate it is. I like the sleep tracking a lot and either it or MFP lately had helped me finally start going to the gym. I'd prefer a clip on or something for your ankle, as I've had mine a few months and it's pretty grimy (mostly ink from stray pens)0
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My jawbone doesn't over estimate. It relies on a certain movement and if you are swinging your arm hard enough while smoking to get a reading wow...
I found it accurate for my TDEE as well...even when I was smoking...
I love the reminder to move (set for 15mins) and the silent alarm and the fact it syncs with Mapmyfitness etc. And it brings my extra calories in here.
Customer service has been amazing...too easy to blame hardware sometimes...but replacements are easy to obtain if needed.
Waiting on the kinks to get worked out of the new 3/4 before I upgrade tho.
I have a fitbit zip as well and find it grossly under estimates my movements in comparison to even my phone.
When I walk 5 miles my phone and jawbone say 5 miles...fitbit...maybe 8...and I clocked it with my car. It goes on my clothing as well similar to the Pulse...
It's not that I'm swinging my arm hard enough (I wouldn't mind if I was, because that probably would burn calories!), it's that I take so few steps that the discrepancy between what I did and what the Jawbone said I did was really noticeable.
It's 8 p.m here now, and my Pulse Ox is saying I've taken 162 steps today. That's much more realistic than the thousands that Jawbone UP3 gave me.0 -
I like my fitbit HR. I think it estimates my steps well...unless I'm driving on a dirt road...it get's confused there. I like that it tracks my heart rate so I can see how hard I'm pushing myself. I take the HR with a grain of salt though. Either way, I try my hardest to hit my step goal everyday so at the least it motivates me to move more...it will show a pop up on my phone when I'm close(ish) to my goal to remind me to get up and move if I want to hit it!0
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CurlyCockney wrote: »My jawbone doesn't over estimate. It relies on a certain movement and if you are swinging your arm hard enough while smoking to get a reading wow...
I found it accurate for my TDEE as well...even when I was smoking...
I love the reminder to move (set for 15mins) and the silent alarm and the fact it syncs with Mapmyfitness etc. And it brings my extra calories in here.
Customer service has been amazing...too easy to blame hardware sometimes...but replacements are easy to obtain if needed.
Waiting on the kinks to get worked out of the new 3/4 before I upgrade tho.
I have a fitbit zip as well and find it grossly under estimates my movements in comparison to even my phone.
When I walk 5 miles my phone and jawbone say 5 miles...fitbit...maybe 8...and I clocked it with my car. It goes on my clothing as well similar to the Pulse...
It's not that I'm swinging my arm hard enough (I wouldn't mind if I was, because that probably would burn calories!), it's that I take so few steps that the discrepancy between what I did and what the Jawbone said I did was really noticeable.
It's 8 p.m here now, and my Pulse Ox is saying I've taken 162 steps today. That's much more realistic than the thousands that Jawbone UP3 gave me.
At 8pm at night I feel 162 steps is extremely low unless you just got up. I easily hit a few thousand steps a day without doing any extra exercise.. 162 steps would easily be getting out of bed and roaming your house for 5 minutes or so.. lol.0 -
I found Fitbit HR Charge inaccurate with the steps AND HR. I was "competing" with several city bus drivers who had MASSIVE "steps" in their day. Yeah right. They sat all day! It was the driving that the Fitbit was logging! They'd log like 20-30k steps per day and I was lucky to get 5k with my desk job and some driving around. It *always* logged many steps when I drove. So stupid. I returned it. (Also, the HR would often jump around from 140 to over 200 while working out. My Polar HR monitor at the same time showed no such ridiculous jumps.)0
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FindingMyself92 wrote: »CurlyCockney wrote: »My jawbone doesn't over estimate. It relies on a certain movement and if you are swinging your arm hard enough while smoking to get a reading wow...
I found it accurate for my TDEE as well...even when I was smoking...
I love the reminder to move (set for 15mins) and the silent alarm and the fact it syncs with Mapmyfitness etc. And it brings my extra calories in here.
Customer service has been amazing...too easy to blame hardware sometimes...but replacements are easy to obtain if needed.
Waiting on the kinks to get worked out of the new 3/4 before I upgrade tho.
I have a fitbit zip as well and find it grossly under estimates my movements in comparison to even my phone.
When I walk 5 miles my phone and jawbone say 5 miles...fitbit...maybe 8...and I clocked it with my car. It goes on my clothing as well similar to the Pulse...
It's not that I'm swinging my arm hard enough (I wouldn't mind if I was, because that probably would burn calories!), it's that I take so few steps that the discrepancy between what I did and what the Jawbone said I did was really noticeable.
It's 8 p.m here now, and my Pulse Ox is saying I've taken 162 steps today. That's much more realistic than the thousands that Jawbone UP3 gave me.
At 8pm at night I feel 162 steps is extremely low unless you just got up. I easily hit a few thousand steps a day without doing any extra exercise.. 162 steps would easily be getting out of bed and roaming your house for 5 minutes or so.. lol.
I'm a disabled powerchair user, trust me on this - 162 is very good!
ETA I should have phrased that better. A disabled powerchair is kinda useless ;-)
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CurlyCockney wrote: »FindingMyself92 wrote: »CurlyCockney wrote: »My jawbone doesn't over estimate. It relies on a certain movement and if you are swinging your arm hard enough while smoking to get a reading wow...
I found it accurate for my TDEE as well...even when I was smoking...
I love the reminder to move (set for 15mins) and the silent alarm and the fact it syncs with Mapmyfitness etc. And it brings my extra calories in here.
Customer service has been amazing...too easy to blame hardware sometimes...but replacements are easy to obtain if needed.
Waiting on the kinks to get worked out of the new 3/4 before I upgrade tho.
I have a fitbit zip as well and find it grossly under estimates my movements in comparison to even my phone.
When I walk 5 miles my phone and jawbone say 5 miles...fitbit...maybe 8...and I clocked it with my car. It goes on my clothing as well similar to the Pulse...
It's not that I'm swinging my arm hard enough (I wouldn't mind if I was, because that probably would burn calories!), it's that I take so few steps that the discrepancy between what I did and what the Jawbone said I did was really noticeable.
It's 8 p.m here now, and my Pulse Ox is saying I've taken 162 steps today. That's much more realistic than the thousands that Jawbone UP3 gave me.
At 8pm at night I feel 162 steps is extremely low unless you just got up. I easily hit a few thousand steps a day without doing any extra exercise.. 162 steps would easily be getting out of bed and roaming your house for 5 minutes or so.. lol.
I'm a disabled powerchair user, trust me on this - 162 is very good!
ETA I should have phrased that better. A disabled powerchair is kinda useless ;-)
That makes much more sense ! Lol. I was quite confused for only doing 162 over a whole day. But that would be awesome for you - congrats!
From all the reviews it appears it likes tracking vehicular motions as walking.. hmm..0 -
I have both a Jawbone and a Fitbit Charge in my house.
Hands down, I love the Charge. The Jawbone requires an app based situation where I can sync with my windows based computer. I do not have to switch between activity and sleep with the Charge as one has to do with the Jawbone. I can also see distance, steps. calories on my wrist. I've learned walking routes because I know the distance from looking at my Charge while out. Fitbit also has the best customer service.0 -
FindingMyself92 wrote: »CurlyCockney wrote: »FindingMyself92 wrote: »CurlyCockney wrote: »My jawbone doesn't over estimate. It relies on a certain movement and if you are swinging your arm hard enough while smoking to get a reading wow...
I found it accurate for my TDEE as well...even when I was smoking...
I love the reminder to move (set for 15mins) and the silent alarm and the fact it syncs with Mapmyfitness etc. And it brings my extra calories in here.
Customer service has been amazing...too easy to blame hardware sometimes...but replacements are easy to obtain if needed.
Waiting on the kinks to get worked out of the new 3/4 before I upgrade tho.
I have a fitbit zip as well and find it grossly under estimates my movements in comparison to even my phone.
When I walk 5 miles my phone and jawbone say 5 miles...fitbit...maybe 8...and I clocked it with my car. It goes on my clothing as well similar to the Pulse...
It's not that I'm swinging my arm hard enough (I wouldn't mind if I was, because that probably would burn calories!), it's that I take so few steps that the discrepancy between what I did and what the Jawbone said I did was really noticeable.
It's 8 p.m here now, and my Pulse Ox is saying I've taken 162 steps today. That's much more realistic than the thousands that Jawbone UP3 gave me.
At 8pm at night I feel 162 steps is extremely low unless you just got up. I easily hit a few thousand steps a day without doing any extra exercise.. 162 steps would easily be getting out of bed and roaming your house for 5 minutes or so.. lol.
I'm a disabled powerchair user, trust me on this - 162 is very good!
ETA I should have phrased that better. A disabled powerchair is kinda useless ;-)
That makes much more sense ! Lol. I was quite confused for only doing 162 over a whole day. But that would be awesome for you - congrats!
From all the reviews it appears it likes tracking vehicular motions as walking.. hmm..
It's ok, I should have been clearer. Thanks though :-)
I read a lot of reviews, and the hand-motions-as-steps thing is quite common with any wrist worn trackers. I think Fitbit do one you can wear on clothing, but my Pulse O2 can be worn either way (apparently you're supposed to use the wristband for sleep, but it works good enough on pjs).
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I have both. Fitbit's customer service is a million times better than Jawbone's. Fitbit challenges with up to 9 of your friends are way more fun than Jawbone's one-on-one duels. UP requires a compatible device, while Fitbit can sync (via a dongle) with a computer.
But I love UP's idle alert. (The Move doesn't have it.) Your band vibrates if you sit still for too long.
MFP has a Fitbit Users group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users
And a Jawbone UP Bracelet group (it was named before the Move was introduced): http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/13420-jawbone-up-bracelet0 -
jswede1149 wrote: »I have both a Jawbone and a Fitbit Charge in my house.
Hands down, I love the Charge. The Jawbone requires an app based situation where I can sync with my windows based computer. I do not have to switch between activity and sleep with the Charge as one has to do with the Jawbone. I can also see distance, steps. calories on my wrist. I've learned walking routes because I know the distance from looking at my Charge while out. Fitbit also has the best customer service.
Just FYI jawbone just updated its software this week so you no longer have to switch between activity and sleep. But yes, no looking at your wrist to see steps. You have to check the app.0 -
FindingMyself92 wrote: »CurlyCockney wrote: »My jawbone doesn't over estimate. It relies on a certain movement and if you are swinging your arm hard enough while smoking to get a reading wow...
I found it accurate for my TDEE as well...even when I was smoking...
I love the reminder to move (set for 15mins) and the silent alarm and the fact it syncs with Mapmyfitness etc. And it brings my extra calories in here.
Customer service has been amazing...too easy to blame hardware sometimes...but replacements are easy to obtain if needed.
Waiting on the kinks to get worked out of the new 3/4 before I upgrade tho.
I have a fitbit zip as well and find it grossly under estimates my movements in comparison to even my phone.
When I walk 5 miles my phone and jawbone say 5 miles...fitbit...maybe 8...and I clocked it with my car. It goes on my clothing as well similar to the Pulse...
It's not that I'm swinging my arm hard enough (I wouldn't mind if I was, because that probably would burn calories!), it's that I take so few steps that the discrepancy between what I did and what the Jawbone said I did was really noticeable.
It's 8 p.m here now, and my Pulse Ox is saying I've taken 162 steps today. That's much more realistic than the thousands that Jawbone UP3 gave me.
At 8pm at night I feel 162 steps is extremely low unless you just got up. I easily hit a few thousand steps a day without doing any extra exercise.. 162 steps would easily be getting out of bed and roaming your house for 5 minutes or so.. lol.
This. I also do a few thousand on a slow day.0 -
Ah, that makes more sense, I was thinking that if someone a few months out of hip surgery was getting a few thousand on a rest day something was off with yours.CurlyCockney wrote: »FindingMyself92 wrote: »CurlyCockney wrote: »My jawbone doesn't over estimate. It relies on a certain movement and if you are swinging your arm hard enough while smoking to get a reading wow...
I found it accurate for my TDEE as well...even when I was smoking...
I love the reminder to move (set for 15mins) and the silent alarm and the fact it syncs with Mapmyfitness etc. And it brings my extra calories in here.
Customer service has been amazing...too easy to blame hardware sometimes...but replacements are easy to obtain if needed.
Waiting on the kinks to get worked out of the new 3/4 before I upgrade tho.
I have a fitbit zip as well and find it grossly under estimates my movements in comparison to even my phone.
When I walk 5 miles my phone and jawbone say 5 miles...fitbit...maybe 8...and I clocked it with my car. It goes on my clothing as well similar to the Pulse...
It's not that I'm swinging my arm hard enough (I wouldn't mind if I was, because that probably would burn calories!), it's that I take so few steps that the discrepancy between what I did and what the Jawbone said I did was really noticeable.
It's 8 p.m here now, and my Pulse Ox is saying I've taken 162 steps today. That's much more realistic than the thousands that Jawbone UP3 gave me.
At 8pm at night I feel 162 steps is extremely low unless you just got up. I easily hit a few thousand steps a day without doing any extra exercise.. 162 steps would easily be getting out of bed and roaming your house for 5 minutes or so.. lol.
I'm a disabled powerchair user, trust me on this - 162 is very good!
ETA I should have phrased that better. A disabled powerchair is kinda useless ;-)
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I got rid of my Fitbit and switched to Jawbone. I was tired of Fitbit keeping my data captive. They want you to pay $49 per year to buy a premium membership so you can download your data. What's worse is they refuse to integrate with Apple Health. I got rid of my Fitbit when I got my Apple Watch. I downloaded the Jawbone app to use with my Apple Watch and found that it is a much superior product to Fitbit's app. The Smart Coach is excellent! I then bought a Move since I was enjoying the app so much and I wanted to financially support Jawbone. I used my Move to track sleep. I then got rid of my Aria and got a Withings scale because I keep all my health data in Apple Health and Fitbit refuses to integrate.
If you like the Apple ecosystem and use Apple Health, I would not recommend a Fitbit. There are better products out there that play better with others.0 -
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I use:
- misfit on peble time watch
- fitbit hr
- step counter on phone.
I found all these devices differ a lot in numbers.
My gf also use several and can see the same problem.
In my case, the misfit did not count the less steps. The fitbit was in the middle. However, the lg health on my phone would count lots of steps but a big difference in calories burned per step even though it has thr same info.
However, the lg health uses google maps to track distance and elevation changes.
I prefer the fitbit just cause it allows me to compete and get motivations from other fitbit users by participating in competitions called challenges. Basically, who gets the most steps during a period of time. As well as badges for acomplishing certain amount of steps.
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