Fitness/activity trackers

RunionX4

What is your favorite fitness/activity tracker? I am looking to get one but only have about $60 to spend on one. I had a fitbit zip and liked it but it died on me and now I need a new one. I'd like one that is watch style rather than clip on.

ponycyndi

I have the $100 fitbit, which is ok. But I also have $20 mifit, which i like so much more. It fits better, it tracks sleep more accurately, and the battery lasts 2 weeks, vs 4-5 days for the fitbit.

ponycyndi

Sorry, it's the fitbit flex that I have. It's $90 at Wal-Mart.

shadow2soul

Look into Misfit. I don't own one, but they have some that fall into your budget range and can be worn on wrist or as clip on.

snikkins

I have the FitBit One and I love it! I only charge it every couple of weeks and don't use the sleep function. I don't have any personal experience with their wrist trackers, but the people I know with them are happy.

lenoresdream

snikkins wrote: »

I have the FitBit One and I love it! I only charge it every couple of weeks and don't use the sleep function. I don't have any personal experience with their wrist trackers, but the people I know with them are happy.

There are some bands on amazon that make the Fitbit one into a wrist tracker. Not sure the quality but they're out there.

ryansams2016

My parents have the Harmon thing from Amazon. They reall like it. Around 50 Buick k

ryansams2016

Bucks*£'

RunionX4

Thanks everyone. I've been looking at the misfit ones and glad to see people recommending them.

DresdenSinn

I just had to get the UA Band, at least I didn't buy that whole $400 HelathBox package!

punkrockgoth

I use Google fit on my phone. It's free.

bagofmoney

How accurate are the "calories burned" on the FitBits? I have a FitBit Zip and make sure I wear it when I volunteer at the hospital. When I walk about 3 miles, it says I've burned, roughly, 1000 calories. But I just saw a post of someone who ran 3.5 miles outside and burned 500 calories. Which is more accurate?

RogerToo

arunion01 wrote: »

What is your favorite fitness/activity tracker? I am looking to get one but only have about $60 to spend on one. I had a fitbit zip and liked it but it died on me and now I need a new one. I'd like one that is watch style rather than clip on.

Hi
FWIW I also use the FitBit Zip, it does what I want and was inexpensive.

My first one died too. I was withing the one year warranty period so they replaced it by sending a complete retail box replacement. Could You still be under the warranty period or did You buy using one of the Credit cards that extends the warranty period?

I also would not like a wrist one so that was the other deciding factor. I find it works well stored in my pocket and seems to be just as accurate that way counting steps when I walk.

Have a Good Holiday
Roger

cbelc2

I have a Garmin vivofit 3. The 2 previous versions are available and relatively inexpensive. I like it so far. The app is easy, and the band is interchangeable for the fashion - minded among us.

jkal1979

After three years I still love my Zip. The only downside to it is having the battery die at inconvenient times. If it ever does go out for good I want to replace it with the One.

Oishii

bagofmoney wrote: »

How accurate are the "calories burned" on the FitBits? I have a FitBit Zip and make sure I wear it when I volunteer at the hospital. When I walk about 3 miles, it says I've burned, roughly, 1000 calories. But I just saw a post of someone who ran 3.5 miles outside and burned 500 calories. Which is more accurate?

It depends on your weight so you can't go by someone else's figures, unless you are the same weight. The best way to find out if it is right is to see if weight is lost as predicted. I lose faster than my Fitbit would predict.

zyxst

bagofmoney wrote: »

How accurate are the "calories burned" on the FitBits? I have a FitBit Zip and make sure I wear it when I volunteer at the hospital. When I walk about 3 miles, it says I've burned, roughly, 1000 calories. But I just saw a post of someone who ran 3.5 miles outside and burned 500 calories. Which is more accurate?

A Fitbit gives you your total energy burn (TDEE = BMR + exercise + daily activities). When it says you burned 1,000 calories, it means you burned 1,000 calories of TDEE for the whole day. Fitbits are activity trackers, aka glorified pedometers. They aren't HRMs or built to separate BMR calories from exercise calories.

SezxyStef

I like my Jawbone. I've had it for almost 2 years...

It has sleep monitor and a silent alarm (love that)
It has an activity alarm and reminders (silent vibration on wrist same as silent alarm)
You can set goals such as weight loss, sleep etc. Have team mates do Duels

It syncs with MFP and mapmy...

I paid 80 Cdn for mine with a discount code for the new Jawbone2.

The 3 has a HRM I believe and tracks rem sleep
the new 4 is suppose to have pay options sync'd with American Express.

RunionX4

After some tinkering I got my fitbit zip working again. I do need a new clip for it tho. But I can find that easily on ebay or Amazon. Thank you all so much. I love my fitbit. I feel it's just as accurate as anything else out there. I did find that there is a wrist band for the zip available too.

Redbeard333

I really enjoy using my Fitbit Charge HR, but have been giving SERIOUS consideration to a Garmin Vivoactive HR, so it could replace both my regular watch and my Fitbit. What's stopping me is 1) my watch still works despite being ~6 years old, and has a lot of features I like (solar powered, barometer, atomic time), 2) My Charge HR works fine. I was thinking about "rewarding" myself when I complete my first 5k in a couple weeks, but it's a $250 reward... #firstworldproblems

RogerToo

jkal1979 wrote: »

After three years I still love my Zip. The only downside to it is having the battery die at inconvenient times. If it ever does go out for good I want to replace it with the One.

Hi
I have had that experience, OTOH I hate having to remember to charge anything. It is bad enough with the phone and Small iPod. occasionally they remind me to charge as the battery is low. The phone will start making unusual noises and the iPod suddenly starts saying Low battery in my ear while I am walking. Oops

I do keep a spare battery on hand now, Those batteries have a long shelf life.

Good Luck
Roger

RogerToo

arunion01 wrote: »

After some tinkering I got my fitbit zip working again. I do need a new clip for it tho. But I can find that easily on ebay or Amazon. Thank you all so much. I love my fitbit. I feel it's just as accurate as anything else out there. I did find that there is a wrist band for the zip available too.

Congratulations on Your success. Mine was dead and even tech support could not get it going so they just replaced it and I did not have return the old one. The New one came with a short note to Dispose of the old one in a electronics recycling location.

Good Luck
Roger

shinycrazy

Redbeard333 wrote: »

I really enjoy using my Fitbit Charge HR, but have been giving SERIOUS consideration to a Garmin Vivoactive HR, so it could replace both my regular watch and my Fitbit. What's stopping me is 1) my watch still works despite being ~6 years old, and has a lot of features I like (solar powered, barometer, atomic time), 2) My Charge HR works fine. I was thinking about "rewarding" myself when I complete my first 5k in a couple weeks, but it's a $250 reward... #firstworldproblems

I have the Garmin Vivofit 2 and love it. No charging and waterproof. I use the HRM chest strap when I want to get readings for my cardio.

karl317

In the fitness tracker world, there's fitbit, then there's everything else.

Is not that other fitness trackers are bad, in fact it wouldn't take you long to find a tracker that lasts longer, has more features and is cheaper than a fitbit. It's just that most of their *software* is way undercooked. Fitbit took the time to make their ecosystem a complete one, and gave almost everyone under the sun the ability to contribute and share data with it (with varying degrees of success, mind you).

There's a REASON a bunch of lawyers funded a study with the sole purpose of generating a lawsuit against fitbit's heart rate technology (which is NOT exclusive to fitbit, yet they are the only ones named in the lawsuit). They want to knock fitbit down a few notches because they are absolutely destroying their competitors.

Fitbit trackers are the trackers by which all others are judged, and it's not just because of marketing hype. More sophisticated and accurate trackers exist, but people love the fitbit software even if it doesn't cater to the most hardcore fitness enthusiast. If every other fitness tracker adopted the same software goals for their own trackers, the industry world look very, very different.

SezxyStef

karl317 wrote: »

In the fitness tracker world, there's fitbit, then there's everything else.

Is not that other fitness trackers are bad, in fact it wouldn't take you long to find a tracker that lasts longer, has more features and is cheaper than a fitbit. It's just that most of their *software* is way undercooked. Fitbit took the time to make their ecosystem a complete one, and gave almost everyone under the sun the ability to contribute and share data with it (with varying degrees of success, mind you).

There's a REASON a bunch of lawyers funded a study with the sole purpose of generating a lawsuit against fitbit's heart rate technology (which is NOT exclusive to fitbit, yet they are the only ones named in the lawsuit). They want to knock fitbit down a few notches because they are absolutely destroying their competitors.

Fitbit trackers are the trackers by which all others are judged, and it's not just because of marketing hype. More sophisticated and accurate trackers exist, but people love the fitbit software even if it doesn't cater to the most hardcore fitness enthusiast. If every other fitness tracker adopted the same software goals for their own trackers, the industry world look very, very different.

I don't agree.

I have a fitbit as well as my Jawbone.

I did a comparison while shovelling my driveway a couple winters ago. 45mins of hard shovelling and fitbit gave me 6 active mins....seriously? 6 active mins...BS...45mins of shovelling and my Jawbone gave me 38mins...more reasonable if you ask me.

Fitbit is no better than any others...and actually might be worse considering my experience and the current lawsuit.

karl317

You don't have to agree. The numbers speak for themselves.

Play with the jawbone software for a week, then do the same with fitbit's software. You'll see why jawbone is throwing in the towel and giving up on fitness trackers.

As for the lawsuit - that's limited to heart rate accuracy and nothing else - and when Consumer Reports themselves find fitbit's technology as being reasonably accurate, I can't help but think that lawsuit will ultimately fall apart.

4legsRbetterthan2

I am a fitbit one fan. I have had mine for probably about 3 years. I chose that particular tracker because I don't like having stuff on my wrist. Personally, I found that when I put in the effort to count calories accurately my weight loss perfectly mirrored my fitbit projection, so for me I found it to be very accurate.

A few thought to help you if you're shopping: Most of my activity is step based, so this was a good choice for me; as some people mentioned it may not catch non step based activity well. One thing I do have an issue with is I ride horses, and it will track that as me walking/running, so I take it off before I mount up, otherwise it will think I am running around and will calculate my doing much harder work than I am. One of my concerns when buying this was if the clip was sound. I keep mine clipped to my jeans pocket on a normal day and have never had it fall off under normal circumstances. I did lose one once when I was cutting up a tree, I imaging while moving branches I managed to snag it and pull if off, so when I do any heavy yard work like that I clip it under a layer of clothes to prevent that, it hooks well to bras, underwear, or jeans in my experience. That's the only time I ever had one come off.

SezxyStef

karl317 wrote: »

You don't have to agree. The numbers speak for themselves.

Play with the jawbone software for a week, then do the same with fitbit's software. You'll see why jawbone is throwing in the towel and giving up on fitness trackers.

you are correct the numbers speak for themselves.

Fitbit 6 active minutes for 45mins of snow shovelling
Jawbone 38 active minutes for 45 mins of snow shovelling

Jawbone isn't throwing in the towel on Fitness trackers.

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/jawbone-up4/
http://www.wareable.com/fitness-trackers/the-best-fitness-tracker where Jawbone nailed 3 of the "best" types...

I think Jawbone is doing just fine.

I am not saying fitbit is not a decent tracker...but in my experience not as good as Jawbone and others.

RoxieDawn

Well I will throw in my 2 cents and say Fitbit is not the best. There really is not a best out there. Everything has flaws rather it is the device hardware itself, the app or website features and functions, GPS software, Heart monitors in wrist or strap (hard and/or soft), their customer service, etc..

So you will not get 100% accuracy in data input or data output.. You simply have to buy the device according to your budget, what you want the device to do, how much you are willing to accept what the device will or will not do for you in terms of price, durability and longevity..

I have been through 3 fitbits and 2 garmins and even some off brands in the beginning of my tracker experiences and nothing is perfect..

I do not know if this is a debate or not since it was put in the debate forums, but anyone looking for a device, simply read the reviews and make your best judgement before buying.

karl317

SezxyStef wrote: »

you are correct the numbers speak for themselves.

Fitbit 6 active minutes for 45mins of snow shovelling
Jawbone 38 active minutes for 45 mins of snow shovelling

Jawbone isn't throwing in the towel on Fitness trackers.

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/jawbone-up4/
http://www.wareable.com/fitness-trackers/the-best-fitness-tracker where Jawbone nailed 3 of the "best" types...

I think Jawbone is doing just fine.

I am not saying fitbit is not a decent tracker...but in my experience not as good as Jawbone and others.

I can't speak to your SINGLE instance of how Fitbit interpreted your snow shoveling. I don't think the engineers at fitbit sat around a table thinking "..what can we do to make sure the fine people who shovel snow in their driveways are being accurately represented by their fitness band?" I mean, hey, congratulations, your jawbone is great at detecting snow shoveling activity while my fitbit thinks i'm riding a bike when I'm actually mowing my lawn.

If you think that's what makes a fitness band "better" than another, then you're really not aiming high enough.

Again, the problem has nothing to do with the tracker itself. You can EASILY find a more accurate and long-lasting feature rich tracker than a fitbit. The problem is the *software* you have to load on your phone/tablet/pc. That's the part that sucks, and the part that Fitbit absolutely got "more right" than anyone else.

Also, I don't think Jawbone is doing fine. I think they are struggling, or the industry rumors about them shopping for buyers of their existing inventories and other business wouldn't be posted just about everywhere. Do a google search for "Jawbone discontinued" and you'll see plenty of articles about how "fine" they are doing. I'm sure Jawbone isn't alone in this. Fitbit, all incidents of SnowShovelGate besides, is absolutely killing their competition in this field, whether you want to agree with the numbers or not. And this isn't likely to change until another competitor decides to hire some better software developers.

Seriously, I want a competitor to actually compete against fitbit instead of this "there's fitbit and then there's everything else" situation we're living in now. Competition is what drives innovation and lowers prices, and we could all use a little of that.

karl317

RoxieDawn wrote: »

I do not know if this is a debate or not since it was put in the debate forums, but anyone looking for a device, simply read the reviews and make your best judgement before buying.

It's the internet. Everything is a debate

But you're 100% correct. Personally, I think the fitbit "ecosystem" is the most complete - despite their devices NOT being the best in class. You can find a better Garmin wrist-based tracker than a Fitbit Surge or Blaze. You can find a better Withings scale than a Fitbit Aria. You can get way more accurate heart rate tracking with something that uses a chest strap. But none of those devices tie everything together as nicely as fitbit's own software, and that's the reason I think fitbit is so successful.

I seriously hope these other companies wise up to this and instead will put their efforts into fixing their ecosystems rather than trying to sue Fitbit out of the top spot.