Fitbit Versa vs Garmin Vivoactive 3

coderdan82

I'm looking for a fitness tracker that accurately tracks calories burned throughout my day and integrates well with MFP. These are the activities that I'm interested in tracking for calories:

- regular steps taken through the day
- cardio machines like treadmills, ellipticals, stationary bikes
- punching and kicking a heavy bag
- HIIT/CrossFit style activities
- weight lifting
- occasionally running, biking and hiking outdoors

Fitbit Versa and Garmin Vivoactive 3 look like really good candidates so I'm looking for impressions from anyone who owns these. I'd like to know how accurate they are (to the best of your ability to assess that), do the calorie expenditures posted to MFP make sense and if you had any issues syncing with MFP.

Many thanks to anyone that replies

NorthCascades

They're both guesses, based on formulas not real insight into what going on inside you. None of us live in a metabolic chamber, so nobody can really assess their calorie accuracy. You don't need great accuracy to lose weight anyway, so this isn't really a feature you should try to base your decision on. People are happy with both. Get the one that has the features and style you like.

RunnerGrl1982

I own a Vivoactive 3. I love it. I find the individual exercise activities log the calories pretty accurately, however the daily calorie expenditure is way off. So in other words, when recording an actual exercise activity, the Garmin is on point, but I would recommend ignoring all other calorie daily calculated activity it records throughout the day with regards to anything outside of that. The pedometer is pretty accurate as well in my opinion once it's been calibrated to your walking gait.

I've never had an issue with syncing, and it works really well with Garmin IMO, but I don't know if others have had issues.

I've only used the run, walk, swim, and indoor cycling apps within Garmin. They all have worked fine for me. I don't have the knowledge to speak of any other activities the watch can record. But I've had a positive experience so far with the Vivoactive 3.

Best of luck with your decision! I hear the Fitbit also has it's benefits as well that hold up to a Garmin, so I feel it's all in individual preference in what you want to get out of your fitness tracker.

coderdan82

NorthCascades wrote: »

They're both guesses, based on formulas not real insight into what going on inside you. None of us live in a metabolic chamber, so nobody can really assess their calorie accuracy. You don't need great accuracy to lose weight anyway, so this isn't really a feature you should try to base your decision on. People are happy with both. Get the one that has the features and style you like.

Yes, I know they are guesses. Maybe it would make sense to explain where I'm coming from. I currently own a pebble smartwatch that syncs to google fit, which then syncs to MFP. I find that it often thinks I walked my commute to work (40 kms!) or that I jogged when I didn't, things like that. I'm not expecting 100% accuracy but something that's close enough for purposes of weight loss.

coderdan82

RunnerGrl1982 wrote: »

I own a Vivoactive 3. I love it. I find the individual exercise activities log the calories pretty accurately, however the daily calorie expenditure is way off. So in other words, when recording an actual exercise activity, the Garmin is on point, but I would recommend ignoring all other calorie daily calculated activity it records throughout the day with regards to anything outside of that. The pedometer is pretty accurate as well in my opinion once it's been calibrated to your walking gait.

I've never had an issue with syncing, and it works really well with Garmin IMO, but I don't know if others have had issues.

I've only used the run, walk, swim, and indoor cycling apps within Garmin. They all have worked fine for me. I don't have the knowledge to speak of any other activities the watch can record. But I've had a positive experience so far with the Vivoactive 3.

Best of luck with your decision! I hear the Fitbit also has it's benefits as well that hold up to a Garmin, so I feel it's all in individual preference in what you want to get out of your fitness tracker.

Thanks, this is just the type of info I was looking for. So can you turn off the daily calorie sync with MFP while syncing individual activities?

RunnerGrl1982

coderdan82 wrote: »

RunnerGrl1982 wrote: »

I own a Vivoactive 3. I love it. I find the individual exercise activities log the calories pretty accurately, however the daily calorie expenditure is way off. So in other words, when recording an actual exercise activity, the Garmin is on point, but I would recommend ignoring all other calorie daily calculated activity it records throughout the day with regards to anything outside of that. The pedometer is pretty accurate as well in my opinion once it's been calibrated to your walking gait.

I've never had an issue with syncing, and it works really well with Garmin IMO, but I don't know if others have had issues.

I've only used the run, walk, swim, and indoor cycling apps within Garmin. They all have worked fine for me. I don't have the knowledge to speak of any other activities the watch can record. But I've had a positive experience so far with the Vivoactive 3.

Best of luck with your decision! I hear the Fitbit also has it's benefits as well that hold up to a Garmin, so I feel it's all in individual preference in what you want to get out of your fitness tracker.

Thanks, this is just the type of info I was looking for. So can you turn off the daily calorie sync with MFP while syncing individual activities?

So, for me personally, I have turned off the syncing the daily step count on MFP. I only have MFP and Garmin sync my recorded exercise activities, everything else I base within a normal day's activity so it doesn't need to be logged or reflected within my calories, just the exercise. I hope that makes sense!

coderdan82

RunnerGrl1982 wrote: »

coderdan82 wrote: »

RunnerGrl1982 wrote: »

I own a Vivoactive 3. I love it. I find the individual exercise activities log the calories pretty accurately, however the daily calorie expenditure is way off. So in other words, when recording an actual exercise activity, the Garmin is on point, but I would recommend ignoring all other calorie daily calculated activity it records throughout the day with regards to anything outside of that. The pedometer is pretty accurate as well in my opinion once it's been calibrated to your walking gait.

I've never had an issue with syncing, and it works really well with Garmin IMO, but I don't know if others have had issues.

I've only used the run, walk, swim, and indoor cycling apps within Garmin. They all have worked fine for me. I don't have the knowledge to speak of any other activities the watch can record. But I've had a positive experience so far with the Vivoactive 3.

Best of luck with your decision! I hear the Fitbit also has it's benefits as well that hold up to a Garmin, so I feel it's all in individual preference in what you want to get out of your fitness tracker.

Thanks, this is just the type of info I was looking for. So can you turn off the daily calorie sync with MFP while syncing individual activities?

So, for me personally, I have turned off the syncing the daily step count on MFP. I only have MFP and Garmin sync my recorded exercise activities, everything else I base within a normal day's activity so it doesn't need to be logged or reflected within my calories, just the exercise. I hope that makes sense!

Yup, makes sense. Thanks!

Duck_Puddle

coderdan82 wrote: »

NorthCascades wrote: »

They're both guesses, based on formulas not real insight into what going on inside you. None of us live in a metabolic chamber, so nobody can really assess their calorie accuracy. You don't need great accuracy to lose weight anyway, so this isn't really a feature you should try to base your decision on. People are happy with both. Get the one that has the features and style you like.

Yes, I know they are guesses. Maybe it would make sense to explain where I'm coming from. I currently own a pebble smartwatch that syncs to google fit, which then syncs to MFP. I find that it often thinks I walked my commute to work (40 kms!) or that I jogged when I didn't, things like that. I'm not expecting 100% accuracy but something that's close enough for purposes of weight loss.

If you have any expectations about the fitbit since they purchased Pebble (and one would assume they did so to leverage the pebble technology), I would encourage you to search the fitbit Versa forums for comments/thread RE: pebble vs fitbit.

I have had many Fitbit’s (including a Versa) and many Garmins (I had a VAHR, but not a VA3). I also have a number of other brands/models of trackers.

They all produce results that are reasonably consistent with any online calculators that estimate the same. So they are no more or less accurate from that standpoint. They are perhaps more accurate in that I can claim I did a vigorous heavy bag workout-but the watch will at least realize that I only hit the bag 7 times and maybe it wasn’t really as vigorous as I thought.

For overall calorie estimates, I have found all of the devices to be a reasonable estimate given they are relatively inexpensive consumer devices. And they are consistent-so it’s easy to make adjustment if necessary.

Ultimately, as @NorthCascades said, it comes down to which had the better feature set for what you need and which has a better (to you) look. I do the same activities you do (although in reverse-I’ll take outside anything as a preference). Both my Fitbit and Garmin do fine for all of them without anything too whacky.

NorthCascades

coderdan82 wrote: »

NorthCascades wrote: »

They're both guesses, based on formulas not real insight into what going on inside you. None of us live in a metabolic chamber, so nobody can really assess their calorie accuracy. You don't need great accuracy to lose weight anyway, so this isn't really a feature you should try to base your decision on. People are happy with both. Get the one that has the features and style you like.

Yes, I know they are guesses. Maybe it would make sense to explain where I'm coming from. I currently own a pebble smartwatch that syncs to google fit, which then syncs to MFP. I find that it often thinks I walked my commute to work (40 kms!) or that I jogged when I didn't, things like that. I'm not expecting 100% accuracy but something that's close enough for purposes of weight loss.

Really either one will make you happy. The Fitbits have a better social experience, you probably already know people with Fitbits and can challenge them etc. I've heard their app got really good since I had mine. Garmin's strengths are longevity and the data they record. For runners, you get a breakdown of how much time you spent on each foot and what the cost benefit ratio is of how high you bounce vs how far you stride. In the gym it will try to guess what lifts you're doing and keep a log for you. I don't know whether the one you're looking at has turn by turn directions or not, that's useful on a bike.

Here's an example of what an (outdoor) activity looks like on the Garmin platform:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/3052822384

Duck_Puddle

NorthCascades wrote: »

coderdan82 wrote: »

NorthCascades wrote: »

They're both guesses, based on formulas not real insight into what going on inside you. None of us live in a metabolic chamber, so nobody can really assess their calorie accuracy. You don't need great accuracy to lose weight anyway, so this isn't really a feature you should try to base your decision on. People are happy with both. Get the one that has the features and style you like.

Yes, I know they are guesses. Maybe it would make sense to explain where I'm coming from. I currently own a pebble smartwatch that syncs to google fit, which then syncs to MFP. I find that it often thinks I walked my commute to work (40 kms!) or that I jogged when I didn't, things like that. I'm not expecting 100% accuracy but something that's close enough for purposes of weight loss.

Really either one will make you happy. The Fitbits have a better social experience, you probably already know people with Fitbits and can challenge them etc. I've heard their app got really good since I had mine. Garmin's strengths are longevity and the data they record. For runners, you get a breakdown of how much time you spent on each foot and what the cost benefit ratio is of how high you bounce vs how far you stride. In the gym it will try to guess what lifts you're doing and keep a log for you. I don't know whether the one you're looking at has turn by turn directions or not, that's useful on a bike.

Here's an example of what an (outdoor) activity looks like on the Garmin platform:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/3052822384

All true-assuming you have the sensors connected to produce that data and/or your watch includes that lol.

My outdoor rides look quite a bit different (my power meter doesn’t provide about 80% of the data yours does) and the Garmin running dynamics are dependent on which HRm you have. I’m also not sure how extensively the VA series connects to sensors (the VAHR was limited).

But all that aside-the fitbit will never provide that kind of data no matter what. But not everyone wants or needs that.

Also-that’s one heck of a ride.

AnnPT77

My VA3 calories are incorrect by about the same (big) percentage that any NEAT/TDEE calculator tends to be incorrect for me. The algorithms probably all draw on the same research, and they're algorithms, not oracles. If the NEAT/TDEE calculators tend to be in the ballpark for you, or other fitness tracking devices have been in the ballpark, I'd predict that any good quality device (like Fitbit or Garmin, not Joe's Garage or whatever) will do OK.

I don't know about sync-ing Garmin to MFP because I don't - it's not close enough to real for me. I like my VA3, it gives me some interesting training data that's close enough to accurate to be useful to me, but for me the calories are just silly wrong. I think that's a problem with me, not a problem with the device.

Stellamom2018

I have a fitbit versa and really like it. I do not have it sync over to mfp, I manually enter 50% of my exercise burns into mfp. My versa syncs my texts, detects exercises even when i dont remember to start an activity. I've lost 40 lbs now, so I feel like it must be pretty accurate.

It's also waterproof which is awesome for giving kids baths and the lake in the summer. I also like changing my band color and it's easy to use.

coderdan82

Looks like they're pretty evenly matched so I'll probably go with the Versa since it's cheaper. Thank you to everyone that replied.