Fitness trackers

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shw112
shw112 Posts: 60 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Got myself a cheap wearable fitbess tracker recently (about £20) because I really didn’t fancy spending £100+ on a fitbit, and the disparities between that and the pedometer on my phone are insane! for example this morning I went for a run (about 30 mins)- my phone says I went 3 miles, the tracker says I went 1.5!! I would expect a bit of a difference but that is literally half as far! The calorie count is just over half too. Which should I trust??? Does it sound like I should return the tracker?

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  • rachelspande
    rachelspande Posts: 1 Member
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    I have bought the cheep ones, and it never worked out for me. I always returned the it, they didn’t work well or they do last. I have now had my Apple Watch for 2 years, so worth it.
  • wannabeskinnycat
    wannabeskinnycat Posts: 205 Member
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    I wear a Fitbit blaze that’s at least 2 years old and I love it. Yeah it counts my steps but I also know my average resting heart rate has reduced from 85 to 72 in the last 30 days. I can see messages, emails, notifications and calls synced from my phone.

    I’ve set daily goals for various things and they definitely motivate me to achieve and keep the trend going.

    I bought it for my daughter but she gave it to me when she got an Apple Watch. They’re on eBay for decent prices.

    They’re definitely worth the investment.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    edited May 2019
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    Not all activity trackers are good at tracking. I’ve even had some from Jawbone and Misfit that would only pick up 60-80 steps for every 100 steps taken. Over the course of a day that adds up to a lot of missed steps.

    Try doing a step test. Walk 100 steps and see if the tracker picked them all up.

    Maybe look into a Garmin. On amazon.uk I see:

    Garmin Vivosmart 3: 59.95
    Garmin Vivofit 3: 49.99

    Fitbit Inspire: 69.99
  • fr33sia12
    fr33sia12 Posts: 1,258 Member
    edited May 2019
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    I had a Fitbit and wore it at my desk job. Every time I moved my arm from my computer to my phone it registered that as a step. Even expensive gadgets can be wrong.
    I now use map my walk app on my phone which uses time and distance and maps out my route I walk instead.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    Assuming the phone used GPS got distance and the tracker counted steps and guessed at stride length, the phone would obviously be closer to the truth.
  • yasiral
    yasiral Posts: 133 Member
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    fr33sia12 wrote: »
    I had a Fitbit and wore it at my desk job. Every time I moved my arm from my computer to my phone it registered that as a step. Even expensive gadgets can be wrong.
    I now use map my walk app on my phone which uses time and distance and maps out my route I walk instead.

    Maybe you had a faulty one. I have one for last 4 years and it is pretty accurate. And it does not register just the movement of arm as a step.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    shw112 wrote: »
    Got myself a cheap wearable fitbess tracker recently (about £20) because I really didn’t fancy spending £100+ on a fitbit, and the disparities between that and the pedometer on my phone are insane! for example this morning I went for a run (about 30 mins)- my phone says I went 3 miles, the tracker says I went 1.5!! I would expect a bit of a difference but that is literally half as far! The calorie count is just over half too. Which should I trust??? Does it sound like I should return the tracker?

    I would assume your phone is using GPS to track distance...your tracker surely is not.
  • HoneyBadger302
    HoneyBadger302 Posts: 1,974 Member
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    I got a MiFit (not the newest version) for pretty reasonable and it has seemed fairly accurate. I only use it to track steps, I'm not sure how accurate the other information is.
  • jaymijones
    jaymijones Posts: 171 Member
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    yasiral wrote: »
    fr33sia12 wrote: »
    I had a Fitbit and wore it at my desk job. Every time I moved my arm from my computer to my phone it registered that as a step. Even expensive gadgets can be wrong.
    I now use map my walk app on my phone which uses time and distance and maps out my route I walk instead.

    Maybe you had a faulty one. I have one for last 4 years and it is pretty accurate. And it does not register just the movement of arm as a step.

    I used a Fitbit for a collective 3 years. Overall it seemed pretty accurate. However both models I had counted folding laundry as steps. I think my Apple Watch does it too. That doesn’t actually bother me at all, but I could see it bothering someone else.
  • shw112
    shw112 Posts: 60 Member
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    Yeah I figured the distance on my phone must be more accurate due to GPS- it’s a little odd that the calorie burn on the tracker is also so much lower though, seeing as it is apparently tracking my heart rate, but who knows 🤷‍♀️
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
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    shw112 wrote: »
    Yeah I figured the distance on my phone must be more accurate due to GPS- it’s a little odd that the calorie burn on the tracker is also so much lower though, seeing as it is apparently tracking my heart rate, but who knows 🤷‍♀️

    Just because it can check your HR doesn’t mean it actually uses it in the calculation. I have a cheap one that only cost me $3 that I bought for curiosity. It can monitor HR, but doesn’t use it for it’s calorie burn calculation.

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