Apple Watch or Fitbit Charge 3? Help!

Options
2»

Replies

  • chizzel1978
    chizzel1978 Posts: 7 Member
    Options
    I've gone with the Samsung galaxy watch. You can swim with it and its pretty accurate. Im guessing you're a iPhone owner though lol
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,668 Member
    Options
    Re Fitbit: No paywall that I have seen in terms of sleep tracking. No paywall in terms of extracting cumulative data off site either, at least as far as I've seen.

    Re Accuracy: There is no way for us to practically measure the incremental accuracy of one device over the other in terms of their estimation of calories burned for the day.

    The apparent accuracy depends a lot on how closely your body matches the population means all these devices use for their estimates. And on how correctly you are able to track your caloric INTAKE and weight change as well as to how your body composition is changingwhile you're doing all that.

    However lack of absolute accuracy does not stop any of these devices from providing useful and actionable data as you can adjust based on your results over time.

    Fitbit is currently (July 2019) SLIGHTLY better integrated with MFP. The Apple watch provides more functions. Both are fairly mature devices with the ability to provide most users with consistent results that they can use to take action.
  • StatChicBayes
    StatChicBayes Posts: 361 Member
    Options
    I have an Apple Watch (4) and love it - it does a lot more than just track so the extra features are worth it for me. I now leave my phone in the locker at the gym as I can play music on my AirPods with it, download workouts to it (gymholic) and use that to update weight training on the fly, in addition to tracking other exercises. I am not so worried about getting an exact calorie expenditure, so can't attest to how accurate it is, but the relative changes in active calories, resting calories, have been useful and seem pretty close in terms of trends for predicting my weight loss.

    The only time that it was way off was when I went horseback riding (on a trail) and it counted that towards my steps! I use Zones now so that has additional fitness activities beyond what is in the Apple exercise app.

    Do go and see one at the Apple store or find someone who has one.
  • StatChicBayes
    StatChicBayes Posts: 361 Member
    Options
    This might be of interest https://www.lifewire.com/apple-watch-vs-fitbit-156684- The last part of the article is not completely correct as there are Apple Watch Challenges if you are interested in the social aspect.
  • jessienz2010
    jessienz2010 Posts: 3 Member
    Options
    I had 4 fitbits and then I discovered the samsung galaxy watch. Such a good looking watch & the step counts are very accurate. Fitbit has a lot of accidental steps. I will never get another fitbit - love the galaxy watch as it isnt just a fitness tracker. It has a great MFP app too
  • Cahgetsfit
    Cahgetsfit Posts: 1,912 Member
    Options
    I was having the same dilema and ended up going with the Charge 3 because of 2 things - swimming and size.

    It's smaller than apple watch and my wrist is small so Apple watch looks like a big square thing on there.

    In terms of accuracy - it's OK. but not when i'm driving my manual transmission Jeep - then it thinks i'm riding a bike. I have removed the "auto detect outdoor bike" function but it still gives me steps for driving. I change gears with my left hand (australia) so even though it's my non-dominant hand normally, when I drive it does count it as steps. The forum said to take it off and stick it down your top when driving, but I can't be bothered doing that, I just don't believe the count at the end of the day when I do excessive driving (like hours, not just 10 mins to go up to the shops and back).

    The sleep function is OK too.

    Overall, I'm satisfied with it.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,668 Member
    edited July 2019
    Options
    Cahgetsfit wrote: »
    I was having the same dilema and ended up going with the Charge 3 because of 2 things - swimming and size.

    It's smaller than apple watch and my wrist is small so Apple watch looks like a big square thing on there.

    In terms of accuracy - it's OK. but not when i'm driving my manual transmission Jeep - then it thinks i'm riding a bike. I have removed the "auto detect outdoor bike" function but it still gives me steps for driving. I change gears with my left hand (australia) so even though it's my non-dominant hand normally, when I drive it does count it as steps. The forum said to take it off and stick it down your top when driving, but I can't be bothered doing that, I just don't believe the count at the end of the day when I do excessive driving (like hours, not just 10 mins to go up to the shops and back).

    The sleep function is OK too.

    Overall, I'm satisfied with it.

    You can create a custom activity and force zero steps in the fitbit app during the time you were driving.

    Having said that: driving consumes slightly more energy than lying in bed doing nothing.

    Fitbit gives you 1x BMR during any time it doesn't detect any activity. While you're driving you're somewhere between 1.3 and 2.5 Furthermore it averages the activity it detects over 5 minutes and issues a single activity factor for the 5 minute time period based on the detections. In other words the extra calories (and steps) you get during driving are not that excessive most of the time.

Categories