My impressions so far of Apple Watch Vs Fitbit

SummerSkier

This group seems very quiet so I thought I would start a discussion. I have used the Fitbit HR pretty continuously since mid 2017 but the news they were bought out by Google and also the fact I am pretty much an Apple gadget gal let me to procure my first Apple Watch at the end of Dec. I have had it a little over a week now.

First of all I absolutely LOVE the watch. And the function to ping your phone? priceless. LOL. But I have to say that as a weightloss or fitness tool, so far I think the fitbit is superior because it monitors your heart rate in real time vs the watch which seems to take sporadic readings even when you have the workout setting on. This may just be that it is taking some time to "learn" me as over the past week the effort readings between my fitbit and watch on my runs have been a LOT closer. (yes I am a geek so currently still using both). Fitbit also seems to monitor sleep where as the watch does not.

Fitbit seems to overstate my calorie burn and Apple watch seems to understate it. Interesting.

Anyway there are so many features on the watch I am still learning......

SummerSkier

Oh. Adore being able to leave my phone home while working out too!!! 😍😍👍👍

Spencerport

Apple Watch will take a heart rate reading every 10 minutes when not running an exercise. However the Apple Watch will track your heart rate continuously during an exercise when you start one via the Activity app on the Apple Watch.

Apple recommends a 20min outdoor walk to help calibrate the watch, may help accelerate your watch learning you.

Sleep tracking can be done on the Apple Watch with an app such as Pillow, however you will need to find time to charge your watch before wearing it to bed.

SummerSkier

thanks Spencer! Yeah I still see quite a variance between the heart rates but I do think that Apple Watch matches my TDEE pretty exactly (resting and active combined) which is interesting as fitbit definitely overstates how much it thinks my TDEE is.

kimcwinsor

I really enjoy using my apple watch with MFP and doing challenges to keep myself going. If anyone is interested in being Apple Watch friends, private message me. My personal goal is to close my rings at least once daily, normally accomplished by a gym visit or good walk outside weather permitting. 45 pounds down and about that much to go.

SummerSkier

Congrats on your loss so far Kim. I am not much into challenges but each of us has to find out own motivations. Right now I find it interesting that the heart rate on my fitbit vs the heart rate on my apple watch are so different. I mean by sometimes as much as 20 points on a run. But who knows. They take the heart rate with different algorhythms I think. Since fitbit over estimates my daily requirements and Apple seems spot on I tend to think perhaps the Apple is more correct?

kimcwinsor

It seems pretty close to what the treadmill tells me I burn and heart rate wise too so I think you are right.

SummerSkier

Ok - so today I was walking around the house and tripped over a box. and fell. My watch alerted! How cool is that. I was ok so I told it no you don't need to call 911 thank you. But I was very impressed that just a simple stumble and fall triggered the emergency ap. Wow. I just keep getting more and more impressed with this gadget.

SummerSkier

ps - I can't believe there are over 500 members in this group and only maybe 3 people active including me. hahahaha.

BonnieHosk85

Hi everyone, was just gifted a series 3 watch by a friend who upgraded to a series 5. I've closed all my circles since my first day (Tuesday) and today my battery died 1/2 way through the day. Is there a way to add steps to your watch? Not sure why it bugs me to have lost so many steps but it does.

SummerSkier

BonnieHosk85 wrote: »

Hi everyone, was just gifted a series 3 watch by a friend who upgraded to a series 5. I've closed all my circles since my first day (Tuesday) and today my battery died 1/2 way through the day. Is there a way to add steps to your watch? Not sure why it bugs me to have lost so many steps but it does.

Hi Bonnie, I honestly am not sure. Are you using a step counter like pacer or something like that. One way might be to manually add an exercise somewhere else which shows the steps and cals. I think with my fitbit you could do that on the website. Maybe you can on your phone for your watch too?

BonnieHosk85

Thanks, @SummerSkier. I'll try that. Appreciate your response!

JannaD2

I am on Day One of my new Apple Watch series 3 after using Fitbit for many years beginning with the Fitbit ONE. I got a Versa 2 for Christmas but had so many syncing problems that I returned it and got an AW because of the good deal on the Series 3 right now. I really wanted to love the Versa. I still have an Aria 2 scale, so I have the Fitbit app that should pull the weight data over to MFP still. I set up the AW to put steps into the health app and should pull into MFP. I'm assuming that if I do any other exercise activities, I will have to start that activity on the Workout app on the Apple Watch. I'm assuming I don't have to start the Workout app for just step tracking, right? I really love the Apple Watch so far, but it is definitely a learning curve on the fitness side of things since Fitbit was just simple and in one place. I used AutoSleep app last night for sleep tracking and that seemed to work well. I hope to use it every night, but it depends on how long my battery lasts! If anyone has any advice for me on getting all these apps to work seamlessly, please let me know. I generally used my Fitbit for sleep tracking, counting daily step goals, but I would like to start working out with activities. Thank you!

SummerSkier

how is it going Janna? All sorted by day 2? I have a newer model so not sure I can advise you on your questions. Plus it seems like my watch is "learning" me. I am on day 25

JannaD2

I'm still trying to figure things out in a way that works for me. Usually, when I walk 10,000 steps, I get a calorie burn of 250 or so in Fitbit, but Apple Watch says I burned 52. So, I'm just not sure how to adjust or not. I really, really love the Apple Watch for all the other stuff it can do, but I do wish all the Fitness stuff was in one app like Fitbit. I do miss that. I did see that there is an app that will backwards sync your Apple Health data into the Fitbit app (and then I guess MyFitnessPal would pull from that). It might be a work around. But now that I have an Apple Watch, I'd prefer to just move ahead and not try to go backwards with Fitbit.

SummerSkier

I think you have to use a third party app called pacer to talk to Apple. Then pacer talks to MFP. Do a forum search for exact instructions. I use the TDEE method to maintain so I am not stuck on MFP adding exercise or step cals for me. The Apple watch really has my TDEE nailed after 1 month. Pretty cool. Fitbit always overestimated.

SummerSkier

So I got a new band this week. One of those sport not Velcro but similar kind. It is a ton better than the metal one and holds the watch a lot more secure for my runs. Which I read is why sometimes the hr can be off if it’s not tight. Anyway the readings are still vastly different from Fitbit to watch mostly hr related. If I hadn’t done a bunch of garmin chest strap verification a few years back I would find the watch more believable as I would like to think my avg hr was not in the mid 160s. Just interesting data. The watch tracks my TDEE very closely after a month. I still like the Fitbit for some of the other data points tho. Lol. Wearing both. Hey. I got 2 wrists right?

SummerSkier

Finally did a sleep comparison of the two. Pretty interesting. Honestly the biggest problem is when to charge the watch.... sigh. I usually run for an hour in the am which takes it from 100 to 70 or lower. Then I can charge it back up while I shower a few points but unless I charge it again in the evening before bed it doesn't have enough juice left to wear overnight. I also somehow changed a face in my sleep. ROTFLOL....

SummerSkier

Today was also enlightening. It was so warm here that I was able to run without sleeves or jacket. Apparently the watch REALLY likes to be free. It was so much closer in time and everything else to the fitbit. I think with the sleeve over it the GPS and HR have trouble. Just a thought.....

mariekenji

I love my apple watch, I came from using fitbits all the time but so many glithes with connecting and syncing them on here and everytime there was an update there would be issues. I haven't had any issues with my AW series 3, i have a lot of the features turned off so mine does last about 2 days which makes me happy since i mainly want it for the fitness features and phone calls. I use autosleep to track my sleeping and i use duffy to synce and show my steps on my watch face.

SummerSkier

The visibility of the Apple Watch is also 100% better than the fitbit or even my Iphone when I am out running. I just wish the #s on the rings were a bit larger. I still think it should hold a charge a bit better. Probaby my music running so much is the root of the issue with that.

SummerSkier

Another tidbit I learned this past week was that having the watch on my right wrist appears to keep the accidental pausing of workouts away. Since I am left handed once I put the fitbit off I moved the watch over to my right hand. Now when my sleeve is returned after I check it during a workout it does not accidently swipe it to pause or stop tab.

SummerSkier

so yesterday I decided to take my phone with me to take some photos of all the spring trees and flowers around. Since I have been using the Apple watch to track my runs I decided for a change to use Map My RUn from my phone. So it started out well with the Watch showing the phone ap also and the voice with splits etc coming thru my ear buds. Everything tracked perfectly until I stopped at about the 3 mile mark to take a photo of a apple tree blooming. I paused my phone to take the picture but the watch got VERY confused by that and kept going for a little while. Then when I paused it my phone paused again and now I was hosed and had to stop the ap and restart again. SO, not sure if pausing it on the watch would have been better or whether I would need to pause on both. Anyway. Failed experiment. But interesting.

countrycoffeequeen

Love my apple watch and new to myfitnesspal and am wondering how do i get it to track my workouts on here?

SummerSkier

countrycoffeequeen wrote: »

Love my apple watch and new to myfitnesspal and am wondering how do i get it to track my workouts on here?

go into the applications portion of MFP and link to Apple health I think Also do a search of the forums

GBO323

countrycoffeequeen wrote: »

Love my apple watch and new to myfitnesspal and am wondering how do i get it to track my workouts on here?

Use the Workouts app on the watch and it *should* feed back into MFP. While it may title it differently, the data should be accurate.

GBO323

I was a FitBit user since the Zip and I really liked their ecosystem. What began to be a pain was when the sync between MFP and FitBit goes down and one blames the other, etc. Got an AW3 a couple years ago and love it...however, found that MFP really doesn't sync it right so I moved to another tracking app. The features of the AW really surpass the FitBit and once I learned how to look at the numbers, found it really was more accurate than FitBit.

SummerSkier

So I decided to do a new TDEE chart this next couple of months. It will be interesting to see how closely the watch tracks. I think it will be better than fitbit for sure. I haven't done one since 2017 when I was losing weight and then it gave me 1850/day. I have been running more distance since then but with the Covid19 thing I am working remotely so definitely NOT getting as much activity in general. And of course I am 3 years older.

Talan79

I had a Fitbit Flex 2 since August of 2018 and got an Apple Watch early March. I didn’t like the 3rd party sleep apps so I started wearing my Flex for sleep analysis.
I decided to wear both on my left wrist for one week and track data. On average, AW gave me 1,300 more steps a day, and roughly 85 more calories towards TDEE. I do a home weight routine and run. Assuming that the heart rate is a factor for the additional calories.
When outdoor running or walking, Fitbit would clock me in at a mile when Apple Watch had me at .95, and it stayed consistent for the duration of 5 miles.

SummerSkier

thanks Talan. It is interesting to me that my runs DO seem slower using the Apple watch than when I used the fitbit but I attributed that more to them updating the GPS late last year about the same tine I got my watch.

Fitbit I think had me about 300-400 too high for TDEE. I do think it is more accurate on heart rate tho. Even tho I tell my Watch to monitor my HR during workouts sometimes it just gets stuck. Do you know what it means when you get the heart with the "c" in the middle. Calibrating maybe? I tried google search on it but couldn't find an answer. Since my heart rate fluctuates fairly quickly up and down it is annoying to see my watch telling me it is 89 bpm when I am sprinting and fitbit would give me 160 or more.

Talan79

I haven’t noticed a c during heart rate on AW.
I just went backed and looked and didn’t seem to have experienced that.
One thing tho with Fitbit calculating 1 mile when Apple Watch is at .95, I think it has to do with the stride length in Fitbit. I’m short, 5”2, but I walk very fast. During my long distance walks, my average pace is in the 14 min range, sometimes even 13 range. My Fitbit didn’t calculate HR so I don’t have anything to compare to. But my TDEE is pretty close bn the two devices.