Wearable tech..what ya got 'an what ya think

LoupGarou63

So do you have fitbit, fuelbands, gps, pedometers or smartphone apps.
Ever linked MFP and Endomondo...????

Lets expand what do you think...???
How do you use this stuff...d'you think its any good..worth the effort...???

icimani

I have the Fitbit One.

To be honest, within about 2 weeks I was ready to return it. I'd heard people saying how motivating it was, that it made them work harder to get to that magical 10K steps a day. For me? Not so much. Which is strange because I tend to be fairly competitive and have been known to stay up into the wee hours of the morning to beat my own score in some video games.

But I stuck it out and I've found it to be useful.

I don't use it to get my TDEE or to count calories, I don't eat back my exercise calories, so I don't link it to MFP.

What it does do for me is keep me mindful, and that's huge for me. I don't get obsessive about reaching the magical 10K steps number but if I get lazy and don't want to go the the gym I check in with the Fitbit and if I've gone 8K steps I feel like I can take a day off. But if I've only gone 5K steps then I need to get my butt to the gym.

So, for me, it's not so much as a motivator but way to keep track of my daily activity level.

I use a Polar FT4 heart rate monitor when I do intentional cardio exercise, and I also use a simple iPhone app as a pedometer.

LoupGarou63

Thanks for posting....
I had a Nike+ fuelband on the plus side it looks neat.
I had the black one looked cool...the clasp broke in the first 6 weeks, but Nike sent a selection right away by post.
Nikefuel seems like a nice guide to ones activity level at work or at play. It also counted steps, miles and calories burned.
I had a challenge going based on miles that was going great....until nike changed the software and dropped the miles in favor of active time above a certain level. Fine for me but not if your challenge is in miles built up from different devices for different people.

Any old who The button stopped operating after about 3 months...again I popped to the store....they just took it back with a smile and gave me a voucher for the new model.

I am on hold at the mo with that...because it seems to me that there might never be an android app for the fuelband.
So lucky if you are an iphone user.:happy:

leopardjunkie

I am currently using the Fitbit one. (started out with the original but ti broke then got an ultra and it broke) but customer service was great

I like the one it keeps me motivated and i like being able to see how active my friends are, the size is way better than your $10 pedometer at target, and it syncs with my phone and MFP.

I also use a 60beat blue HRM and have my Fitbit and HRM linked to digifit and it does all the calculating for me

I also use the sleep monitoring

flumi_f

All the apps and machines completely overestimate my cardio burns. I used to have a polar M50 hrm, but it died after many years. Now I have a Garmin Forerunner 410 watch with GPS. I use it for all cardio exercise and keep it on in the gym, when my cardio is followed by strength exercises. It's probably not as accurate then because my puls is under 100 then. I like the GPS because I can see where I ran, how far and how many altitude meters I took. I live in hilly terrain, so my runs are seldom flat. That makes me feel better about my slow speed ;-).

I link it with Garmin Connect. I tried linking it to runtastic and linked my runtastic to MFP. Garmin-MFP doesn't link directly. But with each link my burned cals were corrected upwards??? Thus i had to correct them manually on MFP and in Runtastic. Before I had the hrm I used the Runtastic app on my phone. It used alot of electricity and the GPS connection was lost regularly (I run in the forest alot).

I don't have anything to count my TDEE. I just calculated it on an online calculator and set it to lightly active. I then just log my exercise (running, swimming, biking, strength) and not all the other things I do ( work, tai chi, riding, short walks etc.). It seems to work for me.

Katkamm77

I have a Fitbit One. It doesn't motivate me. It's only benefit for me is to keep track of my mobility. When it tells me that I'm almost there, that I only have 900 steps to go to reach my goal, I don't get up and do those 900 steps. I just want to know where I'm at. It keeps me accountable. Would I buy it again? Nope.
I have a Polar RS 100 HRM. It's much more useful to me than the Fitbit.

LoupGarou63

I am guessing you have an iphone...

LoupGarou63

That last comment was aimed at leopardjunkie...
Which was....do you have an iphone..??

PinkNinjaLaura

I have the Fitbit Flex, the Garmin Forerunner 210 GPS watch & HRM chest strap, and I use the Endomondo app. I have Fitbit & Endomondo both linked to MFP.

I've been using Fitbit for about a year and a half. When I first got it I wasn't super active so it was motivating for me to get to those 10K steps. When I started running I used the C25K app originally, then when I "graduated" from that I moved to Endomondo. When I realized I wanted to keep running I bought the Garmin, which has more accurate GPS and I like being able to see my distance, pace & time at a glance (my phone is usually stuck in my pocket). I still usually have Endomondo running anyway because I've got the headphones in on my phone anyway so I might as well have it tell me how far I've gone. The GPS is close enough to the Garmin to at least give me a ballpark (it was just off .05 miles on my 5 mile run yesterday - sometimes it's closer to .10/mi.).

monisiaczeq

I have a polar watch.. Absolutely adore it. Great for measuring my heart rate and gives me a
More accurate idea of my calories burnt. Plus because it looks cool it encourages me to work out
More often. :-) very happy with it, just wish there was
A way to sync MFP and older models of the polar watches together! Haha

jrbb03092

I have the fitbit one and I've found it keeps me very motivated. Have had it since March and was very sedentary (a large number of days where I was barely cracking 3K steps) and now I hit 10-12K usually 5 out of 7 days and sometimes better than that. I actually had a huge stretch (three months) where I hit 15K daily but then I injured myself doing a Jillian Michaels DVD *facepalms* and I've never quite got back up there. But I like getting my family out for huge walks on the weekend and since they know they've taken roughly the same steps as me we try to get 20K, or 25K and one time we hit 30K.

RunBrew

I use Endomondo Pro on my iPhone 4s, and a Timex T5G971 'Personal Fitness Trainer' HRM.

I really like the Endomondo app, it tracks all the nerd-metrics I want. I really like the idea of the built-in training plan even though don't actually use it.
I kind of like that it's synched with MFP, but since my HRM is standalone, I have to run, then stop the workout, then go inside to the internet and edit the workout from the website to input the watch-recorded AVG HR and Max HR. By that time, Endomondo has already uploaded the calories to MFP. For some reason, when I input the HR data into Endomondo it increases the calorie estimation by typically 20% or more. Since I'm a big boy and can decide for myself how much of the calories to eat back, I'd rather the counts be accurate by waiting for me to 'release' the data from Endomondo to MFP. Ormaybe a simpler edit mode accessible from the App.
It's pretty frustrating for Endomondo to estimate 500 cals burned, then jump to 650+ when I tell it my avg HR was 170, and then my actual HRM saying I burned 700.

Which brings me to the HRM.
It's a cheap one I got from Amazon, on sale for like $30, normally $70(?)
It can be a little finicky to get paired up, particularly if the chest strap isn't wet. Licking it isn't usually enough, I gotta run it under the faucet, and it's usually stuck at either 50 or 63 BPM for about the first 30-60 seconds of my run, but it sorts it self out and reads normally pretty soon.
I do like that the watch has:
a clock, with date, and can be accessed during a workout with a single button-press
an indiglo backlight

it records and keeps on record the last workout stats:
Total time recording HR
Time spent in a user-defined HR zone
avg HR from workout
Max HR achieved during workout
Calories burned
It has a function that will track HR 'recovery' where you push the button and measures how much your HR slowed in 60 sec.

The set-up parameters are kind of overly simple, which I'm not thrilled with:
weight (lb or kg)
known max HR
Lower tng zone
Upper tng zone
show HR in actual BPM, or % of known max
beep when out of target zone or silent.

sadly, it doesn't ask age or gender, so I think cal count may be inaccurate in some cases.

The setup works alright for me. I wanted a bluetooth HRM that would track HR on my phone and integrate it into Endomondo, but I never pulled the trigger due to price, availability, and other factors. at least this way if I stop using a HRM or it breaks, I'm out like $29.

Laura3BB

I have a fitbit - it took me a while to get a feeling for it but now I quite like it, it does motivate me to walk more. I have set it at 5000 steps because 10,000 was difficult to do on work days given my sedentary job.
It's linked to MFP and I often eat back half the calories even though I think it grossly overestimates burns.

I also have an HRM linked to an old model Polar watch and I put that no for intentional exercise - I find my burns are around half what MFP would propose me given my exercise duration...so that's useful. I do manual corrections since they're not linked.

sloane70

I have a Jawbone UP band, which seems to have a bad rep. But, from my goal of looking at my fitness and wellness from a holistic perspective, it's really helpful, and I can look at trends between mood, sleep, food, and exercise - which has allowed me to realize how much it does to my body when I splurge on something really sugary (it really affects both my food cravings and my mood the next day!). I like that it lets me count steps, and I can import weight training and cardio into it. Also, it's really minimalist, so I wear it 24/7 - the bigger ones would just not work well for me.

LoupGarou63

Flumi.....the tech is there right now to give us exactly what we need...
..but for some reason developers are slow off the mark. A lot of smartphones have bluetooth 4 but until android 4.3 is rolled out across the mobile networks... bluetooth 4 devices will not connect to activity monitors hrm etc...

However iphone users do not have this problem.

In an ideal world...I would like something like a fuelband for 24/7 activity monitoring. Then a gps to measure walk/run/bike workouts...and map. Tie that in with a bike computer. Hrm...
The important thing some intelligent software to know which gadgets are in use and how best to cimbine them.
I mean it's all doable right now. If the manufacturers make it I and more like me will buy it.
So right now I have a cheap and cheerful Polar FA20 and all that does is measures activity above a certain intensity...see my work day type varies so much. Day to day a gps is no good because I take the bus and subway to work...
So maybe the FA20 is the best thing for me right now.?

Abnersama

As of right now... I'm just using my Galaxy S3 as my little helper for everything - I do, as you mentioned in your first post, have my Endomondo account linked to this one. While the accuracy on calories burned isn't necessarily that great from what i'm seeing a lot of people say, the fact that it tracks everything pretty perfectly otherwise, puts it on here for me, and lets me sign up for separate challenges and the like. I also like the fact it lets me post everything to my Facebook.

Not sure if i'm going to get a HRM, but if anything, i'd be getting one with a chest strap.

LoupGarou63

Laura.....I am impressed with the accuracy. .
I have tried many times to link endomundo to mfp and it just don't wanna work for me...any tips would be cool.

LoupGarou63

Monis...me too linking is important for me...I feel polar will be big on bluetooth 4...soon soon almost there.

LoupGarou63

Jrbb...keep it up...

LoupGarou63

Runbrew....I guess what we need are integrated devices. I feel we are so close like the next two years will be interesting.
I really want a heart strap that will connect to an android phone with bluetooth 4. Hurry up kitkat.

LoupGarou63

Abnersamo....I just cannot get endomundo to link to mfp... I too have an S3....

If I had a penny for every time I've linked unlinked it just dont work... Even mfp wrote and said they looked at my account and could not see why....oh well ho hum.