Polar FT40 vs FitBit?

jltotaro

So I got a Polar FT40 for Christmas. It has been great to help me track my calories burned when I'm exercising, but it seems that is all it does. Or am I missing something?

What does FitBit do that my Polar FT40 does not?

AmberLee2012

Bump

juicemoogan

FItbit is a pedometer that estimates your Total Daily Energy Expenditure TDEE based on your movement.
Dependign on the version you get it can track flights of stairs climbed, track your sleep patterns, or just track steps and tdee + estimated calories burned.

I have a Fitbit ZIP and a Polar FT40
What fitbit CANNT do it measure exercise which does not involve stepping.. Thats where I use my Polar.

Some people will Argue HRM only works in steady state cardio, but i use it when I'm doing home workouts (GSP Rushfit - which does not involve a lot of stepping but is hella hard), and when I'm running.

They are both tools that you can use either in combination or alone..

tidesong

One is a pedometer (FitBit), one is a heart rate monitor (Polaris). They don't do the same things.

SomeoneSomeplace

Fitbit isn't great or all that reliable for tracking exercise calories.

What the Fitbit does that an HRM doesn't is track how many steps you take in a day, how active you are on a given day week or in general, the amount of stairs you climb in a day, as well as how many calories you burn based on activity in monitors. Some models also track sleep telling you how many times you woke up through the night and how long it took you to fall asleep, the amount of time you spent asleep and overall quality.

I have both an HRM and FitBit but I'd say they serve very different purposes. I don't use my fitbit during actual exercise and I don't use my HRM for anything but exercise (Cardio only)

chuckles9189

the fitbit is a pedometer and the polar is a heart rate monitor.

The fitbit tracks steps and stairs.

Polar tracks your heart rate.

Ploogy

I had, and am returning the Fitbit. I don't find it a reliable indicator of providing caloric expenditure because, as people mentioned here, it can't track workouts that use artificial intensity (elliptical, treadmill). Its just not complete enough on the metric to pay $100 for, given that regular pedometers (which is really all it is, apart from the sleep cycle analysis which I'm not impressed by) go for $20.

stephs0214

Bump for more info! Looking into buying one or the other.

skylark94

I use both. I wear the Fitbit all the time, then manually override its data for my workout time with the data from my FT4. I think using those items in combination give me a fair idea of if I am hitting my daily burn goal.

If I had to have just one, I would definitely choose the HRM. The Fitbit has been more of a novelty.

IrishHarpy1

I have a Fitbit and a Polar F6, and use both of them -- the Fitbit is worn all day (even during workouts), but I use the HRM for the more accurate calorie burn during cardio workouts. The Polar results are entered here on MFP, and will overwrite whatever the Fitbit had estimated for that period of time. I've found the Fitbit to be *quite* accurate in calculating my overall TDEE, and I credit it with helping me lose the last 10+ pounds I needed to last year, and has helped me maintain for almost a year now.

For those who say the Fitbit isn't worth the $$.... maybe you didn't have your settings adjusted properly. /shrugs

lucysmommy

i have the fit bit zip and a ft40 and i use the fitbit every day but take it off for exercise

mtbchk

Here is my answer copied/pasted from a similar thread:

I wear my Fitbit all the time, and I wear my HRM for "real exercise" (along with the Fitbit). If you go to the Fitbit website, you can add an activity and its calorie burn. It will overwrite the activity that the fitbit recorded during that time and will "correct" the caloric burn. I find it very useful when I do activities like cycling that aren't measured very well with the Fitbit.

To me, the Fitbit is a tool to keep me mindful of moving more throughout the day. The HRM is a tool to track exercise. At least, that's my theory. They are both great tools with different functions.

Fitbit = all day, HRM = mindful exercise. Mainly because I like the connection of the fitbit to MFP and I don't want to wear a HRM strap all day.

If I only had one, I'd probably get the fitbit. It's an ok approximation of calorie burn. Not perfect, but ok. If I were ALWAYS working out and exercising (like, for hours every day), I'd go for the HRM.

jltotaro

Thank you for all your replies. FitBit sounds like something I'd like to play around with as well. Especially to monitor my sleep patterns. I wake up a lot at night.

Thanks!!

STrooper

Fitbit is a very good three-axix pedometer (meaning it does not have to mounted on a belt in a particular direction so that you get an accurate count of steps. The $20 pedometer DOES NOT allow you to do that and is tyically much larger than the Fitbit). Here is the other thing that the Fitbit does. When it is registering steps and you are climbing (either walking stairs or simply walking up hills), every 10 feet of climb is registered oas a floor, it has a pressure transducer in it which is a simply and senstive altimeter.

So, not only does it estimate your calories expenditure for walking across flat ground, it also estimates the additional calories associated with stair or hill climbing.

Now, as pointed out by others, it will not correctly or accurately give you a calorie estimate for resitance training like lifting weights. Nor does it give you an accurate reading for ellipticals, treadmills, rowing machines, or bicycles. An HRM probably gets you a reasonable estimate. But then again, any more-advanced piece of equipment like I've listed above will have a way to estimate calorie expenditure if you input the basic settings that reflect your weight, age, etc.

Finally, the advantage of the Fitbit is that it will sync with MFP so that as you walk throughout the day, the Fitbit will attempt to update your MFP expenditures and allowances based upon the data that Fitbit reports. Note that it changes the exercise input on MFP (it includes a start time for the cardio exercise, in addition to duration and a calorie estimate). This allows MFP to override the Fitbit estimate. For example, my treadmill has a number of variable speed and variable incline programs ( a group that I include under i-Fit label). Fitbit will register approximately 3000 steps for the 30-minute program and about 160 calories. But because Fitbit cannot tell the incline that the treadmill is using minute to minute, I tell it the start time, the length of 30 minutes and the number of calories that my treadmill reports. The two programs negotiate the calorie difference and adjust accordingly.

Ready2Rock206

My standard answer:

They're 2 completely different things with 2 totally different uses...

The FitBit is a super fancy pedometer. You use it to track all-day, motivate yourself to walk more, etc. It only tracks step based activity - so running but not weight lifting. Also some models track sleep which is interesting, but I don't know that it is particularly useful for anything.

An HRM will track during a workout, but not all day. So for example you want to know how many calories you burn doing your Richard Simmons Sweating to the Oldies video :laugh: you'd want a HRM.

I have both - FitBit Ultra and Polar ft4 HRM - I love them both and wouldn't give either up, but they both have their very separate uses.

juicemoogan

I NEVER add food eaten or exercises into the FIt Bit Website..
you should use only one or the other.. I use MFP to enter all.. It updates to the fitbit website.

Timehope

Same is true for the FitBit competitor, the Nike FuelBand, which I received for Christmas from my daughter. It's more fun than
my Polar HRM and like the FitBit measures number of steps, which is an interesting addition to your information overload. Easy to synch to your iPad, too, and if you do synch it gives you little animated reward cartoons as you hit certain goals. (No doubt the FitBit does the same.) But as many have noted, take an exercise in which you don't move your arm much -- for example, on a gym stepmill -- and the FuelBand doesn't report many steps. If I let go of the rails and swing my arm as I climb, then it gives me tons of steps.

BTW the Polar HRM can work as a day calorie counter -- if you wear it 24 hours it will report a total somewhere near what would be reasonable (at least it did for me.) I wore it once again when I came down with the flu -- big fever, etc. -- and it reported a titanic number calories burned, almost certainly because of my fever-elevated heart rate. No doubt I did burn more calories as I suffered in bed but I doubt it was the 5,000 as reported.

But who wants to wear a strap all day?

The HRM is a tool and the little pedometer gadget is something of a fun toy.

stroken96

BUMP