Activity Trackers

brittmar25
brittmar25 Posts: 71 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
What do you use? Would you recommend it? What are the pros and cons?

I've been doing a little research on the Fitbit Flex and the Polar Watches.

Thanks in advance!

Replies

  • ladymm40
    ladymm40 Posts: 31
    I use an Omron pedometer which I love. It tracks steps, aerobic steps, calories burned, and miles. It seems fairly accurate, once you get the stride set up correctly. I wear it everyday and it helps me keep moving. I try to get at least 10 thousand steps a day.

    I spent around $21 online... such a great deal.
  • sara_tara13
    sara_tara13 Posts: 8 Member
    My friend has the Fitbit and loves it.

    I have the Polar Heart Rate monitor watch on my amazon wishlist that I'm hoping to get for Christmas. When she and I were discussing the differences she said "You typically workout until your heart is about to explode so you should get the watch over the fitbit to make sure you're not working out too hard."

    So while I don't have experience with them yet, I'm leaning towards Polar.
  • brittmar25
    brittmar25 Posts: 71 Member
    That is a great deal. I haven't seen anything that tracks that much activity for that price!
  • hookilau
    hookilau Posts: 3,134 Member
    I have both.

    PF4 I used to use for cardio but the fitbit I used for every day activity.

    I haven't picked up my PF4 in months, while I have palpitations of I think I've started my day without my fitbit zip.

    PF4 isn't an activity counter, it's a HR monitor, so it will effectively guesstimate your caloric burn while doing cardio but not weight training. Fitbit will not effectively guess your cardio caloric burn as it does not take into account your HR.

    Each has it's place and one cannot be used interchangeably for the other. Now that I have both, my FB is most useful to me :drinker:

    edited for typos
  • hawkeygal
    hawkeygal Posts: 133 Member
    I have had both. I forget which Polar I have (it's the one that everyone here recommends maybe PT4? I dunno know the name, sorry, but it's EVERYONE'S favorite here!) and I also had the FitBit one.

    Since joining a gym and becoming more consistent about working out, I've found that my Polar is really where it's at for me. It tracks calories, gives me exact heart rate, tells me if I'm too high or low for my heart rate and it tells the time! This comes in handy for when I am logging food, so I know how much is in vs. out etc.

    Fit bit was super nice for me before I started a gym. It kept track of steps taken, which converted into miles, and I could log my walks easier on here to compare calories burned.

    Fit bit is in the past tense, because, well, someone (it's still an argument if it was my fault or my boyfriend's fault) forgot to take it off my bra (so I guess it's my fault) before it went into the wash.


    It's really about the functionality of what YOU need. Hope this helps!

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