Thinking about purchasing a FitBit...

The new ones you wear on your wrist and they automatically sync your estimated calorie burn to My Fitness Pal. If you log an exercise it will not sync those calories from your Fitbit for the time period specified. The Fitbit will sync as often as you like but depends on which method you use. Some smartphones are able to sync but if you do not have one compatible it is done with a usb stick for your computer. And yes you wear them all day and to bed.

The wrist-mounted ones are trash IMO. The wrist is a poor place to measure body movement. The Fitbit One is the only real choice.

Jonnythan, where do you use the Fitbit One for best measurement? I know someone who clips hers to her shoe. Does it work well if you clip it to your waistband? I keep thinking about getting one.

The wrist-mounted ones are trash IMO. The wrist is a poor place to measure body movement. The Fitbit One is the only real choice.

Jonnythan, where do you use the Fitbit One for best measurement? I know someone who clips hers to her shoe. Does it work well if you clip it to your waistband? I keep thinking about getting one.

It's designed to be worn on the torso. It expects to record the type of movements found there. I wear mine on my waistband.

I got one as a gift. It's a $2 pedometer with $80 in bluetooth/wireless/software that comes along with it.

It's a fun toy.

I've had two. A Flex which I'm wearing now, and a Fitbit One that I preferred but disappeared from the holder one day never to be seen again.

If you're serious about walking as your exercise, it's a worthy purchase. As others have said, both are fairly accurate and automatically sync with their own App (and thereby with MFP) based on the settings you used. Both models have advantages and disadvantages.

The Fitbit One
+ small, fits easily in pocket, measures stair steps.
+ readable progress display
- easily lost thanks to crappy soft-rubber holder design.
- you have to remember to either place it in your pocket or clip it somewhere (and remove it so as to not put it in the wash)

The Fitbit Flex
+ wearable on your wrist, you don't forget about it in a pocket or clipped to anything.
+ fairly water resistant (shower wearable)
- doesn't measure stairs climbed
- doesn't have a real progress display
- unlike the One, can be "fooled" -- your arm doesn't move when you push grocery carts for example.

If the Fitbit One came in a better holder, I'd prefer it. My only preference for the Flex is that -- unlike the One -- I probably won't be too terribly prone to losing the $99 digital toy...

That being said -- and if you can find one -- look for a new Fitbit Force which combines the best of both models into a wearable watch-style device that is reportedly less prone to be "fooled" like the Flex.

Wayne

@jonnythan,

Supposedly a "different/improved accelerometer" in the Force (based on multiple reviews), hence my statement.

I did contact customer support, and you're right, normally they're great.... *IF* you can produce a receipt or something showing your purchase, which I couldn't several months later, so they couldn't really help me (and -- I admit -- rightfully so since I couldn't actually prove I had ever bought one).

The more I removed/inserted the One into the rubber holder, the more flexible/loose the rubber got. I pulled it off my belt one day and poof, alakazam. Gone..

Wayne

How does it estimate your calorie burn though, does it just go by height, weight, speed or is there some type of HRM installed as well?

It uses your height and weight as variables in an algorithm.

The device uses an accelerometer that can rather accurately track how you move your body. It uses this movement in combination with your height and weight to estimate how many calories you have to have burned to move your body in that way.

There is no HRM involved.

Seems unlikely that changing to a different accelerometer subunit will help, considering that you're still measuring from the wrist.

Not really. Change the algorithm, changes to the sensitifity. Who knows? Same thing happens with smartphone evolution. Certainly not even worth debating.

Point is, I like my Flex and can recommend it. Wish I had a Force if for nothing else but the progress display/clock aspect. I really liked my One, but wish I could buy a better third-party clip for a One, or even adapt it to a watch-band style because I'd do that in a heartbeat.

It's all good.

Wayne

I did some research and still dont understand it I guess...:huh:
How does a fitbit work? Do you wear it all day then log the calorie burn no matter what you did?
How does it work with what you consume each day?

How does it estimate your calorie burn though, does it just go by height, weight, speed or is there some type of HRM installed as well?

If curious, I didn't see answers to couple of your questions.

It works by using standard BMR calculation based on gender, age, weight, height. That amount of calorie burn is used for all non-moving time.

All moving time is step based, stair based attempted too, and then calorie burn is based on weight and that info - and that is actually really accurate formula's if it is seeing your steps correctly, and it has your stride length correct (you can manually put in tested figures to increase accuracy).

This also means it's under-inflated for any workout not step based, like bike, lifting, rowing, ect. Their FAQ page mentions several exercise.

When you sync it with MFP, some math is done.
You already told MFP what your daily calorie burn is without exercise, activity level x BMR. An estimate of course.
When MFP sees a FitBit reading higher than what it expected for non-exercise maintenance burn, it assumes the rest is from exercise, and per the way MFP works, you get to eat more when you do more, the same deficit for weight loss is still in your daily goal no matter what.

You can still manually log in to MFP exercise the FitBit would be bad at measuring, like strength training, and MFP will sync it over to FitBit to replace the calories it underestimated. The math is then done again as to how much left to eat that day.

So if you sync it, you mainly do everything from the MFP side of the equation, daily eating levels are synced over to FitBit site.