Cheaper version of a FitBit

24 hour fitness is having a sale on bodymedia arm bands.They are typically 119.99 but i just picked one up for 24.99. Its 6 dollars per month (but you get the first 6 months free). I highly recommend it! Bodymedia.com

hey guys, I really really want a fit bit but I'm unable to afford one as i am a poor student lol can anyone tell if it there is anything that is similar but at a cheaper price?? I have a basic pedometer but I don't feel it gives a true reading of the calories I burn ..

If your money is tight, I'd go for the Fitbit Zip, unless you really want the sleep tracking and stairs / floor count feature.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=m570.l3201&_nkw=fitbit+zip&_sacat=0

They're half priced all over ebay.

I just finished my first day with the fitbit zip, and if you do get a fitbit, what I've figured out so far is: set your calorie goal in fitbit's dash board to your MFP calorie goal otherwise it's all lame about you not burning as many calories as fitbit thinks you should. Fitbit was like you should be burning 2700+ a day and MFP was like you should be burning about 2500+ a day, and I know I wasn't going to hit 2700. So I set my calorie goal to my daily calories consumed goal. I'll probably never have fitbit adjustment.

Walking on carpet may rob you of step counts. I'd say 80% of my house is carpet, and I work out at home, in socks, on carpet, so :P. Side steps, kicks, general aerobics moves, do not count as steps, and there's no extra credit for step aerobics either. So, I still had to log my exercise activities separate (with a start time) to sync with fitbit.

Also, I had to measure my stride walking and running to calibrate my fitbit. This was pretty easy to do, as what fitbit really wants is a step count / running step count for a set distance. Once you have that, plug it in here:

http://www.tech4o.com/detail.aspx?id=181#

And then put that info in for your stride on your dashboard. Fixing my stride to what it really is from what it was as an estimate also helped me get a fairer step count.

So, that's all I got so far. I like the dashboard. But I still need to use MFP for logging food and any activity that isn't me walking around. It'll probably take a few weeks before I know if I think the fitbit is giving me a fair shake with its calorie estimates, but good luck with whatever you end up getting.

My Fitbit records steps on carpet just fine.

The one above that doesn't measure on carpet is defective. They have no way of knowing what surface you're on. If it's a torso-worn model like the Zip, it detects the motion of your torso and guesses what activity you're doing from that. It should detect aerobics well.

"Fitbit trackers have a finely tuned algorithm for step counting. The algorithm is designed to look for motion patterns most indicative of people walking. One condition for a motion pattern to be recognized as a step is the motion must be large enough. The algorithm implements this by setting a threshold. If a motion and its subsequent acceleration measurement data meet the threshold, the motion will be counted as a step. If that threshold is not met, the algorithm won’t count the motion as a step. Other factors can create enough acceleration to meet our threshold and therefore cause some over counting of steps, such as riding on a bumpy road. Equally, it's possible for the algorithm to undercount (not meet the required acceleration threshold). Examples here include walking on a very soft surface such as a plush carpet."

In some parts of my house, the steps are not recorded accurately and it's probably because there's plush carpet in those rooms. Say what you like but that's from: https://help.fitbit.com/customer/portal/articles/1276472-how-does-my-tracker-count-steps-

And I have empirical knowledge that it's true. When I was walking and cleaning in my master bedroom yesterday, for example, most of the steps are not counted. I checked the fitbit before and after and even did some tests when I did not see the step counter moving.