Fitbit? Are they worth it?

I have both a Fitbit Surge and a Fitbit Flex. I love them both and don't regret spending the money. I use the Surge for when I'm working out so I can track my heart rate, calories burned and if I"m running the distance/pace of my run. Now, considering the Fitbit is based on your stride, it is definitely not as accurate as an activity tracker that also has a pedometer that attaches to your shoe or ankle. The heart rate portion of it also may not be as accurate as an activity tracker that has a heart rate strap. For me, this doesn't really matter. I just like having a general idea of what I burned, what I ran and what my HR is.
I use the Fitbit Flex throughout the rest of the day to track just steps since the Surge is so bulky on my tiny wrist. Again I love the Fitbit and I enjoy also being able to compete with friends to reach our goals.

I've got the Charge (not the HR, wasn't interested in that) and I love it. I've been using it for around six months, mostly for seeing how much I'm moving during the day (I have a desk job and now I am far more likely to get off my backside at lunchtime and go walking, even when it's subzero, because I like to get my 10k steps in before I get home in the evening). It's a constant reminder to be aware of my health, and I needed a new watch anyway. Two birds with one stone

dwulet130 wrote: »

Personally, I'm disappointed in my Charge HR. The heart rate isn't at all accurate, nor is the step count. I was at 300 before getting out of bed this morning. That said, it does encourage me to be more active.

You are absolutely right and there is a class action suit being brought against FitBit for the promotions of their technology claiming to count every heart beat, every time when it doesn’t actually count every beat, every time. It's frustrating to me that I can walk/run on my treadmill for a measured distance of X miles and Fitbit is always short, even as I attempt to modify my stride length to bring it closer in line with the distance traveled on the treadmill.

Fitbit is not a perfect tool to monitor heart rate and calories or even steps taken, contrary to the advertisements. I've done unscientific tests with my Charge HR and steps taken aren't registered and, other times, credit for steps not taken. When all is said and done, I'm satisfied to accept that the law of averages will apply and I use the estimate Fitbit gives me. (As it is, all calorie counting we do with MFP and our food consumption is merely an estimate, too.)

I purchased my Fitbit to give me a good estimate of calories burned during exercise. I happen to be a person not in a health risk if my heart rate goes to high. I also happen to be a person who, when exercising, am not using a particularheart rate level as a goal for exercising. If you must monitor your heart rate during exercise for health problems, DO NOT RELY ON FITBIT -- its algorithms are not reliable (hence, the Class Action suit being brought against Fitbit). I also happen to be a person that has used Polar heart rate monitors in that past and have found them to likewise be unreliable in keeping track of my heart rate for the entire duration of my exercise. I’ve decided that for the average person interested in exercise for general fitness, there is no reasonably priced heart rate monitoring device that is accurate and reliable.

All of these tools help to determine and estimate of calories burned, and in the case of MFP, calories consumed. Take it for what it is, a tool to gauge an estimate.

That being said, I do like my Charge HR. It keeps me interested in moving – walking, dancing, running, whatever. It keeps me moving and in that way, It was a good purchase for me.

I love my fitbit charge hr. Keeps me moving and syncs well with this program.

I did last week. I went to the Fitbit Flex Help Forums last week and they started moving threads around and no one was responding to the issue. I went to their facebook page hoping there'd be something there about it and there wasn't. I waited 2 days for a response and we never got one. Now I keep going back there and there still isn't anyone telling anybody what's going on with the glitch. It's been a week now. I'm really disappointed because these things aren't cheap. I got mine as a Christmas gift and I feel like I should pay my family back for something that isn't working before I get another tracker. Other than that, the product was great and it was an awesome motivator and I had even thought about getting other Fitbit models before this syncing issue happened.

Yeah it's a real shame their customer service/tech support is so bad, because the product has really been a good motivational tool for me and helped me lose 31 pounds. My exercise has really increased since I got it. Too bad it is not the best tool for Nordic pole walking. Heart rate on the Charge HR has been less than on the Polar but at least I get a good idea of how hard I'm exercising in general. Range is between 120 and 160, which is what I used to get with analog watch monitoring.