Fitness trackers

I have the Garmin Forerunner 15, basically it's the 25 without Bluetooth. I had a Fitbit Flex before and my wife has a Charge. In my experience the Garmin quality is far above Fitbit, my Flex had battery issues once under warranty and got the Garmin when it died out of warranty, went through 2 bands, and my wife has had her Charge replaced for the band breaking. Battery life on the Garmin is much better also I've gone a couple weeks without charging though out does drain faster with GPS and HRM connected.

As for features it's whatever you find important, I'm ok with a chest strap HRM but don't want to have to carry my phone for GPS.

I have a Microsoft Band 2 for general wear because 1) my life is in my Windows Phone and the Band 2 interfaces beautifully with it, and 2) because the Band 2 has optical HR which is accurate enough at rest and also because you can program workouts into it and it guides you through each stage including warmup, warmdown, intervals, and even stretching. You can create your own workouts or download pre-programmed ones.

For training, I have a Polar M400 with chest strap. It allows you to add sports and control the display screens. The H7 strap is EKG-accurate. The watch and the strap are waterproof for swimming. The Polar stats are numerous and beautifully displayed. The watch is very large for a woman's wrist, though.

Prior to the Polar and I had a Garmin Vivoactive with a chest strap HR monitor. It is a nice watch, but being the data junkie I am, I wanted EKG accuracy for my training. The Garmin chest strap is pretty accurate, mind you, I just wanted to step it up a notch. The Garmin only provides support for Running, Walking and swimming and since I also paddle board and toy with Yoga, I wanted to be able to capture training/exercise data on those activities, as well, and the Garmin device did not provide the facility to do so. The Garmin stats and presentation are also nice, but I'd have to give the edge to Polar, which is saying something because I held onto the Garmin for as long as I did precisely because of its data presentation.

The Band, Polar and Garmins all have built-in GPS for distance and pace accuracy when it counts. All track sleep, as well.

Prior to the Garmin I had a FitBit HR. My mother taught me that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. Enough said about the FitBit.

I believe that Garmin has just come out with an optical HR watch, that will also pair with a chest strap for greater accuracy when needed. Might be worth checking out.

I have the Jawbone UP Move and I wear it on my pants or shirt (when sleeping). It's pretty accurate (not always, but probably about 98% of the time) and I think I got mine for $39. It does seem to under count steps, which is better to me than over counting. Sleep function works pretty well. However, I go to bed around 10, but probably don't go to sleep until 11 and it thinks that lack of movement is light sleep, when really it's lying really still while looking at my phone.

It does prompt you to fill the sleep and workouts when you forgot to "log" it. Since it's just a round button, there are different types of pushing on the button that indicate whether you want sleep or workout mode. It's annoying, so I manually enter it after the fact and/or wait for to pop up with, "Hey, were you sleeping between so and so hours?"

I like it because it's more discrete and I hate wearing anything on my wrist. The battery does need to be replaced every six months or so, but it's fairly cheap.

Balaru wrote: »

Having a problem finding one that syncs with a Galaxy Core Prime phone. Any suggestions? I had originally wanted a FitBit with HR but it doesn't work with the phone.

I have a Samsung phone and bought the Fitbit Blaze and they wouldn't work together. I ended up returning the Fitbit because of it.

I now have the Garmin Vivosmart HR and I actually like it better than the Fitbit! It's not pretty (none of them are, IMO) but it tracks really well from what I can tell.