Best Activity/Fitness Tracker/Smartwatch??

My personal experience has been with Polar smartwatches. I also know a lot of folks who use Polars and love the product. I had an A300 and it was amazing. It syncs to my iphone and links to MFP beautifully. Counts steps, calories burned, tracks yoir sleep, settings are awesome. But I broke it. The one I have now is the M400 which I am in love with. This thing does what he A300 does and then some. I get text msgs, I can see my friends' activities and posts here on MFP, it has a GPS, it's very light and comfortable, tracks calories burned, counts steps, tracks your sleep and tells you how many hours of restless and restful sleep you had, I can answer phone calls from my watch, I can see who left me a voicemail and call back.....I can keep going but you get the picture. It's so user friendly and easy to set up it's ridiculous. I've never had any issues with any Polar watch. All the best finding the watch that fits your lifestyle and budget!

I've just upgraded to the VivóActive HR. Running, cycling, swimming along with a number of other sports. Connects to external sensors. All day activities, sleep, hr, stairs. And is water resistant.

I was a huge Polar fan until my experience with their first activity tracker, the Loop. Their customer support just wasn't there but I never had a problem with their actual HRMs, but that was enough to turn me off from purchasing their product again. I currently use a Garmin 305 and a Vivosmart. 305 is old but still works and I liked the fact that when I went with the Vivosmart the chest strap from the 305 worked with it unlike the Polar where I was forced to buy a new chest strap for the Loop. As far as customer service goes Garmin is very helpful and quick to respond.

My BF has a Fitbit HR which he loved until it recently broke. I didn't have to deal with Fitbit customer service but I hear they are good. I had bought the inexpensive Walmart warranty when I purchased it and replacing/upgrading through them.

As far as reviews I'm a fan of dcrainmaker.com. Good luck.

Also, do any watches help combat the double dipping? For example, I dont want the step counter to keep tracking if I go out for a run and utilize GPS routing or if I'm at the gym on a treadmill and manually log my data via MapMyFitness.

I'm waiting for Garmin Forerunner 35 to be released in the fall. It's a GPS watch with optical HRM. I will use it primarily for running. It looks sleek and has a great battery life.

It looks like if I drop the need of a built in GPS and utilize the phone, I open myself up to more options. Anyone use Pebble Time Steel or Sony Watch3?

I have a Garmin Forerunner 10 but need something with more options for fitness and non fitness items.

I'll look into that one. I bypassed it a few times due to its look. I am happy with my Garmin Forerunner 10 and the Connect ecosystem. My main problem with the Forerunner was it basically uploaded everything has a run to Connect. I then had to modify it in their GUI which is fine but mapmyfitness ended up syncing the data immediately and messed up some data I was using to train.

I'm a fan of the Vivosmart HR. I've had mine since June. It is one device which covers all my physical activities. Works well with Garmin Connect which plays well with MyFitness Pal.

NorthCascades wrote: »

CincyNeid wrote: »

Garmin's will have you locked into the Garmin Connect Ecosystem

People say this a lot, and for good reason, but I disagree. The devil is in the details.

So for starters, you can't use a Garmin and look at your data in the Fitbit app or at MovesCount. And on top of that, Garmin makes it incredibly easy to have your data get to Connect for you. Like, you don't even have to do anything once you set it up on day one.

But you can also get at the raw data (FIT files) directly from the device. You plug it into your computer, and now you can use whatever platform you like: Golden Cheetah, WKO, SportTracks, you name it. The data is yours.

Also, if you opt for the auto-sync to Connect path (like pretty much everybody else), you can have it also sync to Strava. And Strava allows bulk export of all your data in one fell swoop.

On the whole, I feel like Garmin is pretty good about letting you retain control of your data.

See I have my Garmin Connect linked

• Strava
• MapMyFitness, and that entire suite of apps
• Endomondo
• Training Peaks
• Ride With GPS

So once I sync my device with my garmin connect it pushes everywhere. I've never had to dig for it to that degree.. But thanks for the heads up on how to do it if i should need to.

I am a big fan of the Apple Watch. Been using it a year or so and love it. I use a chest strap during workouts as all the wrist based HR trackers are iffy at best. My wife will be buying the Charge HR 2 shortly which is supposed to have better HR tracking on the wrist.

mmteixeira wrote: »

I use the Garmin Forerunner 235 for running/cycling - built in GPS and wrist based HR - I like it and it has served me quite well over the last 4 months. My wife uses the Vivoactive HR and she seems happy with that as well. She had a Vivosmart HR+ for about a week and that went back - over 3 minutes to get a GPS lock was horrendous.

I second this opinion. I'm a big fan of the Forerunner 235...it has a reasonable battery life even with GPS (I charge it once a week to top it back up when it gets down to around 30%, and I use the GPS for about 6 hours in total through the week). The HRM is plenty decent enough for my purposes (running), although if I wanted to do any HIIT, then I'd probably invest in a chest strap for accuracy. My wife uses the Vivosmart HR+, and she hasn't experienced any issues with it so far; she likes it.

garygse wrote: »

mmteixeira wrote: »

I use the Garmin Forerunner 235 for running/cycling - built in GPS and wrist based HR - I like it and it has served me quite well over the last 4 months. My wife uses the Vivoactive HR and she seems happy with that as well. She had a Vivosmart HR+ for about a week and that went back - over 3 minutes to get a GPS lock was horrendous.

I second this opinion. I'm a big fan of the Forerunner 235...it has a reasonable battery life even with GPS (I charge it once a week to top it back up when it gets down to around 30%, and I use the GPS for about 6 hours in total through the week). The HRM is plenty decent enough for my purposes (running), although if I wanted to do any HIIT, then I'd probably invest in a chest strap for accuracy. My wife uses the Vivosmart HR+, and she hasn't experienced any issues with it so far; she likes it.

I'm also happy with my Garmin 235. I had another Garmin previously for 4 years. I run and having a GPS watch is key for me. I also do some biking. The optical heart rate monitor is usually on par with my chest strap. I'm not super into tracking steps and that sort of stuff, but the 235 tracks steps and sleep too. Activity trackers like Fitbit don't appeal to me, and I feel like they're too causal for me to wear to work everyday. I almost got a Garmin Fenix, but I have super small wrists and it was just too big.

DC Rainmaker's website is excellent for reviews. I highly recommend you check it out.

It's honestly a personal choice I think-I've had a Fitbit (multiple ones, latest one was the Fitbit Charge HR) as well as Garmin's.
Fitbit-loved the ease of the app, customer service was great, never had issues with their products and I had different ones from 2012-2015.
Garmin vivosmart and vivoactive-the smart is pretty much the fitbit but before fitbit added alerts. It's Garmin so that made me like it even more I ended up getting the vivoactive because I wanted one thing that counted steps as well as activity and tracked miles and since it's Garmin-I knew it'd be more spot on for the miles.

I compared both Fitbit and Garmin when I first switched and they were spot on for steps. I miss Fitbit in the sense that more people have it so I had more friends and challenges but not enough to give up the fact that my Garmin gives me everything I want in 1 package

You have to ask-what do you want from an activity tracker? I second going to DC Rainmaker's website and getting info so you can compare and see what works best for you.

MrSkee2016 wrote: »

Fitbit charge 2 has HRM, GPS, step counter, profiles to track different exercises, shows cals burned, stopwatch, timer and syncs with mfp.. Just brought one and haven't owned one before, does the job..

The Charge 2 has Connected GPS . The Charge 2 uses the GPS signal from the Cell phone to determine your GPS position. IF you want to leave the phone at home, you need one with a dedicated GPS.

Just to add a quick note about fitbit - everyone I know who's used any of the standard tracker fitbits generally loves them. Most of the people I know who have used the blaze or surge are unimpressed. The devices lack longevity, and their customer service, while generally excellent within the warranty period, won't help you if the thing dies 2 days after the warranty expires, and $250 is a lot of money for a device that will bite the dust in one year. I suspect that fitbit overextended itself when it tried to move into the "smartwatch" category.

DH loved his surge, loved fitbit when they replaced the first surge that died, but has had enough now that his second surge has died. He's getting ready to buy the garmin vivoactive HR.

I was reading up about the Garmin FR 35 this morning, which also sounds really promising.