Fitness Trackers-Beneficial or fad?

I don't have one and I never had the desire or need for a fitness tracker. Some people like to see numbers and data, analyze their fitness progress, steps, sleep patterns, etc., and others use the trackers as away to control their calories. For many it is an incentive and something that they really like and treasure, but for me a tracker would be a nuisance. I don't like gadgets (hey, I don't even wear a watch!).

It may also depend on your goals. What benefit do you want to get out of it, and are you really going to wear one all the time, as intended.

If they are beneficial or a fad, depends on the eye of the beholder.

Normally, I hate technology, but I love my tracker. I like the numbers so far as that it gives me goals that I take like a game. For instance, it's cold, windy and raining here today. Not going to go out for a walk. So I'm tracking myself walking around the house, aiming for my daily goal by using mini goals throughout the day. When it's nice out, I try to do a two-mile walk before work. And if you use a Garmin like I do, you can also "compete" against others (sometimes that's a good thing, but not always.)

I like having one, and have used it for over a year, with no plans to stop. I have a sedentary job, have my fitbit synced with MFP, so I get extra calories on weekends and days I'm not glued to my desk.

It's both.
In general terms, it might be called a fad, specially given, as have been said above, most people who get one, use it up to a year and quit, and for most people it doesn't last for more than month or two. In that way it is similar to gym membership - less than 10% of people who join a gym, go there regularly for more than 3 months.

But for those who find it helps to keep them motivated or whose who like data, fitness trackers are genuinely useful.

I am one of those people. I've been using a fitness tracker or sports watch of some sort for 4 years now and I can't imagine being without one. But then again I am a total gadget nerd too, so I might be an outlier.

I remember the fitness world before fitness trackers, and if you love tedium and manually tracking everything, then it was a great era for fitness! For a run, I would go out in advance in my vehicle, measure out my route in miles via the odometer, come back home, put on my cheap digital wristwatch/stopwatch, measure the pace by dividing out the miles I had ran by the overall time, and later write everything in a journal.

Which mile was my best mile? I never knew - there were “lap buttons” on some watches if you knew which mile you were at, but I generally didn’t because I ran rural roads (some roads had competing spray painted mile markers, good luck trusting them, lol). What were the altitude changes? I don’t know - unless I wanted to go to the library and consult topographical maps, I could only guess. What was my average HR, max HR, and cadence? Haha, right.

Now I just push a few buttons on my fitness tracker and have constant data about my run while I’m running – if my pace is slipping, I can correct it. If part of my route gets flooded out, I can change course and improvise while still knowing my total mileage. Everything gets uploaded and is available to review versus me sitting down with a pencil and paper and writing all of the details out. I work out 4-6 hours per week and I honestly can’t envision coherently keeping track of my fitness regimen without a fitness tracker.

Bry_Fitness70 wrote: »

I have a Garmin Fenix 3 HR and love it. It has a continuous HRM and calculates calories burned 24 hours per day and calculates performance metrics, counts steps and stairs ascended, has GPS, tracks sleep, has an altimeter, barometer, and temp sensor, is waterproof to 100m so you can track swims, integrates with your phone through Bluetooth, and a lot of other functions. It has a long battery life and the associated phone app is easy to use. It also has customizable watch faces and you can change watch bands so it can coordinate with pretty much anything you wear (at work, social events, etc.)

I think that exercise data keeps fitness interesting, I love seeing my stats after a workout, and yeah, if I didn't measure it digitally then it never happened...

If I were to get a tracker to use it would be this one. I like it because I swim, and I would use it for that.

I don’t see them as a fad but more of an advancement of technology.... people wore pedometers for years before trackers came out.

Note: Been using a Fitbit for 4 years, and it has definitely encouraged me to move more.

I started with a Bodybugg, which I dearly miss.....went through several fitbits, they kept breaking in one way or another, had a Samsung gear which has horrid battery life, and finely settled on a Garmin. I love my Garmin, and would be lost without it. I don't really use it anymore for daily tracking per say, more so I use the GPS function since I'm a runner. When I was actively losing weight it was nice to see my daily burned calories, so I could fine tune my eating a little more.

They are beneficial when they work. I bought a FitBit Alta HR and although I liked it, the battery charger / charging process is very finicky and I haven't been very consistent.