Survey: Which connected fitness gear do you use:

Fitbit Charge 2 HR. I really like it.

I have a Fitbit Zip. I like it because I can clip it to my bra or pants pocket.

I have a Fitbit Versa... I really like it and it's connected to MFP.

Garmin forerunner 335. Love it

Garmin 935. Great connectivity to my phone and I like the versatile workouts. I do sync it with MFP as well. I had a Polar before this and it would keep dropping from my phone which was frustrating since I like the smartwatch part of these type of watches.

Switched to Apple Watch from Fitbit Charge 2 last month. Better activity tracking IMHO. No problems integrating it with MFP. Only downside is that it needs to charged every night, so I need to use a sleep tracking app to monitor sleep time.

Garmin Forerunner 35. It's a good basic watch, less expensive than most of their watches, but with a better battery than the 15 or 25. It has most of the features I need. I don't have it linked to MFP, but it is linked to Runningahead, where I keep my logs.

Garmin Fenix 5x.

Garmin Instinct with Garmin Connect for MFP. Really like it so far- I wanted something robust but not huge on my wrist, with HR monitoring built in (so a chest strap wouldn't be necessary). And my Vivoactive (2, possibly a 3- there's no number on it) broke, so I decided to go ahead and upgrade.

I have a Garmin Vivoactive 3 (and Garmin chest belt) that replaced a lower-end Polar HRM watch (recently deceased) and chest belt, plus old Garmin Forerunner 205 that I was using for GPS pace/distance data (mainly for rowing). Desire was to get most of the functions I care about (immediate HR monitoring during exercise, GPS pace/distance recording for rowing that I can review post-row; and more casually, speed/distance for biking and walking). I'm so old that I always wear a wristwatch, so I wanted one that was functional for that, too, and not excessively grotesque or cutesy.

I use the chest belt for intentional exercise, because wrist-based HR has a reputation for being wonky during rowing (probably too much crazy arm movement) and purely out of habit for spinning, my other regular exercise.

I don't sync to MFP because, for me, the VA3 all-day calorie burn data is Just Wrong (TDEE/NEAT calculators tend to be wrong for me, too, and by approximately the same proportion; dunno why). I normally use the calorie estimates from on-water rowing and spinning to log exercise on MFP for lack of a better source, though I do pay attention to the rowing machine calorie estimates (after weight adjustment) as a double check. If anything, based on experience, the exercise estimates may be a little lowball for me, but that's OK.

I haven't tried to figure out whether the step counts are accurate (I don't walk all that much, and super rarely for exercise), but they seem proportionally rational, i.e., if the VA3 says I walked twice as many steps as usual, that seems subjectively reasonable IME.

The sleep tracking is laughably inaccurate. I don't think it's just me, or just this device: Overall, trackers have that reputation. The "flights of stairs" estimate is imaginative, too.

Too often, it seems to me that people think of these devices as sources of deep, mysterious, personal technological insight, when they're really just tiny, kinda-complicated bundles of algorhythmic estimation.

Fun and useful, despite the limitations, though.

Fitbit charge 3. Loving it and the battery lasts 8 days on one charge.

Garmin 920xt with Garmin Connect & Strava. I wnet for the 920 based on its multi-sport capabilities (it has a built in triathlon setting) great battery life and display that even my decrepit old geezer eyes can read without glasses.

BrianSharpe wrote: »

Garmin 920xt with Garmin Connect & Strava. I wnet for the 920 based on its multi-sport capabilities (it has a built in triathlon setting) great battery life and display that even my decrepit old geezer eyes can read without glasses.

That's one of the first things I noticed with the 5x. I could actually read the screen. If I put more than 2 fields on my old 630 I couldn't read it when I was running. With the 5x I can see all 4 fields. Finally, a watch made for old farts.

Just started using the Fitbit Charge 3. Couple of niggles. I think the calorie count is quite high I am quite sedentary most days and it tells me I have been up more flights of stairs than I actually have. I do drive up a very steep hill every day and I think it might be registering this as several flights of stairs.

Otherwise I like it a lot. I got it as it is waterproof and I shall be using it swimming and it syncs with MFP. I like the sleep function. HR seems fairly close so happy with that as well.