Is a Fitbit Worth It?

Why do you want to monitor your heart rate? What kind of non traditional exercise do you do?
You could purchase a dedicated HR monitor strap since that's the only metric you're interested in.

For me it is worth it. I had the Flex 2 which motivated me to move more. The social aspect encouraged me to get a few more steps each day to either catch up with or surpass friends. Or sometimes just to do more than the previous day. I recently upgraded to the Inspire HR and am loving the extra data regarding cardio fitness and sleep cycles.

Depends on your exercise, and your needs. And Fitbit might not be the best choice, vs. one of the other good brands, depending on your needs.

I love my Garmin, even though I do very little step-based exercise, and don't care to increase steps (bad knees). It gives me very useful performance data I want/need for on-water rowing (pace, meters, rough SPM estimates, all correlated with heart rate). It's fun for mileage/speed for bike rides or canoeing or that sort of thing. I think it's close enough on calories for other steady state (or near steady state) exercise to be useful. I do need to use a chest belt for rowing (on-water or machine) to get accurate heart rate, as there's too much arm movement for the wrist-based HRM to keep good contact.

It's laughably bad at sleep tracking (my reading suggests most devices aren't very reliable for this), which I know because it routinely thinks I'm asleep (sometimes even in REM) when I'm awake and reading or playing with my phone. I suspect it counts steps fairly accurately, but haven't cared enough to check at a detail level. (The proportional change from a limted walking day to a longer walking day seems reasonable). It seems to get stair flights wrong, usually low.

It's way off (low) for my all-day calorie burn, compared with nearly 4 years of logging and weight data . . . but MFP's calculator was off by about the same amount. Other people have accurate all-day burn numbers from the same model, so I'm pretty sure the problem is me, not the Garmin.

Some people love their Fitbits, some don't. Most people should find the higher-quality devices reasonable for all-day calorie burn, but a few won't (that's the nature of statistical estimates). I've read that Fitbits break more often than Garmins, but I don't have any experience with Fitbit. (The old Garmin GPS exercise tracker I had - no heart rate - lasted for probably at least a decade, with most of its use outdoors in boats and on bikes; and I only replaced it because my old separate Polar heart rate monitor watch died, and I decided to get an integrated device.)

So: The usefulness is individual, I think.

I have a Garmin but its basiclly the same thing.

I do a bit of running and the HR monitor works really well for that and generally find its pretty good for low impact and repetitive movements, no idea how well it works out kcal info from that though. I also do a bit of rock climbing and struggle to get the HR monitor to record that properly. If you just want your heart rate, there's probably better stuff on the market, so I guess depends what you non-traditional excersize is.

Personally I just like that mine kind of does everything and it's always there and does most stuff in the background without a faff. I bought it mainly for HR monitoring and having a watch, but find the sleep, stress, steps measurements etc quite interesting, even if the sleep function can be abit ludicrous.

Hard to say whether it's worth it. If I wasn't actively trying to improve my running atm, I'd probably say not, but it's pretty relative.

Chieflrg wrote: »

I would lean towards no.

If it is one of the reasons a person would comply to physical activity compared to sedentary, then I rather they utilize a Fitbit.

That being said there was a recent study that showed one of the cons of a Fitbit(or ones simular, I forget if they mentioned Fit bit exactly) is how it actually harms you emotionally and nocebos you to believe you didn't get adequate rest. The fact of the matter they are not qualified in measuring the quality sleep one gets. They are a gadget in that respect.

For this reason I do not recommend for people would utilize the info and be harmed.

Interesting!
Do you recall where you saw that study? I would be quite keen to have a read.

I had a fitbit flex a few years ago. It had two settings for sleep - regular told me I basically slept solidly from when my head hit the pillow until the morning, the other (sensitive) told me I was awake half the night, which I thought was a bit unrealistic....but then a year ago, I went to the doctor about some health issues, and ended up on meds with a side effect of drowsiness, and I started sleeping so well! The low amount of sleep on my fitbit was possibly more accurate than I realised.

I just recently got a Charge3, and find the sleep data fairly believable. I don't rely on it for anything, though I do keep an eye on my bedtimes etc, as I now know for sure that my migraines can be triggered/worsened by overtiredness.

I find the fitbit quite useful in tracking steps/calories and motivating me with challenges etc. And I love that it syncs with MFP for calorie adjustments.

I thought they would be a waste of money and a fad, until I got one that is.
I managed to get a half price charge 2 and now I wouldn't be without it, but I love stats and data.
My main focus is the calories in/out to get a deficit, I'm not sure how accurate exactly it is but (as rianneoneamission mentions) it's calculating calories burnt based on your heart rate and I've noticed that the gym equipment gives a similar estimate of calorie burn to what the fitbit reports so I'm happy with the data I'm getting, I sync it with MFP for calories in so I get the full picture.
It has other nice features too and as someone else said you can get interchangeable straps in various styles and colours.
It's very much down to personal choice and opinion but at the end of the day it's also a watch so you can at least get some use out of it to tell the time...

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 swimming, 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.)

The watch's exercise data removes the tedious manual aspect of tracking workouts (it automatically loads into MFP for calorie tracking) and keeps fitness interesting, I love seeing my stats after a workout, and yeah, if I didn't measure it digitally then it never happened...

Terytha wrote: »

I was looking into a smartwatch to maybe just help me out a little, and I'm getting kind of tired of the aggressive reactions of people who seem to find technology offensive and anyone who likes it stupid. I didn't ask for a lecture but boy have I heard a lot of them, here and elsewhere.

Some people are just dicks for the sake of it, @Terytha. Your question is perfectly valid, given that these watches were developed from a step counter starting point.

Before the Fitbit I had a Fitbug, and that was simply a step counter which made little to no difference in my life. The added feature of HR monitoring has helped me develop better habits on more than just one level (see my earlier post on thread). I still have days where I go for a walk to hit my steps, but at the same time I now often opt for a walk just because.