My impressions so far of Apple Watch Vs Fitbit

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  • SummerSkier
    SummerSkier Posts: 4,800 Member
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    Another tidbit I learned this past week was that having the watch on my right wrist appears to keep the accidental pausing of workouts away. Since I am left handed once I put the fitbit off I moved the watch over to my right hand. Now when my sleeve is returned after I check it during a workout it does not accidently swipe it to pause or stop tab.
  • SummerSkier
    SummerSkier Posts: 4,800 Member
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    so yesterday I decided to take my phone with me to take some photos of all the spring trees and flowers around. Since I have been using the Apple watch to track my runs I decided for a change to use Map My RUn from my phone. So it started out well with the Watch showing the phone ap also and the voice with splits etc coming thru my ear buds. Everything tracked perfectly until I stopped at about the 3 mile mark to take a photo of a apple tree blooming. I paused my phone to take the picture but the watch got VERY confused by that and kept going for a little while. Then when I paused it my phone paused again and now I was hosed and had to stop the ap and restart again. SO, not sure if pausing it on the watch would have been better or whether I would need to pause on both. Anyway. Failed experiment. But interesting.
  • countrycoffeequeen
    countrycoffeequeen Posts: 3 Member
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    Love my apple watch and new to myfitnesspal and am wondering how do i get it to track my workouts on here?
  • SummerSkier
    SummerSkier Posts: 4,800 Member
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    Love my apple watch and new to myfitnesspal and am wondering how do i get it to track my workouts on here?
    go into the applications portion of MFP and link to Apple health I think Also do a search of the forums
  • GBO323
    GBO323 Posts: 336 Member
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    Love my apple watch and new to myfitnesspal and am wondering how do i get it to track my workouts on here?

    Use the Workouts app on the watch and it *should* feed back into MFP. While it may title it differently, the data should be accurate.
  • GBO323
    GBO323 Posts: 336 Member
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    I was a FitBit user since the Zip and I really liked their ecosystem. What began to be a pain was when the sync between MFP and FitBit goes down and one blames the other, etc. Got an AW3 a couple years ago and love it...however, found that MFP really doesn't sync it right so I moved to another tracking app. The features of the AW really surpass the FitBit and once I learned how to look at the numbers, found it really was more accurate than FitBit.
  • SummerSkier
    SummerSkier Posts: 4,800 Member
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    So I decided to do a new TDEE chart this next couple of months. It will be interesting to see how closely the watch tracks. I think it will be better than fitbit for sure. I haven't done one since 2017 when I was losing weight and then it gave me 1850/day. I have been running more distance since then but with the Covid19 thing I am working remotely so definitely NOT getting as much activity in general. And of course I am 3 years older.
  • Talan79
    Talan79 Posts: 782 Member
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    I had a Fitbit Flex 2 since August of 2018 and got an Apple Watch early March. I didn’t like the 3rd party sleep apps so I started wearing my Flex for sleep analysis.
    I decided to wear both on my left wrist for one week and track data. On average, AW gave me 1,300 more steps a day, and roughly 85 more calories towards TDEE. I do a home weight routine and run. Assuming that the heart rate is a factor for the additional calories.
    When outdoor running or walking, Fitbit would clock me in at a mile when Apple Watch had me at .95, and it stayed consistent for the duration of 5 miles.
  • SummerSkier
    SummerSkier Posts: 4,800 Member
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    thanks Talan. It is interesting to me that my runs DO seem slower using the Apple watch than when I used the fitbit but I attributed that more to them updating the GPS late last year about the same tine I got my watch.

    Fitbit I think had me about 300-400 too high for TDEE. I do think it is more accurate on heart rate tho. Even tho I tell my Watch to monitor my HR during workouts sometimes it just gets stuck. Do you know what it means when you get the heart with the "c" in the middle. Calibrating maybe? I tried google search on it but couldn't find an answer. Since my heart rate fluctuates fairly quickly up and down it is annoying to see my watch telling me it is 89 bpm when I am sprinting and fitbit would give me 160 or more.
  • Talan79
    Talan79 Posts: 782 Member
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    I haven’t noticed a c during heart rate on AW.
    I just went backed and looked and didn’t seem to have experienced that.
    One thing tho with Fitbit calculating 1 mile when Apple Watch is at .95, I think it has to do with the stride length in Fitbit. I’m short, 5”2, but I walk very fast. During my long distance walks, my average pace is in the 14 min range, sometimes even 13 range. My Fitbit didn’t calculate HR so I don’t have anything to compare to. But my TDEE is pretty close bn the two devices.
  • SummerSkier
    SummerSkier Posts: 4,800 Member
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    My apple watch uses GPS to calculate as I suspect Fitbit did also so stride length should not have effected it. I am short also but my stride is never the same from walk or run day to day.
  • Talan79
    Talan79 Posts: 782 Member
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    My Fitbit has a stride length which I’m able to edit but I’ve had it at its default. I would also track my run using its maps feature. Not sure why the discrepancy.
  • SummerSkier
    SummerSkier Posts: 4,800 Member
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    yes - I knew fitbit had that but not sure Apple Watch with GPS cares. It seems to see my cadence (steps per minute I believe) and I can calculate stride length from that.
  • Talan79
    Talan79 Posts: 782 Member
    edited April 2020
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    Can you tell me how you calculate stride length from that? My average spm is 165 (when running) Fitbits default stride length for my run was set to 35.5, not sure how accurate it is/was. Thanks in advance.
  • SummerSkier
    SummerSkier Posts: 4,800 Member
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    Well if you know your pace you can calculate for a specific run as follows:
    if my pace is 10:39 avg minutes per mile and I take 170 steps per minute that means I take 170x10.65=1810.5 steps per mile. which 5280 feet in a mile so 2.9163 foot per step or 0.89 meters or 35 inches. But my stride varies because the Steps per minute and the pace vary every run.
  • niniundlapin
    niniundlapin Posts: 327 Member
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    Two week old Apple Watch owner here! Thank you OP for this thread <3

    I started with Fitbit Charge HR in 2016, about the same time I started MFP, and then Charge 2 for the past 2.5 years. It’s a bit scary to switch to a different system but I had enough disastrous degradation experience for Fitbit products, even though I had been eyeing on Versa 2 for a while.

    Anyway, I love my new AW especially for the fitness tracking part for its various options when recording workouts (mainly indoor kickboxing and weights). The range of heart rate seems to be similar to what I’ve seen before with my Charge 2. The only thing I’m still waiting is Apple’s built-in sleep tracker (I don’t wanna deal with the charging arrangement just yet lol).

    One thing I’m always wondering for the past two weeks: does AW always tend to overestimate our daily calorie burn vs Fitbit? Cuz not too long ago mine is always around 1600-1900 kcal depends on how active I am throughout the week, but now with AW the number seems to be higher (1900-2000)... maybe it’s because of this stay-at-home order that greatly increases my chance of chasing after my toddler? Lol. Or maybe it’s because I want to close all three rings so badly that it’s been making me doing extra moves throughout the day? :D
  • SummerSkier
    SummerSkier Posts: 4,800 Member
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    Where are you getting your daily calorie burn from? Fitbit REALLY overestimated mine and I am currently doing another TDEE chart to see how close Apple watch it. I find the #s under the activity ring or added together on the health app. So for instance. On the activity app it shows 1989 cals total for yesterday for me. In the health app it shows 747 active energy and 1241 resting. I know Fit bit would have been about 2200. Still recalculating my TDEE as I have upped my running mileage this year but I suspect Apple watch will be pretty close. When I originially calculated it in 2017 it was 1850. TDEE chart link to verify fitness tracker. Everyone is different tho so it's always best to personalize your own data

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7gGXXQIy4R4ejRRNkZHZHFDOW8/view
  • niniundlapin
    niniundlapin Posts: 327 Member
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    @SummerSkier thanks for the info! I got the numbers mainly from Activity app since I’m still trying to navigate the Health app. For yesterday, my Move was 519 kcal and the total was 1964. That would put my average resting burn around 1450 kcal (data from the past 10 days is showing similar numbers) and that’s a bit higher than what I got from Fitbit (I think it’s a bit lower than 1300).
    Looks like this could be a learning process for the AW according to previous discussions... Another way I can find out is to assess everything in a month since I’ve stopped logging intake everyday (hard for lunch and dinner). My weight and measurements should stay within an acceptable range if the number on AW is accurate and I don’t overeat during this period of time :D
  • tkarp4738
    tkarp4738 Posts: 2 Member
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    Long time FB user and just had my ICONIC die. Sad. Making the move to AW 3. yes good price. any suggestions for a simple set up. also mainly fitness and linking with MFP. thanks
  • SummerSkier
    SummerSkier Posts: 4,800 Member
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    tkarp4738 wrote: »
    Long time FB user and just had my ICONIC die. Sad. Making the move to AW 3. yes good price. any suggestions for a simple set up. also mainly fitness and linking with MFP. thanks

    @tkarp4738 sadly this group is sort of dead. Most of the issues you will have getting MFP to link steps and activity to the watch you can do a search on in the community and get better answers. Fitbit and MFP work together a LOT easier than Apple Watch and Fitbit for some reason. You cannot get your steps to directly translate but need to use a 3rd connecting ap like Pacer to do it if you are trying to manage things in MFP like that.

    After almost 10 months of using the watch I can honestly say that the fitbit by itself for a fitness device is probably a lot better. I think it tracks you HR much better than the watch. they use different algorhythms but I matched the avr HR with a chest strap pretty durn close to fitbit. Apple watch even if you tell it to constantly check your hr while working out seems to get stuck and so you don't get a true avg hr for say running like the fitbit does.

    Of course the watch has a LOT of other bennies. For instance you can actually SEE the data on it clearly in the daytime and you don't have to carry your phone with you to listen to your music etc.

    I like the fitbit 250 steps per hr vs the AW stand for 2 minutes per hr and you can customize a lot more workout goals with fitbit.

    Anyway, sorry for the late response but if you have other questions ask away!

    summerskier