basic fitness tracker - fitbit or ???

Another vote for Garmin from me.

I can't compare to Fitbit, since I never had that. But I love the app, tons of data. Syncs well with MFP. Wrist heart rate isn't always accurate, but I think that's just the nature of these types of sensors, not related to Garmin. I pair my watch with an external HR chest band when I exercise.
I have the Vivoactive 4, which isn't really a basic model. But they have cheaper models too.

You bought 6 Fitbits since 2014? That kinda makes them sound like disposable trackers.

I had 1 Samsung watch that turned itself into a brick after a software load after I owned it for 2 years. They offered to repair it for almost as much as I paid originally. I said no.

I replaced it with a Garmin. I bought one with a lot of features but they have several different models for every user depending on what you need/want.
I had issues with my Garmin this year, still worked, just made noise, they replaced it for free even though out of warranty.

When I buy a new watch it would be another Garmin.

zebasschick wrote: »

i've been using fitbits since 2014. i loved my first two, a fitbit one (wish they still made that!) and a zip, but the four after that have all had issues; btw, those 4 were 2 altas and 2 inspires, one of which worked fine for 20 months and since has had major issues like going through multiple hour periods where it doesn't count steps, erasing all my daily steps or having issues with the app it never had before so i constantly have to disconnect and re-pair it.

i don't need skin temperature, blood pressure or ox, and i don't need to control music, my texts or anything else. heart rate monitoring would be okay if accurate, although i prefer to wear my tracker at my waist, as wearing on my non-dominant arm led to a lot of fake steps.

what i DO want:

accurate step counts (as accurate as a tracker can be, reasonably)
a good, non-glitchy app showing active minutes, steps, etc
as far under $200 as i can get and still get what i want
pairs easily and preferably stays paired


what i'd like but not deal breakers if they don't:

recognizing stairs / altitude
ability to easily log which exercise i'm doing
ability to recognize exercise biking automatically

what think ye? should i just grab a fitbit inspire 2 or luxe or is there something better i could use with a decent app?

I don't think you're going to get the bolded things with a really low-end device. Altitude takes some kind of altimeter, and stairs might, too. (I think mine does outdoor stair guesses with GPS and indoor with some other mechanism, because results differ dramatically indoors vs. out, but I'm guessing.)

Logging exercise - if you're talking calorie estimating - isn't going to work well without heart rate. Yes, heart rate (by itself) is a poor way to estimate a lot of exercise types, but it's often the best of a bad set of alternatives. Unless your exercise bike communicates with the watch (Ant+, bluetooth, whatever), how would it estimate? If it does communicate, power metering (watts) could give a good basis for calorie estimating, though.

IME, autorecognition of exercise is very, very iffy, unless there's automatic connection. My Garmin (Vivoactive 3) will in theory auto-recognize some exercises, but it's laughable when it comes to accuracy. I've now turned that feature off because it was That Annoying. It would see exercise when I couldn't figure out why it thought I was exercising at all, and would misrecognize. (The funniest was when it decided I was swimming . . . when I was bailing rainwater out of a rowing barge with a bucket. Um, no.) In theory, it counts reps for strength training, auto-recognizes which strength exercise is being done, but the results are unpredictable and incorrect. I can correct it on the watch face during the workouts, but it's too fiddly for me. I do suspect it's using METS estimating for strength workouts, when I tell it I'm lifting, which would be good.

I like that the watch holds workout data (so I don't have to take my phone out on the water), but will connect via my phone (bluetooth) when in range again, upload the data to the cloud, so it's safe from watch/phone accidents. The phone app (Garmin Connect) has some basic reporting features, the web version of Connect has lots more reporting and analysis options than the phone app, and there are 3rd party apps that can integrate for various purposes (I haven't explored that, but know they exist).

For me, the sleep tracking is absurd, and I've seen others say the same. I have very non-average sleep patterns (disorders, really), and it will think I'm in REM when I'm awake but in bed reading or texting, say I'm awake sometimes when sleeping outside normal sleeping hours, and all kinds of nonsense. My reading of the research suggests most devices are pretty bad at this, but perhaps would not be so obviously so for a person who's more normal sleep-wise. I had the opportunity to have an in-hospital sleep study, full monitoring via electrodes all over my body to watch brain waves, HR, plus measurements for ox sat, breathing monitored through tricked-out special CPAP, all that stuff. The sleep tech looked at my sleep report in Garmin Connect in the morning, and we both laughed and laughed.

I like the Garmin a lot, though, on balance. FWIW, it's all-day calorie estimates are way off, for me, but so is pretty much any other estimator - more about me being non-average, than the estimates being "wrong" in some general sense.

John772016 wrote: »

You bought 6 Fitbits since 2014? That kinda makes them sound like disposable trackers.

I had 1 Samsung watch that turned itself into a brick after a software load after I owned it for 2 years. They offered to repair it for almost as much as I paid originally. I said no.

I replaced it with a Garmin. I bought one with a lot of features but they have several different models for every user depending on what you need/want.
I had issues with my Garmin this year, still worked, just made noise, they replaced it for free even though out of warranty.

When I buy a new watch it would be another Garmin.

Mine died recently. Out of warranty for years. Free replacement. 🙂

I'll also eventually replace it with another Garmin.

No real advice, other than to offer a (((hug))) from another One user. Mine is still ticking away since 2015. I bought a back-up on EBay a couple years ago, and have realized that I should probably start charging it and letting it run its battery out, just to let the battery run it’s course and what not so the battery doesn’t fail.

There are YouTube videos on how to change the battery for a One.

I’m with you. I wish they’d still make it or another simple version like it.

Love my Garmin vivoactive 4 and garmin connect. I like the training programs, gps, easy to use and can change watch faces through the app to gear it towards what you will use the watch most for.

I've gone Fitbit zip charge / charge 2 / charge 3 (gave to friend, still going) / charge 4

I've looked at other lines but the charge line seems to hit the price feature point for me.

Garmin line up gave me a headache and by the time I got everything I wanted I was paying more than for the charge. Plus (pre fitbit) I found the forums a bit snooty and heavy handed (not that I approve of the fitbit ones, don't get me wrong).

Would I consider a Garmin in the future? Probably. But the Fitbit does do the trick for me. And I don't think I've ever bought it without a $50 discount off list price

Honestly, just the fact that Fitbit is now owned by Google would be enough to put me off from one, if my experiences as a Fitbit owner hadn't already done that.