I have a MiBand.
About $16 shipped
http://www.tinydeal.com/fashion-new-xiaomi-miband-smart-bracelet-silicone-band-watch-p-139192.html
It’s bare bones, but does the job. One charge lasts about a month…yes a month. At some point I may spring for something FitBit-ish, but this is a good cheap starter fit moitor.
I’ve got a Fitbit Flex and mostly like it. Before that, I had a Zip (clip-on only)… then a second Zip when I lost the first one… then I got the Flex free through a work-sponsored program, and lost the second ZIP the day after the Flex arrived in the mail :smack:
I generally like it but it has some drawbacks.
The battery life is only about 5 days and I tend to forget to charge it. I looked around for wristbands for the Zip (replaceable battery, change every 3-4 months) but they didn’t exist back then. Now that they do make them, I’ve decided it would be too big and clunky - plus as far as i know the Zip doesn’t have the silent alarm.
The silent alarm is a nice feature but it does NOT turn off easily even when I tap it the way the instructions say to do.
I will say, Fitbit’s customer service was very good. My first one died after about 16 months - well out of warranty - but they replaced it anyway.
I’ve been told that by a number of people, but my experience was very different. Mine fell apart while still under warranty, and not only did I not get a replacement, I was not treated well at all. (I know you all don’t know me in real life, but I’m not one to be mean or obnoxious to customer service people. Even with AT&T, a company I will never do business with again, I can be polite).
So, I switched to jawbone trackers and have been very happy with them - and the one time I did have to contact customer service, it was a delightful experience.
I have a Fitbit One. My only problem with it is that it’s gone missing.
It’s the clip on kind, not the wristband kind, I don’t wear things on my wrist due to the residuals of my carpal tunnel syndrome. I know I had it on Monday. Didn’t use it the rest of the week because I was suffering an allergy attack and not being active. I suspect the cats decided to play with it, and the battery has died, I can’t find it with the iPhone app.
Would it be too much of a hijack for me to invite folk to expand upon why they bought such a device, and their experiences?
Don’t mean to suggest anyone oughtn’t get one if they want. And I’m all for people leading more healthy lives. But I personally don’t understand the allure of these devices.
I’m pretty aware if I had a good night’s sleep or not, and I can tell you whether I’ve been active or a lazy slob the past few days. Same way I can tell you if I’ve been eating well or not. I started swimming a few months ago, and i keep a log of days that I swim, and number of laps. When I used to run I kept days, distances, and times. So I GET the idea of keeping records. I just don’t get the level of detail.
Like I said, don’t mean to hijack, and I don’t mean to come across as insulting. I mainly was interested in what folk who are interested in these things had to say.
I’m mostly curious whether my perception matches up with reality. I know when I feel like I’ve gotten a good (or crappy) night’s sleep, but not how much of the night I actually slept, or how much of a correlation there is between quantity of sleep and how I feel the next day (or whether it’s a sleep quality issue). Same for level of exercise - I have a relatively sedentary job, and due to my gimpy ankle I can’t run at all, or do a ton of walking in a single day. So I’d like to have a better idea of how much exercise I actually get on days when I don’t specifically set out to exercise.
It may lead me to do an actual sleep study down the line, but I’d like to have some vague semblance of data to talk to a sleep specialist about if it comes to that.
(And no, I don’t find your question insulting in the least. I have been thinking about whether even to bother with this for a while now; I’m not generally a gadget freak or exercise nut. I just wanted to establish some kind of baseline.)
Hmmm, well the Fitbit thinks I got 8 hours and 45 minutes of sleep last night, including waking up twice. And that I walked 4.5 miles. I’m a little gimpy right now in the bad ankle, but not really tired and pleasantly surprised that I was able to walk that long at all.
Generally, I think it’s pretty accurate. Let’s see if it helps keep me motivated and on task!
Other folks: do you think these gadgets help you keep a closer eye on your exercise, sleep, food intake, etc.? I am a little frustrated that the food diary seems quite geared toward processed and restaurant foods, which I don’t eat much of at all. I guess I will just need to pick the closest approximation. Are there tricks for finding unprocessed and/or homemade foods? I mean I know they will vary somewhat by recipe, etc., but generally speaking.
Personally, I don’t get deeply into the details. But as a runner, like you I want to track days, distances, and times. And it is super easy with the Vivoactive.
Then there is the GPS function - as I mentioned above, that is really useful for hiking or just for figuring out routes you can run in your neighborhood of various lengths.
I can see the appeal of many of the other features, though. For one thing, the Vivoactive will beep at you if you have been sitting still to long. It is a nice reminder to keep moving. For people who have been extremely sedentary and are trying, with difficulty, to make gradual improvements, I can see how the gamifaction would really help. It’s so easy to set and track goals of any kind.
After having lost a significant amount of weight, I wanted to increase my physical fitness and both physical and mental health. I had already started doing more walking, but I’m the kind of person who is extremely motivated by data (I weigh myself every single morning, for example).
When I first started wearing the Fitbit, I was walking about 5,000 steps a day. Last summer, I was walking at least 11,000 steps a day and sometimes over 20,000.
Without sounding too evangelical, it really has changed my life. I now subscribe to a Country Walking magazine and my husband and I will plan weekends away with the express purpose of walking in a different part of the country.
Fitbit Charge user here. My husband gave me one for Christmas 2014.
While having it has helped me increase my activity levels–just by quantifying how much I’m moving–it hasn’t been without its problems. The first one died after about six months, just wouldn’t hold charge. Retailer replaced it, no problem. Replacement died a few months later, same problem. Retailer replaced it, no problem. Third one died, same problem. This time I went to Fitbit directly, they sent a replacement.
That one–my fourth Fitbit in a year–semi-died in that it stopped counting some data, kept counting others, just after Christmas. Went back to Fitbit, and they said they’d replace it but it would take six weeks to ship.
When this one dies, no matter how much I’ve enjoyed Fitbit’s interface, I’m swapping to another maker because five of them in just over a year is friggin’ ridiculous.
MyFitnessPal is the best calorie counting and food logging app/website out there. The food database is vast, and it has homemade options - and you can also add your own recipes. For example, when I make a stew, I can add in the bulk ingredients and how many servings (i.e. 1 lb ground beef, 1 package frozen peas, 1 cup dry lentils, 2 cans diced tomatoes, etc; 8 servings) and it will calculate the per serving calories and then I can use that each time I take a portion out of the freezer. Then it also has tons of restaurant stuff, and a bar code reader for those times you’re out and do end up grabbing something packaged, even if it’s just a beverage.
It pairs with a lot of trackers (fitbit among them), so your calories and exercise transfer between apps. So my Misfit knows my calories from MyFitnessPal and MyFitnessPal knows my exercise from the Misfit - and adds back calories based on exercise so if I want that piece of cake I’ll know from exercise logged that day whether I can afford it. Or half of it. Or at least a couple bites! I’ve learned to moderate, and I’m losing weight eating whatever I want - just by learning not to gorge. I have appetite issues. And the adding back of exercise calories REALLY keeps me motivated to get my butt out the door and walk more, or at least get on the stationary bike.
Yes, it’s an extra app, but it’s really worth it IMO (and free anyway). My doctor was the one who recommended it to me, and I started with just logging for a couple months before I finally came to my own conclusion that damn I was eating a LOT and needed to start doing something, At that point, I researched and found the Misfit for me and set MyFitnessPal to track calories for weight loss. I’m setting it for 20 pounds at a time, 1 pound a week so my calorie restriction isn’t crazy, and clearly doable. It can be set for weight loss, gain, or maintenance.
Thanks, all, for engaging this discussion.
This impresses me as a significant key. To me, the most important thing is DOING the activity, not analyzing it. Instead of spending 5 minutes reviewing the data, I’d rather just haul my ass outside and walk the dog around the block. (Just typing to express thoughts quickly, not intending to insult or disparage anyone.)
And I’m not terribly tech savvy.
I AM hugely goal oriented. So I’ll set goals such as exercise 3x a week. Or 12x a month. Or swim more laps this month than last. And that type of general goal is good enough for me. Of course, I’m basically healthy, not overweight, and at 55, I’m not training for any big competitions.
My lowtech exercise approach has long been “Get that carcass moving.” That’s it. So ride my bike, walk places, use the stairs, walk the dog, and then work in a couple of exercises - currently swimming - where I strain myself. If I’ve been a couch potato in front of the tube, I don’t need a fitbit to tell me that! But if I go for a swim after work and get other exercise through the day, if I want to sit and read or watch TV, that’s fine, and I don’t need some piece of technology which (I imagine) might make me feel guilty about it.
Eva presents a different proposition, where she’s concerned about her sleep. Again, not a problem i share. And I’m all for folk trying anything that helps them be more healthy.
I’ve never dieted. All my life I exercised - in part - because I knew I tended to overindulge in food/booze. Now that I no longer drink, it is pretty simple mindset to know that I need to exercise more, and could always eat more fruit and veggies. If I swim and have a big salad for dinner, I have no guilt about that big bowl of ice cream later!
Again - thanks for sharing.
I wanted accurate, personal data. I knew the machines at the gym weren’t giving me accurate calorie counts for my workouts. I knew that every calorie-restriction program I’d ever been on was unbearable. I wanted to know what the hell was going on.
And the FitBit has been great for that. Yep, the Precor treadmill way overestimates my calories burned … and yep, calorie restriction programs recommend way too few calories for me to get by on. The FitBit gives me an ongoing estimate of how many calories I can eat each day to reach my goals, and let me tell you, those numbers are comforting and doable. And I am losing weight.
It doesn’t really take any real time to analyze, and it’s a huge motivator if you’re data-driven (like me).
I have a Jawbone UP2, which replaced my UP24. I love it so much and simultaneously hesitate to recommend it.
The hardware will almost certainly fail in a year or less, that seems to be a given. The support offered by Jawbone seems to be excellent in the US, spotty outside it (I need a clip to stop my UP2 coming undone accidentally, and they’d mail it to me free of charge if I was in the US, but I have to try and find a retailer who stocks them over here).
Almost everyone I know with a fitness band has a Fitbit. If I wanted to use my real life social network as my activity support network, Jawbone has no where near the take-up of Fitbit.
On the other hand:
People I know who have tried both report the Jawbone is more accurate
I’ve checked out the Fitbit software, and find it inferior, particularly the social network side. I have many more options to keep up with my friends and their activity levels than Fitbit offers, and I have a particular friend who spurs me on to activity I otherwise wouldn’t do (and vice versa). I think I will inevitably end up with a Fitbit just because they’re already the most successful band (I fully expect Jawbone to tank someday, or be acquired and absorbed), but it’s hugely disappointing to anticipate switching to the Fitbit app.
Where it has helped is in inspiring me to take steps that I otherwise wouldn’t. I’ve set the inactivity reminder feature to monitor me, and the band buzzes on my wrist to remind me to get up and move if I sit too long in the hours I’ve designated as my active time. I regularly “duel” with a friend (challenge to see who can do the most steps in a designated period), and I’ve been known to run around my lounge late at night trying to beat her - activity I very definitely wouldn’t have undertaken under my own steam. When I’m on the phone, I use that time to walk instead of sit. Checking my daily activity level and finding it low spurs me into action. Being close to my daily goal pushes me to walk more to meet it. If I was self motivated to exercise, I wouldn’t need the band, but I do require all these little nudges to keep up and going.
I don’t spend hours analyzing data. The thing ticks over on my wrist all the time, the data is nearly instantly accessible and doesn’t take masses of time to absorb. I’ve spent way longer composing this post than I ever put into reading my data 
I don’t even need to look at the app to know when I’ve reached my daily goal, because the band buzzes to tell me. My daily calorie burn is automatically imported into MyFitnessPal, and helps me monitor my calorie intake vs output. I get email updates weekly that break down the data for me, and I get personalized daily tips that are based on my activity level or sleep habits.
I am also finding it educational to know that I can actually walk much further than I thought I could before my ankle gets gimpy. I have end-stage arthritis in my left ankle thanks to an old (and very severe) fracture - my ortho says the X-rays suggest I should have a lot more trouble walking than I actually do. And I was a lot thinner before I busted my ankle, but of course that’s also going on 20 years ago now.
Before the ankle, I could easily spend all day walking, which I just plain can’t do anymore - the ankle is definitely the limiting factor, because I’m not tired at all, and the Fitbit is telling me I did more than 11,000 steps today, and a tad less yesterday. And I can bike 20 miles, and swim basically forever (I get bored long before I get tired).
But yes, it’s helpful to have something against which I can compare my perception. I’ll have to see how it does measuring non-walking exercise (recumbent stationary bike in the gym, maybe). And it’s handy to have calorie counts at one’s fingertips, too. I will play around with Myfitnesspal too, maybe, though I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Fitbit app itself includes ajvar It doesn’t seem to be so great with the ethnic foods generally, though, or even different kinds of cheese than Cheddar or American or feta.
In my case, I wanted some encouragement to move more, and some visibility into how much I do move. It’s been pretty eye-opening seeing how sedentary I can be when working from home, for example.
I also have a workplace incentive that gets me points for days where I break 5,000 steps or more, that adds up to financial benefits (about 150 bucks at the end of the year).
just got my fitbit charge hr over the weekend. Happy so far, what I want to verify over time is how accurate the TDEE estimate is.
I was trying to be data driven about weight loss.
My thinking was that I would measure how many calories I burned and then use that to figure out how much I should eat. Obviously, the answer was “less,” but I wanted both a guide and a reality check. The tracker that I got was supposed to be able to count calories burned; I’d planned on comparing it to calories I’d eaten and then to see how my weight changed based on the difference between the numbers.
As I said above, it wasn’t a very good tracker. It tended to crap out as soon as I did any kind of hard exercise (running, dance classes), it couldn’t measure cycling on my trainer at all (I’m on there for an hour sweating - while I think it burns less than a run, I’m sure that I’m burning more than I do sitting in a chair for an hour. It couldn’t tell the difference). The one I bought was not good for what I was looking for. I do think I’d try it again with a better tracker.
It did an ok job of counting steps. I found out that generally, I took about 10-14K steps/day on days where I worked at the office, not including deliberate exercise. I took about half that on days I worked from home (which luckily I didn’t do more than once or twice/month).
The Misfit Shine might work for you. It’s waterproof, and can be clipped to your shoelace/tucked into your sock for cycling. If you want to do exercise and calorie tracking without wearing tech for now, you can manually enter exercise with MyFitnessPal, and its food diary is really easy to use. It’s app and web-based so you don’t need a smartphone either.
I have a Fitbit HR. I changed the sleep setting from sensitive to normal and I think it’s a more accurate read of my sleep.
The one complaint I have is that it doesn’t always register a heart rate. This can be frustrating when I’m working out, as I can FEEL my heart pounding but my Fitbit just says “–”.
Although, I have been known, when I’m close to hitting my calorie burned goal for the day, to do some running in place around the living room.