Fitness Trackers

[jking]

I'm wondering if anyone uses a fitness tracker and how useful do you find it? Brand & model info is appreciated, too. My wife recently bought a Fitbit Flex and seems to like it. I've been thinking of buying one for myself, but, I think I would want something that has a time display. Of course that means more money.

John

[onedash]

My kids have the fitbit flex and my wife has the charge I think(HR + time) Which also tracks stairs and cannot be tricked by a rocking chair like the flex. If they put one in a G-Shock I might get one.

[leehljp]

I have an iPhone 6 and it has an Apple health app on it as standard. I keep the phone on me as I go here there and yonder. It keeps up with my "walking" distance, and has other functions too. With 70 year old knees and back, I am not into "fitness" as in exercising. I walk, in my work or around the house and yard an average of 3 miles a day. Doctor asked me back in the spring how much I walked and I pulled out my phone and showed him. He was mildly impressed.

I also have an app for a heartbeat / blood pressure machine. When I take my BP/hb, it goes onto my phone.

This is not technically a "wrist tracker" but it is simple and keeps up with things that I can take with me (on the iPhone) in case the doctor asks me. I am thinking seriously about getting LOML an Apple Watch because of the things it can record medically and keep up with for the doctor. I think it needs one more iteration and it will be there for what she needs.

[Black wallnut]

First I don't use one... I have friends who really like the fitbit. For cycling I use a Garmin gps bike computer and have it linked to my Strava account and when I was using My Fitness Pal it was linked with that as well.

[Bill in Buena Park]

I use the Garmin VivoSmart HR, which I bought when on sale for $129. Serves as watch and fitness band. Has a nice smartphone app, and the touchscreen lets you scroll through the features, which include time, heart rate, message log, weather, mileage, calories, minutes of intense activity, flights of stairs, steps (pedometer), and music app control (which I disabled). Only have to charge it once a week. I really like it. Here's a link: https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/into...7D6BoCTIDw_wcB

[poolhound]

I dont have a wrist wearable as for me I want an accurate pulse rate monitor and many dont have this and I am not sure of the accuracy without a chest strap. I use a phone ap called iCardio the online version can be found here. http://www.fitdigits.com/personal-solutions.html.

I use it to track workouts, hikes and walks. It is great for hikes as it gives me a map of my route and what my pace and HR was at various points on the route. Great while training for my grand canyon trip. Now woodworking for me this weekend as on Saturday we are hiking into the canyon at 5:30am. Hope to hit the bar back at the top before 3pm :-)

[twistsol]

I've had nearly every Fitbit model, and my current one is a Fitbit Blaze. Being in finance and IT, I'm a bit of a data junkie. Two things about fitness trackers. Figure out what your goals are for wearing a tracker, and then use the information you get from it to modify your behavior.

I do like the trackers with the heart rate monitors, Blaze and the Charge HR both had them. I've checked the heart rate monitor against the chest strap monitor I have when using the elliptical or treadmill and they both seem to be very close.

I've found that there is a big difference in the distance different models estimate. The iPhone and the Blaze both use GPS to tell you distance, some of the lower end models just go by steps and multiply by your "stride length" which is based on your height. When I'm walking somewhere it is pretty accurate. when I'm pacing in my office on a conference call, my stride length is mush shorter so the Charge has a much greater distance than the Blaze or my phone.

Flights of stairs is generally accurate as well, but everything I've tried thinks I'm on the stairs when I'm on the tractor at home. I know for a fact I didn't climb 260 flights of stairs while plowing snow one morning, but that's what the technology told me.

My biggest problem with the wrist models is that I am really hard on them. I've never had a watch last a year, and my Fitbit Charge lasted about 8 months. I have to say, that Fitbit has awesome customer support. They have replaced them when I broke the molded strap, and even when the belt clip version I had went through the wash (It failed after about the 10th time).

If you have an even moderately modern smart phone you can probably find apps for it that will do what most fitness trackers do and save a bit of money as well. Even though my current one has the time on the face, I still look at my phone more often than not.

[KenBurris]

If you are looking at a Fitbit, check the website for supported phones. My Charge worked with my Galaxy S3, but when that died, my new Galaxy Grand Prime was not supported - even after over 15 months. Customer service would not indicate that they even planned to support the Prime, just said to check the supported devices list.

[jking]

Thanks for the replies. Any additional ones are welcome.

I like the simplicity of the Fitbit Flex that my wife has, although, I was underwhelmed by the information it gives you. I'm not sure what I expected, but, it seemed like there should be more of something. I've actually been giving strong consideration to the Garmin units. I think I'd find heart rate monitoring useful. I think having one that shows the time would be useful, too. I coach some youth sports and not having to pull out my phone everytime I need to check the time during practices would be handy.

[jking]

Update: I ended up buying a Fitbit Charge HR on sale. So far, I like it for what it does. I've checked the heart rate feature a couple of times and it seems pretty accurate. It does occasionally lose the heart beat, but, it doesn't seem to be for too long. At this point, I use the HR as a general indicator of exercise intensity, but, don't really need it to be 100% accurate. It was a bit surprising to see how many times I am restless when sleeping. I've found the Fitbit app to have more information than I initially thought. It's pretty good.