I didn’t break into the bears’ house, but I tried three different fitness monitoring devices this year and found the one that was just right.
I didn’t care for the BodyMedia, because it was uncomfortable to wear and offered no immediate visual feedback on your progress. I also found issue with the fact that they charged a subscription fee in order to use the deviec at all. I did like that it monitored sleep and offered a way to log your calorie intake.
I liked the Striiv, because it was simple, fun, and motivating. I also liked that it didn’t require syncing, and it wasn’t uncomfortable to wear. Just put it in your pocket or purse, and you were good to go. However, it didn’t allow you to log calories or track weight loss, and there are no app tie-ins.
The Fitbit
Immediate Feedback
The Fitbit is simple. There’s only one button, and pushing it lights up the display and switches between modes. You can see your steps, your stairs, you calories, and a flower you can “grow” by increasing your activity during the day. It’s not as fun as the Striiv’s many forms of motivation, but it’s enough to keep you motivated to move. You can combine it with apps for Android or iPhone to add badges and other motivators.
Syncing
The Fitbit charges through a USB base station, but a recharge lasts for several days. Once you install the desktop software (available for both Macs and Windows), you shouldn’t normally have to think about syncing. The Fitbit device automatically attempts to wirelessly sync every 15 minutes, and it will also sync when you recharge.
I had my Fitbit stop syncing once while testing it, and following the support instructions on the website, I uninstalled the desktop software and reset the device. It worked fine and didn’t lose any data.
Beyond Steps – Monitoring Sleep and More
In order to track your sleep, the Fitbit ships with a wrist band. You put the Fitbit in the wrist band, and then press down on the device’s button until the stopwatch appears (this stopwatch can be used to measure aerobic activity, too). Use the button to switch it out of sleep mode. What it measures is how quickly you settle to sleep and how much you stir in the night. If you forget to put it into sleep mode or turn it off, you can manually enter your sleep stop and start times on the Fitbit website.
The Fitbit website offers a lot of value even to the free user. It tracks weight and allows historical entries. I hate apps that insist you only started dieting the moment you started using their program. You can also manually track BMI, body measurements, glucose, blood pressure, and heart rate. If you want to track something not listed – cups of coffee, push-ups, or swear words for example, you can make a custom tracker to log the data.
If you buy a premium account, it’s $49 per year and offers you enhanced reports and comparisons with your peers. It also offers a virtual trainer and the ability to export your data in spreadsheet formats.
Syncing – Other Apps and Devices
The Fitbit allows you to sync with the Withings WiFi Body Scale , which means you could weigh yourself in the morning and save the step of needing to write it down. Fitbit has an import wizard that will pull in historical data on this as well. Fitbit is also coming out with their own WiFi scale called the Aria, which will track BMI as well as weight.
You can also sync your Fitbit account with a wide variety of free and premium mobile apps and websites, including Microsoft Health Vault, My Fitness Pal, Lose It!, Endomondo, and more. That means you can still use many of your favorite apps to log your calorie intake while using Fitbit to track your activity levels. You can also unlock new and interesting ways to get motivated by combining apps that aren’t traditionally considered diet or exercise apps. You can even link it to your Foursquare account!
This year has definitely seen a coming of age for health apps and gadgets. Engineers have also started to find a sense of fun. I can’t wait to see what other devices are around the corner. Full disclosure: Fitbit provided me with a sample device for the purposes of this review.
