Let's Talk Activity/Fitness Trackers

[dangerousdon]

Okay...Let's Talk Activity/Fitness Trackers...

Currently I have a FitBit Versa 2. In the beginning, I liked it a lot. Lately, not so much. The device losses connectivity with the phone...a lot...which stops tracking distance and route when I am on walks and on bike rides. I also have my doubts about the accuracy as of late. I went for a bike ride and kind of pushed it a bit. The device should that my heart rate didn't budge above 85 bpm. Yeah...I am positive I am not in that good of shape. There are a few other issues I have, but I won't get into the knit and pick of it all. Let's just say that I am a bit disappointed, because I have only had this FitBit for about a year. I went through some troubleshooting steps to include resetting it...but troubleshooting seemed to fail.

In a perfect world...I would love to get an Oura Ring ( Oura Ring: Accurate Health Information Accessible to Everyone ), but since the start off at three hundo...it probably won't happen. I know there are others...expensive and cheap. But honestly...I am looking for something that just works. I am inclined to go with one of the Samsung Smart Watches for Activity...but not sure which one. I know a lot of you will likely suggest the Apple Watch. Feel free to discuss it...but I likely won't get it. Not a fan of Apple products.

Anyway...what say the all knowing and wise members of the Cadre!

 

[GearNoir]

When I was looking for a “smart”/tech watch, I did a lot of reading that included bits about health tracking, even though it wasn’t much of a priority for me beyond steps and rough calorie burn per day (I was more interested in ruggedness, battery life, and GPS features).

The consensus seemed to be that if you were really data fitness hungry, you needed a watch that was fitness dedicated and could work with a chest strap monitor.

The newest generation of O2 sensors (such as in the Garmin Fenix 6) seem to have improved over last gen (such as in my Fenix 5x) but still is only good for rough numbers, though it’s getting better.

As attractive as it was for me, this knocked out any Apple options immediately, aside from their abysmal battery life.

Watches that were brought up quite often were Garmin, Suunto, Fitbit, and Polar. Polar in particular (at least last year) seemed to have the edge in some fitness circles because of its slightly better fitness tracking and chest band pairing abilities.

 

[DeepSea]

I’ve been using my trusty Garmin 235 for 5-6?ish years and I love it. 7-10 day battery life when not using GPS. Functions as an ok smart watch. I’ve beaten the piss out of it and it keeps on goin. I’ll likely upgrade soon but only because the battery life is starting to get a little shorter. It tracks my steps, heart rate, “intensity minutes” and sleep. It’s not perfect at any one thing, but it does everything I need it to do pretty well.

 

[global_dev]

am looking for something that just works.

Whats are you trying to track/monitor?
HR zone “locks”? Sleep, recovery, sparkfit, maps, gps, power, etc

In realtime or sync after?
Under $300 then?

i’ve been using polar over last 6 months
A vantage m and a OH1. They can work independently or together. The OH1 can track by itself or with web or mobile app.

i really like the watch and found the oh1 very useful in specific situations. But the watch msrp is close to your oura and the oh1 is $70-80 iirc. A new upversion of it came out recently for $10 more last week iirc.

i see some like the ignite model which is much less inexpensive. People say polar hasnt been on the forefront of continued development like other companies, but i think it all depends on what you need.

none of the polar have user replaceable batteries if I understand correctly.

the market seems to be where you need to understand what features you want when you don’t know what you dont know about the nice to have features for a bit more would have been

 

[CVargo]

I use the Versa as well. Mine missed an update and after some back and forth fitbit replaced it. No issues now. @dangerousdon you might consider that.

I am thinking a Garmin might be a better choice. Strictly because from a referee standpoint I hear there are some apps on it that fellow referees use.

 

[global_dev]

I have a friend who use tickr wahoo chest straps and like them. He would be first to tell me if it wasnt good and then what i should get. Only reason i didnt end up with the tickerx was inventory issues.

i do wish i had a power meter, and I’ve looked into stryd, runscribe, and watches with power meter, but its not too cheap nor too expensive, but just enough to make me wonder if its worth it.

 

[global_dev]

I’m on a downer for fitbit. My fitbit one? model was bricked by their fw update and they were like whatever, too bad. Widely reported on the internet of this issue for many, but not all users of this model.

 

[Jaro1069]

Still really liking the amazfit bip.. Great watch and still on first charge after about a month or so its currently at 30 percent.. It not only tells time but also weather and temp ( it was syncing the current temp when I took pic )and heart rate and sleep and gives notifications I can read for calls and text and tracks steps and has exercise modes and built in gps and has a very large selection of watch faces available for it.. It has a lot of other features too..Oh its also an Extremely good price !!

 

[uacowboy]

Stacy and i have been using Fitbit Inspire 2's since January. Seems to track pretty well for me. only complaint was the soft rubber band it came with was rubbing my wrist raw but i grabbed a replacement band from amazon and it's been great since then.

I have had a couple Samsung watches and neither one impressed me in the fitness tracking.

 

[HMan]

No point in getting an Apple Watch if you're not into the Apple ecosystem, that's half the advantage. Otherwise it's just crap battery life for something a dedicated fitness tracker will give you better value for money on.

I'm not sure how much I trust the strap on heart monitors, I just see so many reviews about pairing problems, and the LED monitors seem to be catching up on accuracy.

I was looking at them for using when I'm on my spin bike, but the Apple Watch has been good enough for that once I found the right app.

Plus they are a pita to use, unless you're really hardcore about getting that data.

 

[Jaro1069]

I’m on a downer for fitbit. My fitbit one? model was bricked by their fw update and they were like whatever, too bad. Widely reported on the internet of this issue for many, but not all users of this model.

There is usually a hack in some of the Dev communities that will usually let you downgrade to a previous firmware through ADB or fast load ...

 

[HMan]

I have a friend who use tickr wahoo chest straps and like them. He would be first to tell me if it wasnt good and then what i should get. Only reason i didnt end up with the tickerx was inventory issues.

i do wish i had a power meter, and I’ve looked into stryd, runscribe, and watches with power meter, but its not too cheap nor too expensive, but just enough to make me wonder if its worth it.

They have power meters for running? The ones for cycles are surprisingly expensive.

I was looking at the tickr chest strap myself, I'm planning to get Wahoo's cadence meter and that leads to the problem that the apps I know of won't show cadence and the pulse from the Apple Watch, which might force me to get one at some point.

 

[woodpusher]

I use the STAYING FIT, STAYING SANE thread as well as the t-shirt sweat-o-meter to track my activity.

 

[dangerousdon]

When I was looking for a “smart”/tech watch, I did a lot of reading that included bits about health tracking, even though it wasn’t much of a priority for me beyond steps and rough calorie burn per day (I was more interested in ruggedness, battery life, and GPS features).

The consensus seemed to be that if you were really data fitness hungry, you needed a watch that was fitness dedicated and could work with a chest strap monitor.

The newest generation of O2 sensors (such as in the Garmin Fenix 6) seem to have improved over last gen (such as in my Fenix 5x) but still is only good for rough numbers, though it’s getting better.

As attractive as it was for me, this knocked out any Apple options immediately, aside from their abysmal battery life.

Watches that were brought up quite often were Garmin, Suunto, Fitbit, and Polar. Polar in particular (at least last year) seemed to have the edge in some fitness circles because of its slightly better fitness tracking and chest band pairing abilities.

Thanks Chris. I definitely don't need something like a telemetry strap. I am just looking for something that is relatively accurate. What I have now works for my daily step count and mostly for my HR. But the GPS connection and the distance are very suspect. I might need to get something that is just a dedicated fitness tracker with an on board gps.

 

[dangerousdon]

I’ve been using my trusty Garmin 235 for 5-6?ish years and I love it. 7-10 day battery life when not using GPS. Functions as an ok smart watch. I’ve beaten the piss out of it and it keeps on goin. I’ll likely upgrade soon but only because the battery life is starting to get a little shorter. It tracks my steps, heart rate, “intensity minutes” and sleep. It’s not perfect at any one thing, but it does everything I need it to do pretty well.

I am very interested in a Garmin. Thanks!

 

[dangerousdon]

Whats are you trying to track/monitor?
HR zone “locks”? Sleep, recovery, sparkfit, maps, gps, power, etc

In realtime or sync after?
Under $300 then?

i’ve been using polar over last 6 months
A vantage m and a OH1. They can work independently or together. The OH1 can track by itself or with web or mobile app.

i really like the watch and found the oh1 very useful in specific situations. But the watch msrp is close to your oura and the oh1 is $70-80 iirc. A new upversion of it came out recently for $10 more last week iirc.

i see some like the ignite model which is much less inexpensive. People say polar hasnt been on the forefront of continued development like other companies, but i think it all depends on what you need.

none of the polar have user replaceable batteries if I understand correctly.

the market seems to be where you need to understand what features you want when you don’t know what you dont know about the nice to have features for a bit more would have been

Stacy and i have been using Fitbit Inspire 2's since January. Seems to track pretty well for me. only complaint was the soft rubber band it came with was rubbing my wrist raw but i grabbed a replacement band from amazon and it's been great since then.

I have had a couple Samsung watches and neither one impressed me in the fitness tracking.

Yeah definitely under $300. Probably closer to $100-$150.

Also, I would like to get rid of FitBit altogether (especially since they were acquired by Google), but they do have the new Charge that has the built in GPS and is pretty inexpensive.

 

[JWS VII]

I’ve worn a WHOOP for the past six months. I think it originally came out of the CrossFit circles, but is currently worn by a lot of pro athletes—particularly golfers—which is what originally caught my eye. In very basic terms, it constantly measures your heart rate to determine your daily cardiovascular “Strain”. It also uses this data to make calculations for your sleep. Then every day it puts these things together to give you a “Recovery”, essentially a percentage between 1-100 that gives you an idea of how much strain your body can ideally handle based on your recovery. It also recommends how much sleep you’ll need to be adequately recovered the following day.

It also has a customizable journaling feature (a couple of swipes every morning) that put some context to the results (e.g., did you drink, eat late, stretch, take pain meds, etc.). The algorithms then put together weekly and monthly reports for your perusal. For instance, I did dry January and averaged about 10% higher recovery on average. I also learned that eating late is just as bad (or worse) as alcohol on sleep and recovery (I write as I sip some scotch). I’m no expert on the science of it all, but I’ve found the data super interesting.

The WHOOP strap is “free” but it requires a monthly subscription. That’s where they get you. It also doesn’t “do” anything—it’s just a strap. It doesn’t even have a clock (lol). Perfect for me, as I don’t want things ringing on my wrist. But a negative for some more tech oriented folks. It of course syncs with your phone and that’s how all of the data is provided. The app is really sharp. Few shots are included below. I think it’s definitely worth checking out.

 

[global_dev]

Thats pretty cool, looks similar to what polar recovery and sleep does.

 

[Quijote]

My wife used to have a Fitbit Inspire HR, but then she upgraded to a Garmin Venu Sq. She had found the Fitbit to be lacking in some features. She loves her Garmin. It does everything that she needs it to do.

We gave the Fitbit to my daughter, and now we have to do a hard reset on it every couple of days because it keeps losing connectivity.

I have a Fossil Q. It looks good, but I don't recommend it for anyone who wants to track their activity accurately. When I upgrade, I will be getting a Garmin.

 

[dangerousdon]

My wife used to have a Fitbit Inspire HR, but then she upgraded to a Garmin Venu Sq. She had found the Fitbit to be lacking in some features. She loves her Garmin. It does everything that she needs it to do.

We gave the Fitbit to my daughter, and now we have to do a hard reset on it every couple of days because it keeps losing connectivity.

I have a Fossil Q. It looks good, but I don't recommend it for anyone who wants to track their activity accurately. When I upgrade, I will be getting a Garmin.

Thanks Don! I have heard a lot of great things about the Garmin trackers. Ideally, I would love to get the Whoop tracker, but I don't se myself paying the $30 a month to use it. I think the Garmin actually would suit me fine!