Fitbit

[infomama]

This looks so interesting and it appears to get some great reviews. If is accurate, I imagine it would be a great motivator and supplement to MFP. Anyone have it?
Www.fitbit.com

[cntrymoon2]

DH and I both have one. Technically, DH has two, since he lost his first one.
I do like it. I am not in LOVE with it. The upside: it is a motivator, since it counts steps and flights of stairs. I find myself wanting to park further to get more fitbit steps. I like knowing when I have a long day out that the payoff is I've walked X number of steps and wasn't sedentary. The graphical data is fun to look at and play with, although we both question the accuracy at times. The sleep tracker is interesting at first and wears off quickly. I don't even wear mine to sleep anymore.
The cons: It's expensive, no way around it, and it doesn't do much more than a regular pedometer. The interface on the website is not great. My biggest issue is that I seem to have hardware trouble with mine- at least 4 times in the last 4 months it has either refused to sync or once it synced double somehow and gave me double credit for everything. I've uninstalled and reinstalled software multiple times trying to get it to behave and it still won't. This wouldn't be so bad except their customer service is non existent. There is NO phone number for support- nothing. You can email them, which I have done when I've had syncing problems. It took 3 business days to get a response, and then the response was "try uninstalling/reinstalling", which I had already done. When I wrote back that I had already tried that, there was no further response. My fitbit magically started working again a day or two after that. I'm peeved to have spent $300 on three pedometers to have one not working within the first few months. When it doesn't sync, it's worthless because you want to be able to connect it to your account and compare your activity level with your calorie intake.
The other complaint I have is that I don't think the calorie counting is very accurate. There are large variances in how much the fitbit says a 1 hr run/walk/or aerobics session will burn vs. how much a Garmin says vs. how much online calculators say. I don't know who to trust.
The food database is pretty limited, not as good as myfitnesspal or sparkpeople. Some ppl record all their food in a better program and just list their daily calorie total in fitbit.

I think it's a work in progress. If you can hold off another 6 months to a year, I'd see what else comes on the market or if Fitbit can get their act together as a company and offer better support and a better website.

One more thing to note- you have to create a fitbit.com account, and all of your stats are then out there on the internet. You can set everything to private so other fitbit users can't see it, but anyone at the company has access to everything. It makes me a little wary to have that out there and available to people. Like if Fitbit decides to start selling off info, there are probably lots of fitness companies, medical insurance companies, Rx drug companies etc, that I could see being interesting in farming info like that.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask!

[infomama]

Wow....thanks for the detailed report! I don't think this gadget is for me based on your feedback. I'll keep my eye on the website though. Thanks so much!

[LBW]

I have had one for a couple of weeks now and I like it a lot -- as a motivator -- and that's why I got it. I use MFP to track food and "real" exercise. I use Fitbit to try to increase my overall levels of activity each day. I have the two accounts synced, and am still trying to work out the kinks related to that. (For example, say Fitbit says my activity level for a day means I can eat an extra 1000 calories worth of food. I know my only true exercise for the day was a 30-minute run. I don't want that full 1000 calories added to MFP for the day. Just the 300 or so from the run.)

My big problem is that I have a high-stress desk job that often has me putting in 12-14 hour days. Keeping an eye on the little Fitbit indicator throughout the course of the day encourages me to take breaks, go for a walk, or climb a few stairs. A regular pedometer wouldn't do this, I don't think.

[Toba]

I got one of these for Christmas. They really do have awesome reviews. Definitely better than the Jabra bracelet style. I used mine for a week and misplaced it!! I wish it had a locator on it like my iPhone does! The week that I did use it seemed to be very accurate and I really liked it. I hope to find mine soon!