Fitbit or garmin wrist fitness tracker?

[slysam]

My favorite is the One. I do have a Surge and a Charge HR. I don't remember the HR, but I use the Surge often (mainly just during workouts). It does a better job with nonstep activities than the One because of the heart rate monitoring. It notifies me of calls and texts as well. The only thing is it is spendy and bulky (mine was a gift). I would not wear it 24-7 due to the cheesy 80's digital watch look and the bulk. The calorie burn and average heart rate during workouts are actually pretty similar to my chest strap. It sometimes shows weird high rates, I suspect it might be a flaw with the technology (I don't think the optical heart rate monitoring is as accurate but it isn't too bad). Despite the weird numbers I see, what it records when after I sync it seems okay. I use it more than my chest strap now just out of convenience. I haven't tried the Garmin though.

[Malia]

Does anyone have the Apple Watch yet? I was looking at the Surge and then figured for $100 more I could get the Apple Watch and I'm already a mac person (computer, iphone, ipad mini). Just wondering how the HR monitor works on the Apple Watch - if it's really accurate. I don't care about monitoring sleep (I sleep like a baby) but I really want to monitor how much I burn during workouts and during other activities throughout the day

[zgolja]

A couple years from now, if apple watch, moto360, etc get smaller and cuter, dedicated fitness trackers will likely become obsolete. Getting a $100-150 tracker today is still worth it, but I chose lower cost options to start with: Misfit Flash and later Jawbone UP24.

Misfit is waterproof, goes in a pool, doesn't need to be charged, tracks activity and sleep and provides about the same amount of data as fitbit and garmin, with an msrp of $49. It is often on sale for $30-ish brand new. It also integrates well with weight watchers and myfitnesspal.

My Misfit worked great, but I always wanted a Jawbone tracker, so I found a nice used UP24 on amazon for about $30. Jawbone phone app is just amazing and a couple generations ahead of everyone else's. It also integrates with everything, but the bracelet isn't waterproof. It holds charge for 14 days. The company has a couple newer products out right now for $100+, but UP24 has all the important features. The recently released UP3 uses the same constant HR monitoring sensors as the ones on old BodyMedia armbands. I would definitely wait to read some reviews before ordering that one.

I really like both Misfit and UP24, slight advantage to UP24 because of its awesome app. I never had a fitbit or vivofit, just watched gazillion youtube reviews and played with apps and web interfaces.

Re inaccuracy, none of the popular trackers will be as good as an HR monitor with a chest strap. Trackers are really just very fancy pedometers and not great at tracking workouts. For workouts, a HR monitor with a chest strap will do a much better job. The other day I found Polar F1 for $17 on clearance in electronics section at Target.

[Laura S.]

Thanks for the recommendations of the less expensive options. I just don't want to spend that much money on this type of device and I really like the look of the Jawbone device you recommended.

One question about it - how is it for logging video workouts - aka, manual workouts. Or, do you do that?

[LoYoMo99]

Originally Posted by Malia

Does anyone have the Apple Watch yet? I was looking at the Surge and then figured for $100 more I could get the Apple Watch and I'm already a mac person (computer, iphone, ipad mini). Just wondering how the HR monitor works on the Apple Watch - if it's really accurate. I don't care about monitoring sleep (I sleep like a baby) but I really want to monitor how much I burn during workouts and during other activities throughout the day

I have the Apple watch. I love it but I really didn't get it to be a fitness tracker.

There is an option to chose "Workout" but the preset selections are: Other, Indoor Walk, Outdoor Walk, Outdoor Run, Outdoor Cycle, Indoor Cycle, Elliptical, Rower and Stair Stepper. That's all. I typically choose Other just to get a general idea of the calories burned. It'll tell you the active calories, resting calories, total calories, average heart rate and total time. Only the active calories count towards your 'goal' for the day. (It comes preset as a goal of 500 but you can change that. The exercise goal is 30 Minutes and you can't change that.) It does sync to your iPhone so you can read the results on there. It also tells you the calories you expended for the day, the total steps and the distance.

I've only ever used a heart rate monitor with a chest strap prior to the watch and I find the results from the watch are basically the same.

As I said, I love the watch, but I feel as a fitness tracker there is definitely room for improvement.

[Marie1120]

Originally Posted by zgolja

Misfit is waterproof, goes in a pool, doesn't need to be charged, tracks activity and sleep and provides about the same amount of data as fitbit and garmin, with an msrp of $49. It is often on sale for $30-ish brand new. It also integrates well with weight watchers and myfitnesspal.

My Misfit worked great, but I always wanted a Jawbone tracker, so I found a nice used UP24 on amazon for about $30. Jawbone phone app is just amazing and a couple generations ahead of everyone else's. It also integrates with everything, but the bracelet isn't waterproof. It holds charge for 14 days. The company has a couple newer products out right now for $100+, but UP24 has all the important features. The recently released UP3 uses the same constant HR monitoring sensors as the ones on old BodyMedia armbands. I would definitely wait to read some reviews before ordering that one.

I really like both Misfit and UP24, slight advantage to UP24 because of its awesome app. I never had a fitbit or vivofit, just watched gazillion youtube reviews and played with apps and web interfaces.

Re inaccuracy, none of the popular trackers will be as good as an HR monitor with a chest strap. Trackers are really just very fancy pedometers and not great at tracking workouts. For workouts, a HR monitor with a chest strap will do a much better job. The other day I found Polar F1 for $17 on clearance in electronics section at Target.

Thanks for all the info. I will take a look at these.

[Marie1120]

Duplicate. It didn't look like it took.

[Talie]

I have a Garmin 15 and a Fitbit One (clip on). I use both but rely on my One as my baseline for steps. I feel like the Garmin's step count can vary greatly depending on activity. If I had to choose one company for activity tracking it would be Fitbit largely because of the social community. I love the challenges and the people I have met doing them. It keeps me more motivated to get those steps in than I would be otherwise.

If you wanted to go with a cheaper model the Zip is around $50 and you get full access to the challenges.