I'm very grateful to ChrisS

[Wowbagger]

This BBC article doesn't exactly rate such gadgets.   

I can see the motivational aspect but I can achieve most of that myself with Strava and a quick look down at my gut! 

Strava is loathsome competitiveness and your gut motivates me not a jot . I don't think walking more will shrink mine, it's more about being less apathetic. I do a sedentary job. Wearing the Fitbit means I'm more likely to walk down to goods in to correct their errors than phone the guys there to do it.
I can't imagine Strava helping me do that.

Why use Strava for loathsome competitiveness when we can do that between ourselves? 

(fboab nearly always beats me).

And you enjoy it!

[Chris S]

This BBC article doesn't exactly rate such gadgets.   

I can see the motivational aspect but I can achieve most of that myself with Strava and a quick look down at my gut! 

Strava is loathsome competitiveness and your gut motivates me not a jot . I don't think walking more will shrink mine, it's more about being less apathetic. I do a sedentary job. Wearing the Fitbit means I'm more likely to walk down to goods in to correct their errors than phone the guys there to do it.
I can't imagine Strava helping me do that.

Why use Strava for loathsome competitiveness when we can do that between ourselves? 

(fboab nearly always beats me).

And you enjoy it!

 

[Polar Bear]

This BBC article doesn't exactly rate such gadgets.   

I can see the motivational aspect but I can achieve most of that myself with Strava and a quick look down at my gut! 

Strava is loathsome competitiveness and your gut motivates me not a jot . ...

I don't find Strava at all competitive.   It simply records what I do in terms of distance and time.   I don't use it for anything else.

I guessed that my gut would only ever motivate me.      

[Pancho]

A little while ago, Mrs P bought me one of these gadgets (a FitBit Charge HR). I think she confused my cycling to get to places with some sort of interest in athletics and fitness. So I smiled nicely and dutifully twiddled with this icon of mindless consumerism and body worship.

But....but...but...I'm hooked! Pretty graphs, silly challenges, loads-a-numbers!

Some aspects of it are a bit useless - calorie and food counting, for instance (only useless because I've no intention of ever counting calories) but others are fascinating. In particular, sleep monitoring and heart rate monitoring. As you can tell, my interest in sleep monitoring over step counting demonstrates how uninterested in athletelness I am. Also, I find the HRM most useful to see what state of relaxation I achieve during meditation/prayer.

[Wowbagger]

Thread resurrection time. It makes me rather sad to be following poor Pancho. His Fitbit didn’t really do him a lot of good.

The Fitbit which prompted me to start this thread has now been put out to grass because its battery is no longer functional in any useful way. I have replaced it with another Fitbit that I wear on my wrist.

Yesterday, that recorded over 12000 paces when my only means of locomotion was a 4 mile round trip by bicycle to my dear friend’s house.  I don’t think that, and the rest of my daily activity, will have notched up more than 5000 paces or equivalent.  What did the job was making a cake for my Dear Wife’s birthday. Beating the ingredients together in a none-too-warm kitchen not only counts as paces, but it was sufficiently cardiovascular to have registered 92 “zone minutes”, ie of a slightly elevated heart rate.

[T42]

I put mine aside after a couple of months - it was too irritating with its attaboys and "badges".  When I had had it long enough to sell it without annoying MrsT, who had bought it for me, the battery was irretrievably dead.

Meanwhile, El Prez has a 36€ Chinese watch that does all a Fitbit will and more, e.g. a 2-pole ECG that can pick up atrial fib and various other irregularities.

[Ham]

I'm moderately curious, as I feel I need to boost my activity level somewhere off the sedentary cabbage level. Only moderately, as I suspect I'm likely to lean to the T42 view of the world. Is it rational or practical to join fitbit wearing with watch wearing? How does that work, if at all? I'm loathe to abandon my (mechanical) watch. Does it track if, say, you do a turbo trainer session? Are there other options to consider?

[phantasmagoriana]

Yesterday, that recorded over 12000 paces when my only means of locomotion was a 4 mile round trip by bicycle to my dear friend’s house.  I don’t think that, and the rest of my daily activity, will have notched up more than 5000 paces or equivalent.  What did the job was making a cake for my Dear Wife’s birthday. Beating the ingredients together in a none-too-warm kitchen not only counts as paces, but it was sufficiently cardiovascular to have registered 92 “zone minutes”, ie of a slightly elevated heart rate.

My partner has a Fitbit, and it does similar: kneading dough seems to be a good way to get "steps" in, and he routinely registers many more "active" minutes, or whatever they're called, than I do, despite not being more active.

I have a Garmin watch, and it's much more "mean" (I think it's more accurate). It takes quite a bit to convince it I'm being active (walking pretty much never registers, unless I'm climbing a mountain or something). It also has less of the congratulatory nonsense.

Does it track if, say, you do a turbo trainer session? Are there other options to consider?

Most can do, to a greater or lesser extent. I only use mine to measure HR, so I can set it to "indoor bike" and it will record that I've done it and show HR over the course of a session; if I were using speed/cadence sensors, it would track that too. Fancier versions can also sync to power meters.

I guess you could wear a normal watch on one wrist and a smart watch on the other, if you wanted to. Two watches on one wrist might be a bit odd.

[L CC]

I briefly left the Fitbit ecosystem and went with Garmin. It was underwhelming. I've come back to Fitbit.

I have a colleague who wears a dress watch on one wrist and a Garmin on the other. I believe Gerald does the same?

[Polar Bear]

In the Bear-o-drome we have split loyalties.  I use Garmin and mllePB uses Fitbit.  In another thread I vent some of my frustrations with Garmin and the massive excess of data without any meaningful way of interpreting it.  I predominantly use it to record my runs and walks and have broken through the need to understand and believe the information it's algorithms present me.

I have most features turned off which quadruples battery life and I wear it almost 24x7 taking it off to shower and occasionally charge if it gets too low.  I have a passing interest in my sleep patterns, my resting and average hr and the bumber of steps that I take daily but the most valuable for me is the maps of my runs with splits by the km and pace information.   

The rest of it imo is just puff and not particularly of use to anybody except perhaps an elite athlete.  I would like my next watch to come with esim so I can leave the phone at home when running.  I'm not sure that Garmin will ever oblige by giving me full lte call capability though.

And, I back up everything to Stava.  If I ever change platform then Strava will have my history.

[Ham]

Here's the thing, I am not motivated by badges, awards and anything like that, I can be motivated by stats. I'm in weight loss mode at the moment, and a daily weight graph my prime tool, I'm happy with fluctuations as I can see trends. If I was to jump onboard the wearable tracker thing, it would likely be one of the wristband type rather than a watch.

Can anyone help me navigate the baffling choice? I've had a look on Currys as a starting point, and it seems that feature set wise, there are two key additions, GPS and HRM. As it is strapped on your wrist, HRM is going to be variable accuracy, FWIW I have garmin device for GPS tracking, but I can see that having it with you on a bracelet will work better than having to dig out. Given my gentle antipathy toward the whole thing, I'm inclined to dip a toe in the first instance - would something like this fitbit Charge HR be any use? Jawbone look to be the sort of thing I would have liked but of course they have gone dnsʇᴉʇ

[Wowbagger]

I wear a Fitbit Charge 4 on my right wrist, and a watch on my left wrist. To me, it's not good for telling the time because it needs both hands.

[L CC]

Here's the thing, I am not motivated by badges, awards and anything like that, I can be motivated by stats. I'm in weight loss mode at the moment, and a daily weight graph my prime tool, I'm happy with fluctuations as I can see trends. If I was to jump onboard the wearable tracker thing, it would likely be one of the wristband type rather than a watch.

Can anyone help me navigate the baffling choice? I've had a look on Currys as a starting point, and it seems that feature set wise, there are two key additions, GPS and HRM. As it is strapped on your wrist, HRM is going to be variable accuracy, FWIW I have garmin device for GPS tracking, but I can see that having it with you on a bracelet will work better than having to dig out. Given my gentle antipathy toward the whole thing, I'm inclined to dip a toe in the first instance - would something like this fitbit Charge HR be any use? Jawbone look to be the sort of thing I would have liked but of course they have gone dnsʇᴉʇ

The HRM on the wrist is fairly accurate. I use optical HR for my 'real' HRM and it parallels a chest strap. The wrist based HRM on my Versa 2 is there or thereabouts- except for rowing, they're both absolutely pants for that.
Charge HR will be fine for a toe dip- it'll give you enough information to decide if tracking is for you.

[Polar Bear]

I have found that wrist-based hr is fine unless you are exercising when it becomes a bit flaky and inconsistent.  I'm guessing that sweat and more vigorous movement contribute to this.  I wear a chest strap when exercising which links with the wearable and all is hunky dory. 

[Ham]

Charge HR will be fine for a toe dip- it'll give you enough information to decide if tracking is for you.

Ah hell, you're right. I've stopped dicking around looking at more and more options and reviews, clicked, lets see how it goes.

[Notsototalnewbie]

I love tracking. I started off with Fitbit and moved to Garmin when the Fitbit died.

The biggest difference is the Fitbit thought I woke up 45 times a night and the Garmin doesn't. It does annoy me how if I pause for too long the Garmin decides the walk is over and ends it.

Given I'm a ridiculously light sleeper, often wake up feeling like crap, and am waiting for an appointment to see if I have sleep apnoea, I'm inclined to think the Fitbit was right on waking up 45 times a night.

I can easily fool the 'move' notifications on each by giving the dog a belly rub.

[Regulator]

I've had FitBits and Garmins (in fact, I have a Garmin to dispose of) but I now have an Apple Watch.  I find the activity and sleep monitoring of the Apple Watch superior to both FitBit and Garmin - although the battery life is much shorter.

[neilrj]

El Prez has a 36€ Chinese watch that does all a Fitbit will and more, e.g. a 2-pole ECG that can pick up atrial fib and various other irregularities.

Link please!

[Ham]

Third day, in getting used to the Fitbit. I can deal with the puerile badges and stuff, I can deal with the overestimation built in, but there is a brutal irony that making a cake is reckoned as 1,000 steps or so.

[L CC]

Heh, once you've had one for 8 years the incidence of new badges is glacial. I'd forgotten it even has them.

[Ham]

Maybe I spoke too soon, the signal to noise ratio is higher that I would have imagined. Yesterday, I cycled the 500m to my allotment and worked for about 3 hours. The fitbit reckons that I climbed 50 flights of stairs, walked halfway around the world and burned loadsa calories. I wish. I suppose that it neutralises itself over time, and the comparison week on week is going to be most useful, but really. I've also found the setting that turns all the crap messages off.

[Wowbagger]

A Fitbit is just a tamagotchi and you are the pet inside

I saw that quote recently and it amused me rather. It's a few years old but then I'm often slow on the uptake.

[drossall]

Having previously had little interest in the numbers, I got a basic Garmin watch following my heart bypass a couple of years ago. I've since had an upgrade to a Garmin Fenix, although I tend to swap them over while one is charging. I'm not obsessive, but it helps to keep track of heart rates and step counts. I do look at Garmin Connect from time to time. And the Fenix connects to speed sensors on my hubs (I think), and so auto-detects when I'm cycling (I can't be bothered to tell it what it can't figure out for itself).

On the whole, I'm more interested in heart rates when I'm on Zwift though, and they get displayed on-screen of course.

[Wowbagger]

Yesterday I passed 4,000,000 steps for 2021.