Fitness tracker recommendations?
I'm in the market for a fitness tracker.
My usual fitness activities (stationary elliptical trainer, hiking, biking) are temporarily restricted, so I've been swimming a great deal. Using a phone isn't giving me adequate exertion tracking data for walking (stride counts and heart rate not available/accurate), and it's especially not useful for aquatics.
I'd be grateful if anyone can recommend something they have experience with.
My constraints are as follows:
I'd rather not contribute to e-waste with yet another gadget du jour - service life should be at least the recharge cycle life of the battery.
No Apple or Samsung devices. I'm not in those ecosystems, and don't plan to be because reasons.
Should be at least IPX5, preferably IPX7 waterproof.
Helps if it's not butt-ugly, but I'll take what I can get - replaceable bands are a plus.
Able to fit women - I don't have issues with a larger face so much as a band that's too large to fit comfortably or provide secure contact for accurate heart rate monitoring.
GPS and sleep tracking would be nice, but not mandatory if the device ecosystem isn't reasonably private.
Non-proprietary rechargers preferred.
A couple of Fitbit models seem be well-reviewed, but actual user ratings are equivocal, and quality is erratic.
Looking forward to any contributions!
I recommend taking a look at DC rainmaker. That’s my go to source for all kinds of sports gadget reviews. He’s very thorough, and writes really good (although a bit long) reviews. He also has yearly sports tech recommendations.
Thanks so much - I happened to see the Polar Ignite review on there, and might have found exactly what I'm looking for, plus some bells and whistles that could be very useful. The sleep tracking seems like the best of what's out there.
OP: I have no direct experience with these things, but the one that 0lpbm refers to is apparently quite resistant to occasional exposure to water, even if it's a large quantity. Our assistant gymnastics coach had just been sent one and got thrown in the pool before she could read the manual... No damage. If you want more testing done we'll dunk her again. For science of course.
edit: also survived every sudden encounter with bars and rack so far
Have you looked at Garmin? They're another popular brand for this style of device
I've looked at Garmin - the Vivoactive 3 has an impressive feature set, size, and price. The Vivosmart 4 is attractive and looks like a better fit, but no GPS.
It's clear I'll have to make some compromises, but I'm seeking impressions about what Tilders have used and liked or disliked.
Thanks for the detailed reply - I'll look into the Forerunner series again. I'm less concerned about heart rate monitoring while swimming, but lap count and time should be available.
The Forerunner 45 actually looks like it might fit my uses - enough GPS functionality for daily walking and biking, as well as occasional hiking and kayaking, but water-resistant enough for swimming. It's got a smaller size available, and it's not hideous.
I have a vivoaport and prefer it to the fitbit charge hr (from a while ago... ewaste and all) but not enough to wear it regularly. It has a gps and in my case I like that it can tell you your run pace. Maybe it does something similar for swimmers. The main thing I don’t like is the software, which is true for fitbit as well. Syncing is clunky and I don’t really want these kinds of apps to have detailed info about me so I end up not using the device to its full extent.
I've been using a Forerunner 35 for about a year now and I absolutely love it. My only complaint is that the sleep tracking is super poor when I'm on night shift.
Yes, I had the updated version, the Forerunner 45, on my list. I like the Garmin for GPS features and heart rate monitoring quality, but the software is still optimized for running as the primary activity.
The minimal ability to swap bands is a pretty big negative - the Forerunner 45 as-is is not something I'd want to wear all day in a business environment.
Yeah, speaking of bands, the band keeper on my watch fell off or broke when I went through airport security last week. Ordered a new one later that day (Thursday) and then they didn't ship it until the Saturday.
Turns out they didn't actually ship it, they just gave me an invalid tracking number and said it would come today, 8 days after I placed the order.
They didn't actually put it in the mail until Wednesday, and they shipped it DHL, who handed it off to USPS literally the next state over this morning. No status update, but there's a "sorry there's been a delay" when I check the tracking info.
So yeah, Garmin bands. Went OEM because I want a quality fit but Garmin service is the pits. And they have a proprietary charger that, for me, will not work with a high power USB converter. It'll only take a charge if I'm plugged into a computer USB port.
So yeah, in thinking about it, I'll withdraw my support for the Garmin products. Scratched my wife and my four year old son on accident with the bread tie I'm using to hold my watch band down right now while I wait for Garmin to quit dragging their feet.
Sorry, got triggered when I saw your comment about the bands.
I'll confess that I was a compulsive fashion band swapper for the one and only smartwatch I bothered to engage with, so it's a concern. You've made me a little more cautious about Garmin on the basis of service, but again, I've scoured enough reviews to know that service, quality, and proprietary chargers are issues with all the fitness tracker brands. They're basically being treated as disposable commodities with a 1 year service life, which is pretty despicable considering that most optical heartrate-sensing + GPS devices cost $200.
I just saw an article from Kanstantin Ryabitsev (linux kernel's main system admin) which offers a couple of impressions of using Amazfit Bip with the open-source Gadgetbridge application.
Thank you - Tom's Hardware reviewed the Amazfit Bip well, but it's a little less water-resistant than I'd like for swimming.
The Gadgetbridge app does mention even better support for the cheap Xiaomi Mi Band 2, but again, not suitable for immersion.
And the winner is the Misfit Vapor X. After lots of research, I came to the conclusion that it was ridiculous to pay smartwatch prices for a limited fitness tracker feature set, or worse yet, vendor lock-in, adware and privacy issues. At least with Wear OS, I don't have to share any more than I'm already sharing with Google.
Although it's well-known that Wear OS smartwatches for Android have been hobbled by the aging, underpowered Qualcomm Snapdragon 2100, the Vapor X has the brand new 3100 chipset, as well as all the fitness features I need. The battery life on the new chipset should be nearly as good as current fitness-only devices. At $200 introductory pricing, the features beat every other device available right now.
It's a bit of a wrist-mounted soupcan for me, but that's true of most GPS trackers. Styling is minimal, any Wear OS watchface will work, it takes interchangeable watchbands, and it's rated for swimming. No data on the charger yet, but reviews so far indicate quick charging support.
There's 4 Gb storage and full compatibility for multiple music, fitness, and other Wear apps.
Yes, I'm buying a bleeding-edge, first-to-market product, with all the risks and idiosyncracies that entails. On the other hand, Misfit has already built at least one capable Android-compatible smartwatch and some excellent fitness trackers.
I'll update with whether it's The One or not - due in about a week.
Re-booting this thread with a product report on the Misfit Vapor X, after 10 days of testing.
I am in love with this thing, despite its relative size. I've put it through a wide range of exercises, and the Google Fit suite makes everything I'm doing available, as well as custom exercises.
The GPS accuracy isn't perfect, but it's definitely better than phone mapping alone. I'm walking on a measured park track at 5,150 ft. (1,570 meters), and the watch GPS is within 5%, where phone GPS was regularly in error by 10% or more.
Though fitness trackers like the Fitbit Charge 3 regularly get complaints about false activations or unusability in water, the Misfit Vapor X is doing a great job. I can start a swimming or aquatics workout while immersed, and get accurate lap, distance, and heart rate tracking.
Android Wear OS integration has been bug-free so far. I'm getting all the notifications I choose to see. Spotify and weather integrations are satisfactory. Sleep As Android works very well.
Even with multiple apps loaded, I haven't taxed the available storage. The gesture controls seem responsive. I'm using the programmable watch button functions to launch Google Fit and heart rate - there's slight lag with the button activations, but it's not the multi-second wait I've seen with the current generation of Samsung and ASUS premium devices.
Wear OS does limit available sports applications, by comparison with the well-developed integrated sports and health suites in Fitbit, Garmin, Polar, etc. proprietary environments. I was unhappy with the costs, swimming features and data sharing in Strava, so I'm sticking with the basic Google Fit suite plus Swim.com. However, ViewRanger, my favorite hiking app, does have Wear OS integration, and I can download an offline map to the Vapor X if I choose.
The watch design is a very good ungendered and functional 42mm round. There are at least 5 different metal finishes planned, but they were out of the brushed stainless/blue, so I got the rose gold/white. The included sport silicone band is very comfortable and adjustable, with fitting holes for the entire length. The "rose gold" finish is an appealing brushed bronze color, not pinkish, flashy or obtrusive.
All Wear OS watchface applications are available, but the default set of watchfaces is very customizable. I put together something both functional and aesthetically pleasing in less than 15 minutes. As it happens, my old ASUS 20 mm watchbands work beautifully.
My biggest complaint so far: the face is large enough on my wrist that when the band is tight for heart rate accuracy, the stem can be pressed on the back of my hand during activities with 90+° wrist flexion (weights, yoga). More of a mild annoyance, because the watch buzzes at the stem activation, than a serious concern.
Battery life, even the way I've loaded up apps, exceeds 20 hours. The included charger is easy to use - the watch self-orients on the magnets and it's never failed to connect yet. It's a 2 cm white disk on the end of a thin 4 ft. cable with USB-A connector. While the cable could be longer, it reaches from bedside table to an adapter. There's no included adapter, but that's not likely an issue with the target audience. For my purposes, I can use it from morning exercise through a cycle of sleep tracking - it sits in the charger for about an hour from the time I get out of bed until I head to the gym.
Feel free to ask questions or propose tests and I'll respond as possible.
Misfit is owned by Fossil Group, and it's likely that a broader range of devices with the same architecture will be available as Fossil Gen 5 before the winter holidays.
I was in the same search as you in the last month, which took me actually one month to find the right fitness tracker. I chose Huawei Band 3 Pro.
It's light, it's cheap (original price 95€ but bought it in discount for 60€), it has GPS, sleep tracking, continous heart rate monitoring, alerts when I stay still for one hour, sms notifications, apps notifications, etc. I heard it's good for swimming but I never tried it.
Exercises it contains are not a lot, but for me they are enough. It has cycling (indoor and outdoor), swimming (outdoor and indoor), running (indoor and outdoor) and free training.
I mainly use it for running and cycling and I have to say the GPS is great! Super precise. It maybe has a 1 or 2 meters of error, I would say.
But the app is great even though on reviews they say is it not. It even has running trainings and achievements. It says in which zones do you enter when you doing sports, real time info and at the end it says how many hours do you need to rest between exercises. The app has the right balance between not enough and too much information. Garmin has too many information and doesn't help you with what does that mean and Fitbit doesn't give you too much information. Huawei has the best of both worlds, I think.
If I have to say some cons about it, are:
the bluetooth connectivity with the app (But I'm not sure if that is my problem, I have a smartphone with 1 Gb of RAM and they say that recommended is 2Gb)
I'm not 100% convinced about the sleep tracking, it starts counting as sleep only a few minutes after I lay to bed, even though I'm still awake (And you can't edit the info). Sometimes I also wake up during the night (but I stay in bed, not getting up) and it still thinks I'm sleeping. But I think that's a limitation of all trackers. Without real brain wave "detection" it's a bit impossible to know.
On the website they say they have 200 recomendations from sleep experts but then I always get the same recommendations. Your sleep is too light, try sports, don't drink coffee, meditation, talk to a therapist, etc, etc, etc.
But to be honest, I recommend it. Actually, everyone is impressed with the tracker when I show it to others. Since, it has gps and it was so cheap. You can't get better for this price.
Thank you! I did look at the Huawei, but was turned off by a couple of comments about heart rate inaccuracy.
For most of my life, I haven't been bothered at all about maximum heart rate recommendations for my age, and just pushed to whatever felt like a good limit.
Now, I'm finding I need to be much more careful. I'm out of shape, and older. Relying on the inaccurate hand sensors on ellipticals and bikes at the gym caused a couple of near-fainting episodes, and some bad days from overtraining. The main point of the fitness tracker is to have an external measure of when I should back off (I've got a warning vibration set at 80% max), and it has to be reasonably accurate so that I can learn to make better internal judgments.
I would say that the heart rate monitor is pretty accurate in my case. At least, the results are always almost the same every day, since, I always have the same routine. During sleep my heart rate decreases to a minimum of 45 bpm and my rest heart rate is 60 bpm. During running I also can see my bpm and they seem accurate for my fitness levels. Been using it for two months every day even when I'm sleeping. I only take it off when I go for a bath. But yes, they could be inaccurate, it could just mean that are regularly and constantly inaccurate :D
Someone asked a similar question a few weeks ago in a fitness tracker related topic comment and got a bunch of replies. You might want to check that out, patience_limited:
https://tildes.net/~health/gjy/how_to_make_your_fitness_tracker_count_steps_more_accurately
Thanks - I'd seen the topic, but not the models detail. It does help to know that the respondents more or less echoed the Amazon reviews.
In this crowd, I was hoping there'd be some more esoteric details - "love the device, and the online UI and security for the platform is good for x, y, and z reasons..."
I've been head-scratching about this for a while, and should just stop seeking an objectively "best" device.
I really liked my fitbit versa a lot. but mine sadly broke after a couple of months
Mine broke 30 days after the warranty expired, the screen just suddenly popped off and I was unable to put it back on without it really wanting to pop off again. I was pretty boring with it; I didn't take it on swims, didn't bang it around, didn't even shower with it. This was the Special Edition too, and my previous FitBit (HR) lasted way longer/still works, so it was an especially crappy experience.
They'd offered 20% off a new one when I'd contacted them about it, but since I really felt the Planned Obsolesce this go-around, I decided to just go back to my Timex Weekender rotation and forget about fitness trackers for now.
I'd also concluded that no amount of fitness tracking will motivate me into getting fit quite as much as stepping on a scale or seeing myself in the mirror after going on hiatus from fitness for a bit.
That’s interesting. I also had the special edition. I wonder if it’s just that one?
Love the Versa aesthetics, water resistance, and basic smartwatch functions. Amazon reviews are very equivocal about quality - there's a nearly bimodal distribution of 1 and 5 star reviews.
I'm also not sure that it's worth giving up the full range of Android Wear apps and tight phone integration in favor of Fitbit's ecosystem. Also, Garmin and Polar both have similarly featured devices that include GPS.
As the person who asked it, I will say I ended up with Vivoactive 3 Music. I really ended up liking it overall compared to my Vivoactive HR that I had for a couple of years. I think the most important thing is not the watch itself but the ecosystem you are buying into. Once you pick a vendor, whether it be Garmin, Fitbit, Samsung, etc., your data for the time that you pick that device is going to live there forever. I haven't seen a tool that converts data between two services.
I chose the Vivoactive 3 Music because I wanted to stay in the Garmin system. Its comfortable to me, the music/podcast/audio book storage is great, especially with Spotify integration, and it has contactless payments. However, I would anticipate a Vivoactive 4 sooner rather than later so if you are looking for the latest and greatest, I would wait. The one downside that I have seen so far is the bluetooth radio is pretty weak and/or my bluetooth headphones aren't strong enough for the signal as I can't really use the Music feature without it cutting it and out.
My one piece of advice though is to buy an extended warranty for whatever device you have. I went ahead and bought the Best Buy plan because these trackers are not built to last and Garmin only has a 1 year warranty on their products.
Thanks - many of the reviews I've seen don't have comparisons or reviews of the software ecosystems around each of the fitness trackers.
I'm still not sure how much functionality I want on a fitness tracker versus phone. The biggest issues with a phone plus tracker are phone battery life and swimming, but it seems to me that music storage on a fitness tracker is pretty costly and battery-intensive as well.
From what I've researched, Fitbit put a great deal of work into an easy-to-use, consumer-oriented suite of phone app and web visualization. Garmin has something similar, but more oriented towards dedicated training for runners. Polar has a gorgeously detailed data visualization system for people who train intensively, e.g. triathletes.
It's hard to say who has the best on-device OS customizations. At this point, leaving Apple aside, most of the fitness trackers' main distinctions from smartwatches are various proprietary OS's. It would be nice if Android Wear apps were supported natively.
I probably am not understanding your question fully but in regards to swimming could you just measure and record how long it takes for you to complete X number of laps. I think most pools have a wall clock with a second hand which should provide plenty of resolution.
I'm not terrific at keeping lap count accurately in my head. I'd like to be able to set a fixed count and get a haptic indication when it's been reached. Also, though I'm wearing goggles with corrective lenses, they're not great for reading wall clocks at distance without interrupting my swim.
Ah, fair enough. :)