Fitbit One and Whitings Scale

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JohnnyH
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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by JohnnyH »

Agree with Jacob on basically everything... GF has Fibit and it seems like a glorified pedometer... "Steps" seems like a poor unit to me, I prefer km/miles. I actually enjoy guessing distances, and checking them on a program like GoogleEarth. Looks tedious entering food items in Fitbit, and does nothing to encourage consumption of quality food and do quality, higher intensity exercise. A watch, or smart watch, <$100 with heart rate monitor might make me jump, however.

walker
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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by walker »

I've had my Fitbit One for a year now and I actually find the competition really motivating. Walking is a main form of exercise for me, so the miles do add up. For a higher-impact workout, I can go running with the FitBit or enter a HIIT workout on the app. I don't bother entering food, but do track my sleep (or lack thereof).

In case anyone is curious, here's a teardown of the One on iFixit. If anyone wants to compete, feel free to PM.

jacob
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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by jacob »

@JohhnyH - It tracks steps, calories, and/or miles (or clicks) based on step*step length---user selectable. The primary value is in the automatic tracking and the competitive environment. You can enter food manually, but it's a hassle and there's no competition. Ditto exercises other than step related. The new versions measure heart rate as well but they're significantly more expensive.

I recently got talked/talked myself into trialthlon training which involves some steps + I'm obsessively competitive, so it works for me (encouraging). Were I to do just lifting and biking, it wouldn't be very useful [to me].

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C40
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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by C40 »

Do you guys have the Fitbits with sleep tracking? How well does it work?

(I was talking bicycle racing with Robbie Ventura about 5 years ago*, and one of the things he emphasized heavily was sleep quality and duration. This was back before Fitbits and such, and he had some dedicated devices that had his athletes using to gather their sleep data for analysis. Interesting stuff!

*Well, I wasn't talking to him myself very long - it was mostly a group discussion

jacob
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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by jacob »

It seems quite crude. After all it can only measure how erratic your wrist movements are. It counts one erratic movement over a short interval as "restless" and several such movements as "awake". It then tallies them and shows you at what time these "restless" and "awake" periods occurred. This agrees with when it happened. It's a somewhat precise measurement.

You get a 30 day count and a 1 week day by day indication of exactly when they occurred.

Mine occurs at 2-3 hour intervals which corresponds to REM sleep. If i drink coffee after noon, I get more of them. Hence, there's some feedback there. I don't find it that useful but that might be mainly because I don't overly care about the accuracy that's delivered.

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C40
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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by C40 »

Ahh thanks. I'm not sure, but I think more complicated sleep tracking devices are measuring other things as well. (not sure what.. heart rate at least, and probably some other things.? )

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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by jacob »


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jennypenny
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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by jennypenny »

AT&T has Fitbit products 15% off right now (including the new ones) ... http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/access ... nat_a_fitb

Are any of you planning on trying an iWatch instead of a Fitbit?

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jennypenny
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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by jennypenny »

http://codenameinsight.blogspot.com/201 ... niors.html

Interesting use for old fitbits...

"A friend of mine has found an ingenious use for his old fitness tracker. He was worried about his 90 year old mother who still lives by herself a few states away and he came up with the idea to give her his old FitBit that he wasn’t using. He was concerned that, aside from calling her each morning, there would be no way to tell if she fell or otherwise became incapacitated until he couldn’t reach her the next day. With her wearing the fitness tracker, he can literally log into the program on his computer that syncs with the program for her FitBit and see how much activity she is getting by the hour. Should this number unexpectedly drop, he can give her a call to make sure everything is OK. It’s a simple fix for both of them."

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jennypenny
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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by jennypenny »

How does the Fitbit do tracking walking steps vs. running steps? Is it accurate?

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jennypenny
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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by jennypenny »

And what if I'm using a standing desk? It looks like it won't count the steps because my arms are resting on the keyboard. Is that right?

jacob
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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by jacob »

It counts the number of steps inside one minute intervals as sorts them by light, moderate, and high activity. Moving faster than about 2.9-3mph counts as high activity. On the site you can display the exact step count in 5 minute intervals in a daily bar plot.

The step count is quite accurate. Obviously it can't know your stride length or how that changes by speed. Hence mileage count is not that accurate if you vary speeds between walking, jogging, and running.

If the fitbit is on your wrist (flex, force), your wrist must be moving. It won't if e.g. your holding a dog leash or resting it on a shopping cart or a desk or carrying a heavy bucket (in that hand). But then you just put the fitbit in your pocket (or hang it around your neck) and the problem is solved. Basically it has a Wii (nunchuk) sensor in there which tries to figure out whether you took a step based on the XYZ acceleration pattern. That pattern needs to be there.

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jennypenny
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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by jennypenny »

I wonder if I could tie it to my shoelace when I'm working on the treadmill desk to make sure it counted my steps.

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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by jacob »

There are people on the interwebs wearing it around the ankle, but the official site doesn't recommend it.

5to9
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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by 5to9 »

The Zip and One models both are clip on style, so they would work great with a standing desk.

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jennypenny
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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by jennypenny »

jacob wrote: https://www.fitbit.com/group/22QL7X --- join up!
Ok, I'm in (much to the dismay of my husband :P ).

vexed87
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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by vexed87 »

Personally my android smartphone tracks my steps, walks, runs and miles cycled, I tracked my weight (when I was trying to lose weight, no longer an issue) with a spreadsheet app on my phone.

Analogue scale acquired god knows when, Google fit app was free and smartphone purchased in 2013 :)

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jennypenny
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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by jennypenny »

5to9 wrote:The Zip and One models both are clip on style, so they would work great with a standing desk.
Do you have one of these or have an opinion on them?

My steps aren't registering when I use the treadmill desk. I like my Charge the rest of the time, but I guess I need a clip-on fitbit for when I'm using the treadmill desk.

I wonder if I'm even allowed to have two devices synced to my account?

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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by jacob »

jennypenny wrote:My steps aren't registering when I use the treadmill desk.
Did you put it in your pocket? The flex is registering just fine when it's in my pocket.

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jennypenny
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Re: Fitbit One and Withings scale

Post by jennypenny »

No, it's on my wrist. Will it really work in my pocket? Which? Just the front pants pocket?

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