Fitbit, a garmin vivofit, jawbone

[Bra_1977]

Which is best? Hubs is getting me one for my birthday, i would like a nice lightweight one on my wrist, one that counts steps and does the sleep watching thing. Do they work out calories? Or just steps taken? Any advice?

[Dunder2004 Graduate]

I haven't used any of those but would ask if you have considered the Garmin Forerunner 15. It is a GPS watch as well as an activity tracker. It my fall short on the "lightweight" element though.

[Bra_1977 Graduate in reply to Dunder2004]

No, havent looked at those, my wrists arent big and i would end up taking it off and not wearing it if it was quite big

[rmnsuk Graduate in reply to Bra_1977]

I have a garmin 15 which is a garmin 10 gps watch plus a vivofit(?), so it does activity tracking as well as tracking runs. There is a bigger version and a smaller version, otherwise they are identical. You can buy it with or without a heart rate monitor.

[Inspirus Graduate]

I've got a fitbit hr. It measures steps, calories, floors climbed (no idea now it does that), distance, calories, heart rate and sleep. It syncs to my iPhone and you can set various goals to try and achieve. It doesn't do gps so if you want to know how far you're running you'd need to use something else as well (I have run keeper on my phone). It's fairly discreet to wear and it does tell the time so you could abandon your watch if you wanted.

The app also awards you badges when you've achieved certain distances so apparently I've climbed as high as a helicopter and walked the same distance as a penguin! Strange the things that make me happy.

If you want something to monitor runs then I'd probably go for a garmin but for general everyday stuff the fitbit is great. I've had it for a couple of months and no problems with it so far.

[Bra_1977 Graduate in reply to Inspirus]

That is great, i use map my run, i think it syncs to that doesnt it?

[Inspirus Graduate]

I've not tried syncing it to any other apps. I know it does my fitness pal but not sure about others. Hopefully someone more technically adventurous than me will be able to advise you on that.

[Coddfish Graduate]

I have a jawbone up24, it monitors steps and sleep. It syncs with an app which gives you trend information, allows you to follow other users' data (with their permission) and will take data from other apps such as Runkeeper. You can add various activities into the app manually (swimming, weights etc etc). You can track food and calories too, although I don't do that. When I run, I use Runkeeper, so get actual distance and the map etc uploaded alongside the actual steps recorded by the band.

[Lovefood1984 Graduate]

I have a fitbit flex (went for the cheaper option given I didn't know how long I'd use it for :)) It does steps, sleep and calories. It also knows how many 'active minutes' you've done. You can log food via the app/online and I found a website where you can get your garmin to sync to fitbit so you don't need to manually add your exercise....it copies it across (although not always on the same day). I'd take a look at the models and decide how much info you'd really look at. Happy shopping!

[Bra_1977 Graduate]

I have settled on a vivosmart. Get it for my birthday in two weeks 😁😁😁