Fitbit or SmartWatch?

[StarkeyGo]

What are your thoughts about watches to track your fitness progress?

How do they work? Do you have to pay for internet too?

[Edithvale]

I love my Fitbit charge 3. It does everything I want it to, no fuss, it just works. The battery lasts all week.

[StarkeyGo Graduate in reply to Edithvale]

How does it connect while you are out running? What I mean to say, do you have to pay for an extra service?

[Edithvale in reply to StarkeyGo]

No extra payments required after purchase. It will talk to your smartphone or computer via Bluetooth when you get home. It is fantastic. (I dont run with my phone, just a tiny ipod nano 6)

[SofaJockey]

I love my Apple Watch. It does much more than I need it to. The battery lasts all day. It's not cheap, so the reasons for wanting one really needs to go well beyond its fitness tracking benefits.

[f1madman Graduate]

Usually they connect to your phone so you don't need the watch themselves to connect to the Internet. And then your phone can upload and save all your stats into the Web or wherever you want.

I bought a Polar vantage m running watch as I needed one with a dedicated GPS to track my runs/cycles more accurately. My phone GPS sucks so vastly over estimates what distances I cover.

Also my running watch can track other sporting activities too and tells me when I need to train more/less. Its much more advanced than my current needs atm but depends if I get fitter and more active it could become much more useful. Its not as connected as a full on smartwatch though, which is fine as I don't like notifications on my phone let alone get swamped with it on my phone.

I also made sure to choose a watch with a fairly decent heart rate tracker, as I wanted to do heart rate traininga. Alot of fitness watches can track heart rate but reading up on it, activities like running can trick the wrist based mheart monitors and they become inaccurate.

[f1madman Graduate in reply to f1madman]

Well I say bought but my other half gifted it to me, which was nice of her. Also forgot to mention it tracks sleep and steps of course. Tbh I didn't need a watch to know I need more sleep or exercise, but atleast seeing the stats gives me more motivation to change it I guess

[Staza82]

I had a Fitbit charge 2 for almost 2 years and absolutely loved it, I now have the Apple Watch, and although I love that, I do miss my Fitbit. The plus with my Apple Watch tbo is that I can wear it whilst swimming, Fitbit I could not

[nowster Graduate]

Most "running watches" rather than "smart watches" need no data plan of their own. They synchronise with your phone over Bluetooth once the run is complete.

[Pinkpig20 Graduate]

I have a Fitbit ionic which I love. They are not cheap, but it was bought for me as a present. Will track walk, running etc heart rate, distance, steps, sleep.

[UnfitNoMore Graduate]

I like a dedicated(ish) running watch, and used a Forerunner 35 for a year before moving up to a 245... the 45 is very similar in running features.

From my research, Fitbit is better if your focus is purely health and fitness... Garmin and Polar (and a couple of other brands) put the focus on the sporting side, but are catching up in terms of health metrics rapidly. These will give you more detailed stats if that’s what you want.

So, depending on your focus there’s a watch and brand for you. All current models sync via Bluetooth... most brands will put your data into other fitness platforms (Strava, Nike+, MapMyRun/walk etc) automatically after a simple pairing of accounts.

[Couchphoenix Graduate]

I’m happy with my Fitbit Charge 3, you basically sync it up with your phone, it’s quite easy and you set it to notify you when you reach various distances and the time it’s taken you to get there. There’s a lot more functions I’ve yet to explore 👍

[Little_lizzie]

Hi 😁 I have a fitbit, it's ok... not very accurate, but gives you an idea... for instance... last night I slept for 6 hours, awake for 2...... i want even wearing it!

The heart rate seems correct...

And if you're stirring something out cube that as a step... very strange......

I have a pedometer on my phone that is much more accurate at counting steps.

Good luck... and keep running, hope you decide well xx

[Little_lizzie in reply to Little_lizzie]

that should say counts it as a step...

[StarkeyGo Graduate in reply to Little_lizzie]

Lol 😂

[Tasha99 Graduate]

Don’t get a Fitbit, they’re inaccurate.

[SueAppleRun Graduate]

I’m wearing a garmin, but wore a fitbit for years, i think some of the stats you have to take with a pinch of salt whatever you buy, the fitbit was a bit more generous when it came to steps, both are fairly good at distance, the garmin doesn’t give so many steps for arm movement so i feel it’s closer to the truth, I could knit up my fitbit steps at the end of the day which was cheating

I think it’s down to choice, money , what you want it for and looks, which one do you like best?