Fitness Tracker Reviewing

In an effort to get motivated about fitness again I have been looking into fitness trackers. My phone does a decent job when I have my phone on me. 

I started with the Leaf. It looked cute and can be worn as a clip, a bracelet, or a necklace. Sounds great in theory. The clip was huge and awkward to wear. It only looked good clipped onto clothing. It also had trouble actually working. It wouldn't sync half the time. When it did it was very inaccurate. I returned it. (The company made it very difficult despite their claim that it was easy to return within 30 days). 

I started looking into other options. There are far too many. A lot of them are starting to have heart rate monitors. When I was running more, this was something I was interested in getting. I've read that target heart rates are helpful for fitness goals. It seems most of them are designed to do a passive heart rate, not to display it in a useful manner during exercise. I found one that was more targeted to exercising, but it was so bulky and ugly I would probably only wear it during exercise making it mostly useless for what I actually want it for. 

I'm now trying out two (both returnable to Amazon). The smaller one is an older version of the Jawbone, UP2. The newer ones are slightly bigger and do the passive heart rate, the newest one somehow lets you use your Amex card at tap and pay places. This one tracks sleep and steps, and not much else. 

The larger one is the Fitbit HR.  It tracks sleep, steps, floors you've walked up, distance, call alerts, and also tells the time. 

Putting them next to each other the Fitbit looks huge. I think it is uncomfortable to wear as it is a little bulky. This might have been fixable by buying the smaller size? The part of the band that is not flexible is a larger than is comfortable. Also you are supposed to wear it above your wrist bone to get the best accuracy. I find this to be an awkward spot. Steven however does not. Before I finished writing this the Fitbit became his, so I guess I don't have to return it. 

The Up2 is very comfortable. The clasp is one that you adjust once and it is very easy to get on and off. It is so much smaller and basically non obtrusive. It doesn't look or feel much different than the hair ties that usually end up there. 

Feature wise the Fitbit has a lot more. The heart rate sensor works well enough. I think it is a little slow to update. My biggest complaint about it by far is that you can't keep the screen on. So if I wanted to use it for exercising I would need to keep tapping it. The caller ID is a total failure. It technically works, but by the time it told me my phone was ringing I couldn't get to the call in time to actually answer it. The distance is a nice feature, I don't know how accurate it would be as it isn't GPS based. 

What I really wanted was something to wear all the time to track movement. I think the Fitbit is trying to appeal more to the exercising group, but I don't think they made it useful enough to justify the added bulk.