Must Try Fitbit: Seven Days with a Spy in Your Pocket

I am a firm believer that technology is an ally of the active life and sports . At least for bums like me if they see reflected their departure to the mountain, travel by bike or walk to buy bread on a graph and statistics, it is as if nothing had happened.

For those athletes technological solutions is already on the market and the solution is Fitbit , a pedometer to spy your day and tells you how active you’ve been and what about you goat last night.

The model arrived in Spain is the second generation of this device, more accurate and with the addition of an altimeter. in Gizmodo we tried it and we tell you what we think.

Fitbit, an entertainer in your pocket

If you are an athlete, let alone the Fitbit . At least as an element to record your activities seriously.The Fitbit is a pedometer to use, but is completely focused encourage you to stop being sedentary , the opposite of what happened when mankind came to the Neolithic. If we see now.

This type of equipment, either separately or integrated into watches or mobile phones, customers have a future for clinical or even prescription:

Please this Fitbit in his pocket and global reach 15,000 points at the end of the day. It is your recipe for the next six months if you want to improve your health 

And is that the ultimate goal of Fitbit not record the activity we do every day, measured in steps and stairs uploaded, but we ourselves retemos or office colleagues or community of neighbors to see who is more active every day .

This effect I have experienced first. Every night updating my profile on Fitbit and activities and results compared with the previous day, my challenges up on the web and sought to win more trophies virtual hoping that at some point be seen reflected in the figures showing my scale every Tuesday morning.

Easy operation supported by the web

A device designed to go with you all day was required to get five minutes to put on your belt, pocket or any area of your body or clothing that can put it with the help of clamp-shaped design , you forget to it.

Fitbit , with negligible weight and small size but it gets the first opportunity. More than once I had to look hard because you forgot in your pocket, rubber waist trousers or sport shirt collar (for the night we have a very comfortable bracelet)

As simple as its design is its performance. He does everything alone. Once loaded (with a small base USB we can make it perfectly on the desktop) as we mark some three days to forget about it.In my testing I got it to work more than five days without problem. Soon you connect to the database to synchronize and forget a few minutes, the battery will not be a concern.

Since I get it, the Fitbit our every move is recorded by counting steps and stairs that went up(thanks to an altimeter), and calculates them based on distance traveled, calories consumed and “activity level” that we had on that day. These data are recorded automatically in the Fitbit web(there are also mobile application to carry with us the data), where we have Fitbit settings and several panels with varied data from weight drunk glasses of water or foods eat in order to calculate calories we take and compare them to believe that we Fitbit consumed that day.

The data are accurate steps , distance and corresponds closely to reality (compared it with a GPS). It goes well with calories burned, that comparing them with actual values ??gives figures that are three times what we have actually consumed, but you must always know that in this section are never exact calculations for many values ??depend on the device can not control.

On the idea of ??having floor Fitbit the altimeter is pretty accurate: about every 15 steps climbed believe we have a flat. Does not work with them down to advance this aspect, only upload.

The Fitbit only has one button that when pressed gives an instant access to your computer screen data such as time, cumulative steps that day, distance, calories burned, floors climbed, and the image of a flower that is the greater the greater is our business to date. Also included greetings to encourage us when we do well.

If the same button you hold down a couple of seconds, a timer is activated and begins an account of values, which add to the global account when we turn to hold down that button and take for finished the “cronoejercicio”. It is a way to activate the night mode.

From what we miss in this Fitbit certainly should be mentioned that not a device that can get wet .It would serve us much in the pool, but it is always advisable to avoid problems if you accidentally get wet (or just sweat too much)

Also, the timing could be improved in future versions to not depend on a base that is small but if we are traveling or want to update in the middle of the day at the office, we should take with us. A direct sync with smartphones would be a more effective solution.

On the web and application, it’s up to us to introduce what we eat and drink, a task that requires perseverance if we are to tables and full data. Furthermore, although the task is to introduce the subject of food has provided enough especially with the mobile application, has not adapted the list of foods available to the  market. But it is a facet that has great value in Fitbit.

The night, getting to know how you sleep

A pedometer placed on the wrist does not thrill me as “analyzer” in my sleep before the real test with the Fitbit. But that was as it should place the pileup to take charge of monitoring my nocturnal activity.

Warned the other members who have joined me in bed every night so as not to miss it to see me dressed wrist corridor at night, every night I prepared to take my wristband with Fitbit inside.

The Fitbit not have a night mode as such , but the device works the same way as during the day, so you can tell the next morning when we synchronize with the computer data, the time when we’re gone to bed (or at least to sleep) and raised, so to analyze these “steps” taken during that period and analyze and our vigil. Or activate the timer to go to bed and off to get up.

Every morning at breakfast, after entering the data that I have mentioned, I watched the graph of my dream. Since I could not analyze this criterion element (not on all occasions when the device Fitbit told me I was awake), I asked my companion night to corroborate those times when you did not remember losing sleep.

And I must confess that, to my surprise, the Fitbit hit almost every time. The guilt I think my son is 14 months, these days the test was voluntary home to numerous awakenings have to realize that the Fitbit not fail.

About the data provided by the night mode not expect much. Handles only tell you when or if we have woken up our dream has changed. Then each draw their conclusions.

The opinion of Revoseek

100 euros for an accessory that is responsible for “cheer” to move more through analysis of the steps you take may seem crazy. The Ultra Fitbit that are seen it works. And the value must also give the user get use to achieve the pileup.

The Fitbit is well built, does what it promises (other than counting calories) and once you get used to be your companion in your pocket or belt, is fun and highly addictive fight with one own or with friends / acquaintances. A little to improve the social rankings or league, will become an addiction.

The temptation to climb more stairs instead of the elevator, take a walk every day to increase our points or even more cautious, for the simple fact that they sincerely believe that someone watching is priceless. I really was hooked.

Shortlink:

Posted by Paracha on June 14, 2012. Filed under Gadgets, News, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry