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FitBit Frustrations

January 8, 2016 •

Screenshot 2016-01-08 08.12.06To my amuse­ment Fit­Bit awarded me the India badge today. I’d earned it by walk­ing enough steps to equate to 1997 miles — the length of India.

They make me smile but I’ve learned to dis­count Fit­Bit’s attaboy awards because they’re gen­er­ally mean­ing­less.

Over the past two years I’ve learned that the sen­sor on my Fit­Bit One is quite inac­cu­rate, at least for the activ­i­ties I pre­fer. It deliv­ers rel­a­tively accu­rate track­ing for a lim­ited set of activ­i­ties like walk­ing or run­ning. I believe its results when Fit­Bit’s dash­board reports that I walked far­ther today than yes­ter­day, but don’t trust the spe­cific counts for any given day or activ­ity.

When I com­pare met­rics (steps walked) between my iPhone 6s and the Fit­Bit One for the same walk or hike, the num­bers don’t agree. I’m inclined to believe the iPhone is closer to accu­racy…

My Fit­Bit is way off for yoga, kayak­ing and bik­ing. It either mea­sures almost noth­ing at all (yoga or kayak­ing), or in the case of bik­ing, mea­sures the rev­o­lu­tions of my foot on the crank rather than the dis­tance the bike has trav­eled.

And last week I learned that my Fit­Bit One is also unable to track my steps while cross-coun­try or Nordic ski­ing.

Was it the glid­ing strides, or did the cold out­door tem­per­a­tures put the sen­sor out of com­mis­sion?

Steps tracked while XC skiing over the holidays

Steps tracked while XC ski­ing over the hol­i­days

Over the Christ­mas hol­i­day week I skied for sev­eral hours each day, a highly aer­o­bic activ­ity, yet my tracked results were scarcely bet­ter than my per­for­mance dur­ing a more typ­i­cal (and sadly seden­tary) work week.

Based on time and effort expended on XC ski­ing, I expected that Fit­Bit would report much bet­ter activ­ity mea­sures than my nor­mal per­for­mance for a week. Instead the daily mea­sures were lack­lus­ter, accord­ing to this chart.

Given sim­i­lar con­cerns about faulty track­ing results, my hus­band gave up on his Fit­Bit months ago.

I know enough about the tech­nol­ogy to real­ize man­u­fac­tur­ers must be will­ing to install more sen­sors, and much higher qual­ity sen­sors, before track­ing devices can pro­duce accu­rate results. An inte­gral GPS com­po­nent is prob­a­bly required too.

So I con­clude: Why spend sev­eral hun­dred dol­lars on a fash­ion ver­sion bracelet or watch style track­ing device when the fun­da­men­tal value propo­si­tion remains so flawed?

Net net: a new Fit­Bit or equiv­a­lent will not be in my device bud­get for 2016. I’m crit­i­ciz­ing Fit­Bit here, but my larger point is that fit­ness track­ing devices, as a cat­e­gory, need sub­stan­tive improve­ments in sen­sor track­ing and report­ing before they’re worth the money they cost the con­sumer.

Trackbacks

  1. Every Journey Begins with the First Step says:
    January 22, 2016 at 6:50 pm

    […] being a reg­ular walker, one who can do 10,000 steps on a rou­tine basis, prepar­ing for this trek will require me to dou­ble or triple my usual walk­ing […]

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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