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Saturday, December 21, 2013

FitBit Update and Review

I decided to return the FitBit.

I wore the wristband religiously for a week and I noticed that it was giving me an output as if I'd climbed several flights of stairs per day when I hadn't climbed even 1 total flight of stairs. Although the steps were relatively accurate, the "active minutes" were not.  The FitBit would record active minutes as I walked around at my job, but when I got home and I was performing my TapouT XT workout, it wouldn't record any active minutes even though I was jumping around, running in place, etc.  My heart rat is highest while doing TapouT and yet no active minutes would be recorded on my FitBit; I'd have to add those minutes in manually.

Obviously, I'm not exactly sure how the FitBit records data.  It doesn't seem to use heart rate as a factor because it can't give you a record of your heart rate.  If the FitBit can in fact record a person's heart rate, the company is doing its consumers a disservice by not activating that capability as a function that can be tracked.

As far as the incorrect reading that I was climbing stairs when I wasn't, I can only imagine that my stride sometimes imitates the stride of a person climbing stairs, but I'm not sure how that might happen or how the FitBit would know that.  So I returned the FitBit to Sports Authority for a full refund, and I can tell you my wallet is very happy to have that $137 back.

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