I have “exercise more” in my to do list for many years, only to get ignored and left unchecked. It appeared in my new year’s resolution multiple times, only to appear again untouched in the following year. Then few months ago I installed Fitbit app and use my iPhone 5S as a tracker thanks to its M7 co-processor. Since I had that app, subconsciously I’ve been trying to see better numbers in my step counts, to the point of walking around more and carrying my iPhone everywhere around the house.
Obviously, I felt annoyed having to carry a phone with me in my own house. So I started to search for a better tracker, smaller and lighter. A tracker that I can carry 24×7 without having it as a burden. Then I did some research for few days. The Nike Fuelband did not pick up my interest because I have a hunch it won’t be comfortable to wear 24×7. Then my first strong candidate was to get Jawbone UP24 or Fitbit Flex. After reading some review about health tracker on our wrist, I started to doubt the idea of having something on my wrist 24×7. Then I did a little experiment. I put my watch and wear it everywhere for 2×24 hours. The result: it was frustrating, especially when I work with computer.
Since wrist-wear health tracker was out of my option, then I decided to get Fitbit One. It’s small enough I can carry everywhere without causing any discomfort, and no other people would see it when I carry it. It can track our movements, calculates calories burned, track when I climb stairs and track my sleep pattern.
The initial setup was very easy. Turn on Fitbit One, open Fitbit app (I already have it in my iPhone for few months) and choose “Set Up a New Fitbit Device” from the app. Then follow the instructions from the app. Within few minutes you are ready to use the tracker. Fitbit One comes with Bluetooth 4.0 low energy. It will automatically sync its data to our phones periodically, plus every-time we open the app. I always have Bluetooth turned on because I have my iPhone connected to Pebble smart watch all the time. Adding this Fitbit One does not speed up my iPhone’s battery usage (it consumes very little energy so the difference is not noticeable).
Fitbit One comes in two colors: black and burgundy. Obviously I took the black one. Out of the box we get the tracker itself, a rubber case with a clip and a sleep wristband. I clip it on my jeans pocket when I go out, and keep it in my pocket when I’m at home. So far, I have been using this tracker for over a week and does not feel annoyed.
One thing I like from Fitbit One is the fact that it has a display. Using one button, we can see our steps so far, distance traveled, calories burned, floors climbed, clock and this mysterious flower (I’ll explain this later). It has a chatter function when it will randomly display motivation word for us to move more. But after using it for a week, I only noticed it twice because most of the time it stayed in my pocket.
The mysterious flower indicates our progress. The more active we are, the more leaves it will show. However, I find this flower indicator a little strange. One day when I walked more 12,000 steps and climb 29 floors, it showed me half-full flower. Another day when I was lazy and “only” walked 5,200 steps and no stairs, it showed me the same half-full flower. So I completely ignored the flower now.
The step counter is reasonably accurate. I tested it with my Pebble smart watch and iPhone 5S tracker and they generally produce similar results when the preconditions are right. I will write a separate post about this comparison.
Tracking stairs climbed turned out to be more fun that I anticipated. Fitbit One comes equipped with altimeter, allowing it to detect our altitude. It doesn’t matter whether we actually climb stairs or just climbing a slope, Fitbit One basically will detect if we move our body and our altitude changed. Every 10 feet increase is counted as 1 floor. Every altitude decrease is simply ignored. Since the area around my house has some slopes and small hills, a normal walk or small run will automatically earn me some floors.
Fitbit app can be downloaded from AppStore. It’s free and it’s connected to Fitbit’s cloud service, meaning we can access the same information from any device, plus from Fitbit website. Nothing really fancy about the app, but it’s informative. From some screenshots I find from some reviews, Jawbone’s app seems to be more attractive.
Earning badges turned out to be fun. I like the feeling of accomplishment when it emailed me my first 10,000 steps or my first 10 floors in a day. It kept me motivated to walk more.
Moving on to the next feature: sleep tracking. Before we go to sleep, we put Fitbit One into the included sleep wristband and press the button for 2 seconds to activate its sleep tracking mode. When activated, Fitbit One displays a timer, essentially counting how long we are in “sleep mode”. I read from some other reviews that people find it uncomfortable to wear Fitbit One at night. Others said that accidental press on the button at night will turn off the sleep tracking. I personally have no problem. The sleep wristband is very comfortable to wear. Though I do worry about its durability. I never accidentally press the button in my sleep because it’s not that easy to do it in the first place.
In the morning we turn off the sleep tracking mode, sync the data to our phones and see how many hours we actually sleep as night. In the graph displayed, it shows us how many times we were awake and how many times (and how many minutes) we were “restless” in our sleep. After a week analyzing the pattern, surprisingly I can use it to improve my sleep quality. I learned that some activities before sleep will cause more “restless” time and some others will help us to sleep better.
Even if we forget to turn on sleep tracking mode, we can manually log our start and end of sleeping time in the morning, and it will display our sleep pattern accordingly. There are 2 types of sleep tracking: normal and sensitive. The default setting is normal. This is the setting we should use if we wear our tracker with its sleep wristband. If we wear the tracker in any place other than our wrist, then we should change the setting to sensitive. We can easily change this setting from Fitbit website (after login), but I couldn’t find how to do it from the app.
Out of curiosity, I tried once wearing Fitbit One in its sleep wristband, but changed the setting to sensitive for one night. The next morning it showed that I was “restless” almost the entire night. Most probably, the assume that our hand will move more during sleep. And clipping the tracker on our sleep wear will require “more sensitive” tracking to detect body movements.
The battery life of the tracker itself is pretty good. According to Fitbit, one full charge of Fitbit One will last about 2 weeks. I have used it for 9 days and the battery indicator still show “half”, so I guess it might actually survive 2 weeks.
Last, there’s a feature called silent alarm. We can set it to vibrate at certain time. Just like normal smartphone alarm, we can set it to repeat every certain days. I have 2 alarms set up: one for weekdays and one for weekends. I find this very useful to wake up in the morning without waking up my wife. And I find it more effective to wake me up compared to a noisy alarm.
Overall, I am very happy with Fitbit One. For the first time in my life I have one full week with exercise every day. Hopefully I can keep this up for much longer and finally tick that long persistent item in my to do list.
Update 18 May 2014: So far, each full charge of my Fitbit survived about 17 days (plus few hours). I find it impressive, considering Fitbit only write 2 weeks in their technical specification. I also noticed that when I wake up in the morning, my tracker usually already detected 50-150 steps. I’m quite sure I’m not a sleepwalker, so I guess some of my sleeping movements were considered as step. On one occasion I woke up with Fitbit recorded that I have climbed 2 floors (20 feet). How strange is that?
Thanks – very helpful!