Fitbit (Strava for life)

Been using the Charge2 for a few weeks now. Pretty damn good. It does automatically recognise ad-hoc bike rides so I don't have to mark the activities as being 'rides' - but it does mean that the GPS has to be active if I want a proper trace to use with RWGPS. The dashboard is really good way better than what I had with the Moov. Also the app is really much better than I expected.

bit of a bump.
just got a ionic fit bit thing any one else got one?
So far quite like it but want to wear it playing football but want it protecting as its on concrete pitch and I tend to fall over alot. any one got cover suggestions???

Thread dredge:

Anyone got comments on:

Fitbit Ionic?
Garmin Vivoactive 3?
Apple Watch 3?

I want to track heart rate, distance (running/swimming), elapsed time, sleep ‘quality’, and even tell the time - I don’t want to lug a smartphone around at the same time.

I’d prize battery life and resilience over the ability to buy a coffee at the flick of a wrist. I’m trying to kickstart my running and swimming after three years of patchy adherence to what was a fairly intense ten years of routine swims/runs: I think that a tracker will help me to believe that session-by-session ‘improvement’ is happening, however small that change is!

Thanks...

My Ionic has been good for general day to day and tracking runs and cycle stuff, have found it a bit touch and go with syncing to the ap on the phone many restarts turning blue tooth on and off a friend has a garmin watch and loves it.
I like the fact the ionic is pretty simple and it's quite robust I've been playing football with it on, using a protective cover and strap thing.

edit also battery life is quite good on mine. 4/5 days depending on how many times I engage the GPS for tracking.

Thanks! That’s really helpful.
Yup, the Garmin Vivoactive looks most likely to suit the way I’ll use any device, but gets insanely mixed reviews. Seems like the QC is really poor...

I had a fitbit but sent it back after two weeks mainly got it for the sleep tracking but it wouldn't sync and I didn't trust the hr anyway compared to my wahoo hr it seemed way out all the time.

I had a fitbit. It was the single worst purchase I have ever made by a factor of 10. Everything about it packed up one feature at a time. In the end it wouldn't even tell the time, it would literally lose the time and be hours out even after resetting the time daily. Fitbit refused to acknowledge any problem with it despite it never syncing, taking 10-15 mins to find a GPS signal to start an activity, woeful GPS tracking when it did eventually start, frozen screens daily, and HR tracking as useful and as accurate as sticking your plums in custard. And battery life was terrible too. It was absolutely horrific. And all within the first few months. Best of all after Fitbit blanked my reasonable questions about it, I took it into Currys and the emo yoof on the customer services desk, listened to my list of ailments with it and just said "do you want a refund or credit note". I asked him why he didn't put up any resistance and he said "because its a fitbit, they're all like that". Despite fitbit themselves telling me there's no problem with mine.

Bought a garmin watch. Whilst it's not perfect it's Oscar winning performance wise compared to the fitbit and better than any garmin head unit I've used.

V similar experience to me, don't give that company your money. Now using a Garmin forerunner 235 and I really like it

I had a fitbit. It was the single worst purchase I have ever made by a factor of 10. Everything about it packed up one feature at a time.

This, I had two. Deeply regret.

Garmin 235 is now about 5 years old but still the best value activity watch out in my opinion.

Fitbit sucks. The developers are totally obsessed with walking / step count to the detriment of the rest of the product. I’d go for a 20 minute walk and it would auto-log it and tell me I’d burnt hundreds of calories, but I could go for a 45 minute bike ride and it would tell me I’d burnt 60 calories or something risible like that. You’d look online at the user forums and everyone would be flagging the same issue, but the topics would be marked ‘feature not considered for development’. It’s almost like they don’t give a single shit about improving their crappy product.

Fitbit is nothing but a glorified step counter, just get a Garmin. Without GPS they are useless for sports.

I had an older model Fitbit which I used for running and sleep tracking. It was fine for about a year and a half, and then it literally fell apart.

They are ludicrously overfocused on step counting, and they only want you to improve your steps - they never say ‘gosh you had a big day yesterday, you should have a rest today’, which is a criticism for the whole sector.

maybe I've been lucky with mine as the only problem I've had is the syncing up. the GPS is good enough to track quite well and does a good job when engaged onvtrackjng runs and cycling . only lost time once. Agree about the customer service. also was a lucky as got it half price.
but now there must be better and cheaper options any one tried the Samsung smart watches.

Dredge ahoy

What's the thinking on the new models of Fitbit vs Garmin equivalent? Anyone using either? Looking at Garmin Vivosport Activity Tracker vs Fitbit Charge 4

Question; should i be worried about my privacy since Fitbit is owned by Google now and you have no other choice than sharing your data with the US?

Register your account in the EU?

Yes if you're from the EU you still have to accept to share data with the US to be able to use the app.

After a few weeks of being very flakey, with randomly restarting and only 24hr battery life, a final act of defiance has seen my Versa 4 fully shit itself this evening.
After getting an alternative delivered this afternoon it looks like it has bricked itself. It restarted to a red X now doesn't display the time.

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