Are fitness bracelets for you?

I have been wondering about fitness bracelets for a while now, especially since there are plenty of choices out there to choose from. Would using one really add something new to my journey and help me reach my goals? Until recently I have only used Nike + on my phone to track my running performances and that’s pretty much it! Luckily thanks to my awesome colleagues from my last internship I received my first fitness bracelet Fitbit Flex and I have now been using it for the last month. I was looking forward to this new experience, learn all about this new gadget and share my personal experience and opinion with all of you! So let’s start!

What is Fitbit Flex?

Fitbit Flex is a wristband that can track the number of steps you have taken, distance travelled, calories burned and active minutes you had during the day. Additionally, you can even track your sleeping pattern during the night. Sounds pretty great doesn’t it?

How does it work?

Basically, you need to download the free Fitbit application on your computer and cellphone  (iPhone and android). In this application you can set a personal goal, such as an amount of steps per day or an amount of calories burned. You do need to wear it all day and all night long and yes it is waterproof! The bracelet itself has 5 led lights indicating you how close you are to achieving your daily goal. The moment you do reach your set goal the bracelet will vibrate and its light will illuminate to indicate your achievement!

And how can just a bracelet track so many things?

With your movements Fitbit Flex keeps track of the number of steps you do as well as how much you move during your sleep. However, to calculate your intake of calories you need to add yourself the calories of everything you eat into the application on your devices. A nice aspect of Fitbit bracelet is that it pairs wirelessly to your phone and computer enabling you to have all the time an updated dashboard with all your statistics.

The Pros & Cons

Pros

• In general, the Fitbit Flex is easy to use! The first time I plugged it in and got the app up and running, I was able to navigate it very easily.
• I was very pleased this bracelet pairs wirelessly to my devices so there's no need to plug it in to your phone to check your stats and you can have updated dashboards all the time without any effort.
• Seeing the number of steps done and your sleeping pattern plus all your daily info is fun to visualize in a dashboard. This did change my behaviour by giving me a greater sense of control and motivation to reach my goals and improve myself.
• I really like you can connect with other friends that also have Fitbit Flex to share your improvements! Plus, you also get badges for all your accomplishments!
• The bracelet is very lightweight and comfortable with a modern yet discrete look to it.
• You can set up an alarm on the application and the bracelet will vibrate to wake you up. This is great since this won’t wake up your partner or roomies, plus you don’t need to use your phone as an alarm and you can just keep it off during the night.

Cons

Here is the moment of truth! Indeed, there have been a few things I didn’t enjoy so much during this new experience:

• Firstly, the food interface where you add the calories of your meals have not been yet adapted to many countries. Which means I get to choose from only American brands that I cannot relate to. Basically, I had to go online to look up the calories of everything I ate and added them. Not only was this very time consuming, but it eventually pushed me to repeat meals and limited my food choices, which is terrible in keeping a balanced diet!  Also, I personally do not believe in counting calories since there is more to food than calories. I believe in eating healthy and moderately, but not in obsessing about calories.
•  This fitness bracelet usually measures burned calories on the amount of steps done. But what about people that like cycling, swimming or are just sitting down lifting up weights? Well in these sorts of cases you also need to add into the application the time and type activity you have done. This makes me doubt on how accurate this reflects the real efforts you have done during a workout.
• I have mixed feelings about the success of the sleeping tracker. I had a few nights I knew I woke up a few times, but the Fitbit Flex informed me I'd slept straight through, a natural limitations of tracking sleep based on just wrist motion.
• Additionally, on the application you can add in your weight, your blood pressure your heart rate and glucose level for you to keep an online diary. To get this data you need to get it elsewhere as your doctor for example. But wouldn’t it be great if the bracelet could keep track of more things such as of your heartbeat and temperature?  Anyways, these are improvements that I believe are feasible and would make this product even more interesting for users.

I believe Fit bit flex has gone a long way, however there is still many things to improve. I personally expected more from it especially since this baby cost about 100 euros. It has been fun receiving my weekly update of my efforts and having a notion of how close I am to my goals, but it's hard to love it if I don’t completely trust the accuracy of the measured data. I would recommend that if you do purchase one, to be very critical on what and how they measure everything for you to have a greater control and understanding of your progress. Or just wait a few years until they do get better!  Certainly, this has been a great experience for me and I will continue using it to hopefully discover more aspects and see how it helps me on the long run.

If you would like to try out the Fitbit Flex, check it out at the Body & Fit Shop, it is quite a bit cheaper there.