;)
So what Exactly is a Wireless Activity & Sleep Tracker Wristband?
Here is an excerpt from the Fitbit website:
"This slim, stylish device is with you all the time. During the day, it tracks steps, distance, and calories burned. At night, it tracks your sleep cycle and wakes you silently in the morning. Just check out the lights to see how you stack up against your personal goal. It’s the motivation you need to get out and be more active."
First of all, the Fitbit Flex allows you to track your activity:
- Your steps walked and run, none step based movement.
- The Fitbit software calculates that information into calories burned and distance covered.
- You can also manually enter information.
And the Flex also tracks your lack of activity or should I say your sleep patterns:
- How many hours of slept in total.
- Your deep sleep versus your restless sleep.
- How many times you awoke in the night and times that you where restless.
The Fitbit Flex also syncs with your Smart Phone or Computer using Bluetooth:
- The Flex loads information into the Fitbit App and Web-based interface allowing you to see this information so you can see exactly how your progress is going in real time.
- You can add food eaten and see calories burned vs calories consumed to help you keep on track with your eating and exercise goals.
- You can add friends and compare how each other is doing and perhaps have a competition or help motive each other.
- The Fitbit software sends you Award Badge Notifications when you have achieved certain goals which is also motivational.
;)
Here are some of the more positive key points about the Fitbit Flex I want to makes sure to point out:
- The Flex costs about $100 which is very competitive compared to other movement tracking devices in the market.
- The Fitbit Flex has very cool lights that indicates where you are in terms of your daily goals.
- The Flex will vibrate and flash when you meet your daily steps goals.
- The Fitbit Flex is one of the only complete system offerings; A varitey of Movement Trackers, the Fitbit Aria WiFi Scale, and Intigrtated Software that is accessible on both your smart phone and computer with synchronization between all devices via the web.
- Bluetooth syncing is seamless and gives you realtime results.
- I like that you can quickly and easily change the band which can be useful if your band gets worn or damaged, or you simply just want to change the color for a new look!
- The Flex is very comfortable to wear, it is rather light weight, does not seem to catch on anything, and I had no fear of losing or breaking it while it was being worn.
- I have found the battery has been lasting for about 4-5 days and you also get a smartphone software notification that tells you when your battery is low.
;)
There where a few concerns I had with the Fitbit Flex but nothing too serious:
- I found overall the Fitbit Flex band is holding up well but does show some signs of edge wear, it is nice that at any time you can easily replace the band portion and it will look new again.
- I noticed when you shower, water can get inside the Flex where the dongle is located, you will need to clean that area out and wipe down the dongle from time to time so that you do not get a bacteria problem.
- I found the Fitbit Flex was a bit more generous calorie wise than my Jawbone UP, by about 500 calories per day. It would be nice if you could make an adjustment for this to match your individual metabolism?
- I found a bit of a glitch when entering manual activities if you go back and make a small change to them after the fact. Even if I deleted it and entered it again I found that my calories would get double for that activity. The only solution I found was to delete and then re add the activity but make some small changes to the start and end times. I am confident Fitbit will fix this software problem over time.
So far I am really liking the Fitbit Flex and I highly recommend it, other than the slightly higher calories burned then I am used to, I think the entire system is the best one going right now because it really covers all aspects of your fitness goal tracking.
Make sure to stay tuned to my Fitbit Flex vs Jawbone Up Comparison Review coming later on.