Fitness Tracker

edh

Thru Hiker
Anyone use these?
Which model and why?

Looking for a longish battery life product.

  • Heart monitor.
  • Sleep monitor.
  • GPS connect.

For a research project.
 

Baldy

Thru Hiker
Anyone use these?
Which model and why?

Looking for a longish battery life product.

  • Heart monitor.
  • Sleep monitor.
  • GPS connect.

For a research project.
Baldy Jnr has a Fitbit that HE says is good.
 

FOX160

Thru Hiker
Mrs had a fit bit but only used it for a month to see if she had done enough
steps I think the heart monitor is only needed if your doing intense training
To measure the heart and If your likely to have an heart attack.
 

Snowonher

Trail Blazer
I've been using the Suunto Spartan trainer wrist HR. I chose it becuase I've had good experiences wih Suunto sports watches and wanted something with gps and altimeter for backpacking. You select the type of training or hiking you're doing and it tracks everything, including recovery. Once you're finished you can sync it to the app or website to get better visuals and extra data etc.

Does sleep monitoring and 24hr heart rate. I reckon with everyting on full blast you'd get a week out of it, but it's usb chargeable so makes life easier.
 

sherpa

Section Hiker
last September i bought a Suunto Spartan Ultra Ti when it was heavily discounted.

i have a galaxy 8+ but could not get the watch to connect to the phone. i didnt anticipate a problem with such a high tech watch so hadnt done much research before purchase. i discovered on quite a few blogs that there appeared a massive problem with suunto’s android App. iPhone App was apparently superb but as i discovered the android software was extremely poor. i returned the Suunto and got a full refund

the vivosmart HR+ had just been released at rrp £200. i found my local Argos had it at just £140 (less than the model it replaced) so i bought one immediately. it does the basics well, integration with the galaxy 8+ is seemless. has built in gps so can record routes independent of a phone, though gps hammers the battery. however the watch still operates when charging so it can readily be hooked up to a powerbank
 
  • Like
Reactions: edh

EM - paul

Thru Hiker
last September i bought a Suunto Spartan Ultra Ti when it was heavily discounted.

i have a galaxy 8+ but could not get the watch to connect to the phone. i didnt anticipate a problem with such a high tech watch so hadnt done much research before purchase. i discovered on quite a few blogs that there appeared a massive problem with suunto’s android App. iPhone App was apparently superb but as i discovered the android software was extremely poor. i returned the Suunto and got a full refund

the vivosmart HR+ had just been released at rrp £200. i found my local Argos had it at just £140 (less than the model it replaced) so i bought one immediately. it does the basics well, integration with the galaxy 8+ is seemless. has built in gps so can record routes independent of a phone, though gps hammers the battery. however the watch still operates when charging so it can readily be hooked up to a powerbank

my wife and daughter have the vivosport which i think was the next one out after the vivosmart. both have been excellent too.
 
  • Like
Reactions: edh

bumbly

Section Hiker
Hey all (long time no post :) )

just in case edh didn't get sorted yet. I've been using Garmin watches daily for almost 3 years now. I've used a number of sports watches for training over the years before activity trackers became a thing (mostly Polar). I went with garmin due to having a few handheld GPSs and bike bits of theirs so I was already in that "ecosystem". The Fenix 3 was about the point that wrist GPS became viable (imo). Here is my experience in that time:

Fenix3(not the hr as it wasn't out at the time). This has been fantastic for both navigation and athletic training with the chest strap. It is a little bulky to wear all day, everyday, and mine looks super tatty as I keep it with a fabric velcro strap (so it can be worn outside a jacket and whipped off fast at the gym). The sleep tracking was excellent for me other than the watch itself being cumbersome.

Garmin then added to their software a feature called True Up. which makes it far more practical to switch between devices almost on the fly for different purposes and keep the all day metrics accurate. At this point I invested in a VivoActiveHR so that I could have something a little less clunky yet I could still wear for training if I didn't have the Fenix with me. The sleep tracking was always super off for me and the screen was garbage in sunlight. However I quite liked having an all day HR monitor. (In short: it is debatable as to exactly how useful training by HR is. What is super useful though is to watch for resting HR returning to normal in the days after having really pushed physical exertion)

Then about a year ago the Vivosmart3 came out. This is more like a small band type tracker(no gps) and doesn't snag on pillows clothes etc. I'm happy to keep it on while chucking weights around or for easy climbing training as it isn't really something that will scratch up and is anyway super cheap for what it does. Both the HR and the sleep tracking have been near spot on for me. I end up charging it for 45 mins every 3-4 days. Only annoyance is the shower makes my touch screen flick through the menu screens :)

I have played with a number of different devices and seen friends use all sorts. If I was to make my purchasing decision again I'd go for the current top end Garmin sports watch (Fenix or Forerunner)and the bottom end HR enabled watch/band. I'd caution against going for anything in the middle after my experience as I have hardly used it after getting the cheaper smaller band. If you want to read really in depth comparisons of such tech have a look at this guys site https://www.dcrainmaker.com/

My only other experience would be to say don't buy any NokiaHealth (was Withings) products as they have ballsed everything up since the acquisition. I did have a set of Withings scales.
 

Diddi

Thru Hiker
Bought the Misses a Fitbit Surge yesterday for her 40th birthday pressie and so far so good, said she slept well :laugh:.
But seriously if its top end you want go Garmin (better battery life etc ) if its just for research the Surge does everything garmins do like gps tracking, heart rate, sleep pattern (shown on app) call/text notification, music volume/track etc..
 

el manana

Thru Hiker
It looks like i need one of these for my upcoming birthday. Mainly interested in the fitness and health metrics so was considering a fitbit but the Garmin Fenix with GPS functions etc looks tempting. Will look through the suggestions here.
 
  • Like
Reactions: edh

Scotty Von Porkchop

Ultralighter
I've used the fenix 3 for a couple of years and it's been awesome, especially once you learn the useful apps etc. I did a have sony wrist band fit thing that was more comfortable etc but found the biometrics not important enough to use more than the Fenix
 
  • Like
Reactions: edh

Jim_Parkin

Ultralighter
I hava a fitbit charge2 (I used to have a GPS watch with a separate chest strap - but the heart rate was *waay* out (I wasn't getting my pulse rate up to 240 bpm after half a minute's gentle cycling without even needing to breathe faster, for example) and then the GPS refused to acquire a fix.


The charge2 relies on my phone's GPS via bluetooth, and the heartrate is pretty good. It's also convenient. You might notice that I haven't said anything about the GPS...

When I got it, last August, it was good, but in February there was an update to the app and since then (and with several app updates) it has been reading low on distance.

Most of my logging is in cycling to work, and after the update, I noticed that my 20km commute into work was being recorded as 15km. When I looked at the route on the map it looks correct on the ground.

Fitbit have improved the matter, but it is still not right - I recorded yesterday's walk with both strava on my phone, and fitbit via my phone, so both using the same GPS. Apparently the strava app thought I'd walked 21.7km, but the fitbit thought it was 20.7km. My commute distance seems to vary by about 2km in 20 (normally under). I think it might be when it monentarily loses the GPS, because I recently cycled on the Monsal Trail with a local scout group and the Strava app gave 10.5km, whilst the Fitbit gave 9km (there are tunnels, so GPS will have been lost on that route.

In short, fitbit is great apart from the GPS.

which is quite annoying
 

Jim_Parkin

Ultralighter
I hava a fitbit charge2 (I used to have a GPS watch with a separate chest strap - but the heart rate was *waay* out (I wasn't getting my pulse rate up to 240 bpm after half a minute's gentle cycling without even needing to breathe faster, for example) and then the GPS refused to acquire a fix.


The charge2 relies on my phone's GPS via bluetooth, and the heartrate is pretty good. It's also convenient. You might notice that I haven't said anything about the GPS...

When I got it, last August, it was good, but in February there was an update to the app and since then (and with several app updates) it has been reading low on distance.

Most of my logging is in cycling to work, and after the update, I noticed that my 20km commute into work was being recorded as 15km. When I looked at the route on the map it looks correct on the ground.

Fitbit have improved the matter, but it is still not right - I recorded yesterday's walk with both strava on my phone, and fitbit via my phone, so both using the same GPS. Apparently the strava app thought I'd walked 21.7km, but the fitbit thought it was 20.7km. My commute distance seems to vary by about 2km in 20 (normally under). I think it might be when it monentarily loses the GPS, because I recently cycled on the Monsal Trail with a local scout group and the Strava app gave 10.5km, whilst the Fitbit gave 9km (there are tunnels, so GPS will have been lost on that route.

In short, fitbit is great apart from the GPS.

which is quite annoying

They seem to have fixed the GPS distance probelm and now it's back to being the same as the Strava app on the phone.
 
Top