Fitbit Recommendations?

[ReadySetMillionaire]

My wife and I usually try to buy mutual gifts for each other that go towards health and wellness (how cheesy).  This year, we've done some research and we are on the verge of pre-ordering the Fitbit Charge 3, which seems to be very highly rated and comes with all the features we would want. https://www.fitbit.com/shop/charge3?utm_source=&utm_medium=paidsearch&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjb2yzJDM3QIVlFuGCh3Ewws8EAAYASAAEgJerfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CLiy182QzN0CFRk84Aod-XoC9w

I know some may find this to be superfluous spending, and since that will undoubtedly come up in this thread, here's our reasoning:

(1) We both do much better with anything when we are tracking that activity.

-I bill more hours at my law office when I am tracking my hours daily
-We have a better personal finance budget when I record the budget and expenses monthly
-We reach our personal finance goals much better when we track and regularly monitor them.

The advice to "just go out and bike" is the same as telling someone else "just spend less."  We like tracking, knowing information, etc., and the Fitbit platform seems to be the budget friendly market leader in the fitness arena.

(2) My wife is pregnant, and her best friend (who just had a baby) couldn't recommend the Fitbit highly enough.  She said it was great to monitor heart rate during pregnancy, it's been immense for her recovery and their mutual wellbeing (knowing that you had a *good* 4 hours of sleep makes all the difference in attitude), etc.

I could go on, but the Fitbit Charge 3 seems to provide a great bang for its buck.  Pedometer, heart rate monitor, waterproof, sleep tracking, bunch of apps, etc. 

So, with all that out of the way, anybody have any Fitbit reviews that would be helpful/cautionary?  I searched on Google for threads about Fitbit, but seems like the most recent one was two years ago, and Fitbit's products have improved dramatically since then.

[frugaliknowit]

My first question before buying a tracker is:  What are your goals?

My second question is:  How active are you and your wife now?  Is your lifestyle something like walk from inner house to garage, get in car, drive to work, then do the reverse?  If that is the case, a tracker can give you a useful perspective on how much more active you need to be.

If fact you and your wife are quite active, you are already exceeding 10,000 steps per day.  You might not need a device that ends up in a landfill to tell you so...

I started out the with the cheapest fitbit at the time (think it's the same as the one you point to).  It fried pretty quickly (maybe a year).  Heart rate was complete BS.  Since it was under warranty (best buy), swapped it out for a (then called) Blaze (of course, for more $$...suckered into the trade up).  Then after about 1.5 years, I started having trouble with the band falling apart.  I super-glued it.  Lasted almost up to the 2 year point. 

Brought the Blaze back to Best Buy.  They said "...we don't carry the Blaze anymore, but we carry the "yada yada"... oh, and it's $xx more.  We can give you a gift card for the $197 instead.

I took the gift card.  I am DONE with fitness trackers.

You say you want to track things.  Assuming you and your wife are looking to shed fat, here's a suggestion:

Once per week, measure your waist and weigh yourself.  Plot it on a chart or on an excel sheet.

[haflander]

My family is really into the whole Fitbit thing. I was the last holdout without one. I received a Fitbit charge HR for my bday in October 2017, so Idk how much they paid for it. This summer the band started falling apart and then the thing wouldn't sync with my phone for whatever reason. After 30 min with customer service they sent me a Charge HR 2 for FREE even though it's a much more advanced, current, and expensive version (I'm guessing they didn't have any new ones of that old version to send to me). So, customer relations is very good! Sounds like FIKI should have dealt directly with them instead of Best Buy. I believe if the band started sucking they would send you one for free, if not a whole new Fitbit.

I enjoy my Charge HR 2. Steps and heart rate are accurate (I randomly count manually to compare every once in a while). It also measures your sleeping patterns, logs exercise, helps with breathing/relaxation exercises. You can also use it to chart weight and nutrition (I don't). You can use any Fitbit to join the community and "friend" people to compare and join challenges with each other (my fam loves this).

I like just looking at the time on it. I don't like looking at the time on my cell phone and pulling it out of my pocket and then getting sucked into the vortex black hole of apps and notifications...I used to wear old-school watches for this reason and just liked the traditional style of them.

GF was jealous of my Fitbit so I bought her an identical new Charge HR 2 plus an extra band on CL for $80 for her bday...new retail was at least 130. She's had it for a few days and likes it.

I'm not sure why you're set on the Charge HR 3...the 2 will do many similar things and you can still get it new and secondhand as I did above. I haven't looked but I'm guessing the 3 would cost you close to 200 for new retail when you could pay less than half that as I did for the 2.

The best part is that you can rest assured that anything broken (band or the actual electronic thingy) will be replaced after you call Fitbit and complain.

[mschaus]

Sounds like you're already sold on the fitbit you mentioned, so go for it and enjoy and report back to us! But I would also warn/ask -- what is actionable from the data being collected, and how much time managing and fiddling with the fitbit will be spent (which is time not exercising)? It sure sounds like one would say "hey I didn't walk enough today! Better get out there!" but if you didn't already have the inclination to go for a run after dinner, I don't think a fitbit will create it. Instead, my opinion is it just adds more overhead, complication, and chargers to an already complex life and the time spent managing it is time spent not doing something healthy. I had a fitbit a few months and those were my conclusions. Sold it on ebay. If you go for it, I hope it works out!

[etselec]

I have an Alta HR and love it — I'm a very numbers- and stats-motivated person so being able to track exercise, sleep, heart rate, etc. is really nice. I also just like having a watch.

That said, I wouldn't get a Charge 3, when the Charge 2 will cost less and do just about all the same stuff. To give you an idea, the Alta HR is selling for $130 and I got mine for $85 like-new condition on eBay with an extra band included.

[ReadySetMillionaire]

Glad to hear some people have positive experiences and found use out of it.

Here's a nice summary of the difference between the Charge 2 and Charge 3: https://www.techradar.com/news/fitbit-charge-3-vs-fitbit-charge-2

Basically, the Charge 3 has a much bigger screen, waterproof, is a proper touchscreen that lets you swipe, improved sleep tracking, longer battery life...and it's only $20 more.

My wife is actually looking into the Alta HR, and that might be a good idea for her.

[okisok]

I received the Alta as a gift, and I love it! I particularly like the watch function so that I don't have to be on my phone for the time. It was very helpful for me when I switched from a job with lots of walking to a desk job. The alerts are great--if I get to ten minutes before the hour and havent walked 250 steps, it buzzes to gently remind me how many steps I need to get there. It syncs perfectly with my phone, so I occasionally find out I've (cumulatively) walked the length of the Appalachian trail or the width of the Sahara. I lost 15 lbs using it and the low-carb diet. I wear it every day!

[Dee18]

I like my Fitbit but I have found the heart rate to be inaccurate much of the time.  My favorite thing is that it vibrates at ten minutes to the hour, prompting me to take a stroll around my building.

[ReadySetMillionaire]

I like my Fitbit but I have found the heart rate to be inaccurate much of the time.  My favorite thing is that it vibrates at ten minutes to the hour, prompting me to take a stroll around my building.

I feel like this is really important for me.  As an attorney, I've sat writing a brief and, before I know it, five hours went by. 

[ReadySetMillionaire]

Also, thanks for the positive feedback on the Alta HR -- I ended up opting for that.  It was $20 less than the Charge and available at Target, where I had a gift card, so I saved a decent amount of coin for basically the same device.

Setting up now...looking forward to using this thing.

[MayDay]

I have gone through several. They WILL break- either before the warranty ends of fairly soon after. I think Fitbit has sent me 3 more Fitbit after I purchased my first one.

I gave the third replacement to my kid and bought myself a charge 2, after trying a Garmin in between. The Garmin app was awful,and the Garmin itself also broke after two years,so.....

For me, I wear a watch anyway and it definitely motivates me to get more activity. Hopefully this charge 2 will die right before the one year mark and I'll get another free one. If not I'll still probably pay to replace it.

The charge3 is probably not worth it when the 2's price is about to drop, unless being waterproof is really important to you.

[ReadySetMillionaire]

Two days in, so experience is obviously limited, but I'm amazed at how good the app is.  Holy moly.  The amount of information that you can use to your benefit is incredible.

[zygote]

When I first read this thread, I thought to myself "wow, I feel lucky I've never had issues with my fitbit!"

Did I jinx it? Yesterday, the strap snapped off of the tracker unit. I can kind of put it back together but it keeps falling apart. I contacted support. Hopefully they're going to send me a new one. I got it as a Christmas gift, so it's only 10 months old. Worst case, I might be able to extend its life with super glue.

I do like being able to monitor my heart rate as I work out (it is prone to getting too high too fast), but it's annoying how flimsy they are. Even if support will take care of it for now.