Coming Back to FitBit

At this point in my life I have used quite a number of fitness wearables. I have owned a Fitbit One, Jawbone Up24, Basis B1, Basis Peak, and a Fitbit Charge HR. I've never owned any of the Garmin, Microsoft, or Shine products but I have never really been interested in those. 

I was left woefully unimpressed with Jawbone's platform - it was buggy and often the device would just stop syncing and the lack of a web dashboard (all the data lives on a mobile app) and the fact that because it's not popular there wasn't much of the way in friendly competition (since you can't friend someone you don't know) there wasn't much in the way of motivation. Additionally, there's not a read out display on any of their models so no matter what you are chained to the mobile app for everything. There was some 3rd party integration but it was a little buggy so if you like to participation in fitness rewards/games apps or sites it doesn't always play well.

Basis offers a solid dashboard and all their models collect a wide variety of bio metrics outside the norm. They track Skin Temperature, Perspiration and all their models track heart rate which is how it accurately determines caloric burn rather than basing it off steps, height, and weight like trackers generally do. The graphs provided are insightful and great for a person who really is in to data crunching. There are a few drawbacks though. The platform offers no socialization which means it doesn't have a competitive edge if that is what motivates you to do better and there isn't a way to track caloric intake. You can sync your data to Google Fit and then have that provide information to MyFitnessPal but overall the connection wasn't seamless. This is still wonderful device and if I wasn't competitive and was looking more to gain muscle than lose weight the drawbacks wouldn't bother me. This is better suited for a person who is already in a good place with their health and weight. This app has no 3rd party integration outside of what can connect through Google Fit which is very little. If you like to participate in 3rd party fitness rewards or games this will leave you completely disconnected.

My very first tracker was a Fitbit One that I was given for Christmas and it was the very best gift I had ever received until I got my newest tracker from Fitbit the Charge HR. My heart condition must be continually monitored so as much as I loved my Fitbit One I had to look to other trackers to have the data I needed. I love the platform, I love the competitive aspect as well as the social aspect. It motivates me in a way that none of the others have and now that they have a heart rate feature included I'm beyond happy to be back on this wonderful platform. Almost every fitness rewards or game app/site connects with Fitbit, it is probably the most universally accepted wearable and its popularity means that most of your friends are probably on it and if not you can make fittie friends over the community board to compete against if competition is more your deal. I only have 2 minor complaints with the dashboard. I dislike that when you're using the mobile app and you choose to "track your exercise" the pop up that comes up only shows average pace and time - it would be more beneficial if it showed current heart rate. However, to get around this you can choose to have it auto detect for a specific type of exercise and still see the current heart rate on the main dashboard of the app. The other thing I don't love is the limited food library, but this is easy to fix by syncing with MyFitnessPal instead whose library is massive.