Review
An all-new high tech method to stay fit.
The best way to get in shape and to stay in shape is to have a diet / work out plan, and stay consistent with it. If you cut corners, miss a few days, or don’t stick to your workout and eating routine then you are not going to see any results. For a lot of us, staying consistent is the tough especially when we have stressful workdays, too tired to work out after, eat on the run, and always make the same excuse of not having time to stay fit. This is where the Fitbit One comes in…
In short, the Fitbit One is a high tech pedometer that keeps track of how many steps you take, stairs you climb, calories you burn, and how efficient you sleep. All this data syncs to a web app or smartphone app and it will analyze all your data. Lets see if it’s worth paying $100 for a pedometer…
Design / Build
The Fitbit one is an improvement over the original Fitbit Ultra that came out last year. It’s a single light weight unibody simplistic design with a single line OLED digital screen with one button to switch through modes which are the number of steps, stairs climbed, calories burned, and a growing flower that tracks how active you are. It measures at 0.76 by 1.89 by 0.38 inches (HWD) and weighs a only 0.28 ounces. The huge selling point of this over the original Fitbit Ultra is that it is more sweat resistant… just don’t go swimming with this or accidently put it into the laundry!
The Fitbit one is very well designed. It comes with a case in which you can clip the unit on your pants, pocket, bag, bra (for the ladies) or anywhere else. At home, I have it clipped on my boxers when I walk around the house. There’s also a comfortable wristband that you place the Fitbit in to track your sleeping patterns and it works effectively well.
Performance
Setup with the Fitbit One is quite easy. On your Mac or PC, plug in the wireless receiver, install the software, and pair your Fitbit on to your computer. Just enter in your personal and physical information and you should be good to go. There’s also a mobile app for Android and iOS devices and setup is also just as easy.
Fitbit’s web interface is what makes the whole fitness plan worth it. It syncs in all the data off your fit bit onto a very simple interface so you can see how many steps taken, floors climbed, miles traveled, calories burned and your activity score.
Just like how you earn achievements on your videogames, you earn achievements on Fitbit if you reach a certain number of steps (first achievement to unlock is to walk 5,000 steps) or climb a certain number of steps. You can also set your own goals so you can push yourself to go even further. The web interface also has a section where you log in your food which will calculate the number of calories you consume. Fitbit’s website has a huge database of nutritional information on a variety of foods and you can also enter in custom foods that aren’t there.
I spent a week with the Fitbit One and it was very accurate in tracking my steps as I counted along when I walked and jogged through my neighborhood. It was also very accurate when I went up and down the stores and counted the floors I climbed up instead of going down which I think is fair. Going down the stairs counted as just taking normal steps. And when I was in the gym using the stair master, it closely matched what was recorded on the machine.
I was also curious on how Fitbit tracks my sleep. How it works is I pop on the wristband before bed, put the Fitbit unit in, and hold the button for a few seconds to start the time. It will track how long it takes me to fall asleep, the number of movements I make in bed, and how many times I wake up, and then the next morning I hold the button down again to stop the timer. Once I sync the Fitbit onto my phone or desktop, it will calculate how efficient I sleep based on all the information gathered.
If you want to put yourself onto Fitbit’s own fitness program, you can subscribe to the Premium service (free trial) that’s $49.99 a year, which is much cheaper than a gym membership and personal trainer. How that works is you set your current weight, your target weight, how fast you want to lose the weight, and Fitbit will layout a plan on how many calories you should burn, how much you should eat, and it will set the amount of activity you need per day in order to reach your goal. It is freaking amazing. You can manually enter in your weight and BMI every day or you can purchase the Fitbit Aria Wireless Scale that syncs onto your Fitbit account.
Conclusion
What makes this great for tech geeks or people in general is that it’s actually quite motivating and makes you want to walk those extra steps, climb a few more flights of stairs, and continue to burn calories. The easy to use web interface and encouraging fitness program for Premium users is well worth it for lazy couch potatoes such as myself.
I’ve used the Fitbit One for one week and I’ve already lost 5lbs and continuing to lose more. I can already notice the difference in energy as I feel great and am more cognizant of what I eat every meal.
As a geek who’s always too busy to try to make it to the gym, I totally recommend the Fitbit One!
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