9 ms·

Living the Fitbit life

116 points by eroo 12y ago

kator 12y ago
My wife and I are avid fitbit'ers. We used to walk about an hour every day before we got them so it wasn't like we became fanatics when we got them but things have changed in some very subtle ways: We can get the same amount of walking in even when we travel to a new city, we used to slack off sometimes when we travelled because we didn’t have a “route” to follow. Now we just go and often walk until we get to 1/2 our goal and turn around. Meanwhile we get to see so much more of the city we’re visiting. Our last trip to London we had so much fun we walked 8 miles out before we realized we needed to head back to the hotel. We bought them for my Mom and Dad. My dad who is “Seventy something” walks me into the ground every day. He is on the west coast and we’re generally on the east coast. Every day he would beat me by 2,000 or more steps. I thought maybe my dad was taking advantage of the time zone advantage he had over me. To test this I stopped syncing for a couple days and then sync’d “all at once” and I managed to beat him. When I confronted him with this data he laughed and said “What else is an old man to do then to walk his son into the ground!” My best friend has one also and he often loves to taunt me when I’m a bit behind. When we travel we usually smash his weekly records into the ground and the taunting goes the other way! I’m an avid MMORPG player and since getting a fitbit it has slowly taken place of leveling toons or getting that next cool piece of gear. I have managed to make my life more of a game and enjoy the benefits of being more active while feeding that competitive part of my brain that want’s to win. The only thing we love more is we have a Withings WiFi scale, tracking our weight along with activity and intake (Lose It! App for iPhone) makes for a pretty nice trifecta of tools to help meet personal goals. It also makes it easy when I slip up, I can look back “Ohh yea I really slacked off that week because of x, y or z”. I have lost several of these and always replace them immediately. For a time my wife and I actually kept one in her travel case because we lost one when we were traveling and were crushed that we couldn’t replace it the very same day. We gave that one to one of our daughters and needless to say she’s in love with it. Funny story: I lost one in New York city on a rainy night in December of last year. When I figured out it was gone my wife and I retraced our last walk and we found a fitbit in the rain but it wouldn’t turn on. I assumed the rain got to it so I took it home in hopes of reviving it. When I got it dried off I plugged it into the charger and it pops up “Hello Frank”. I laughed so hard I couldn’t stop laughing for ten minutes. My name isn’t Frank. We never found mine, I hope Frank found mine and reloaded it on his account. I’m still using Frank’s FitBit (Thanks again Frank) and happy to say it’s been a good companion in my day to day life.
- jgrahamc 12y ago
  Great story about the tech. Now... What actual benefits have you seen? For example, weight loss, increased muscle strength, blood pressure, heart rate?
  - kator 12y ago
    I lost 35 lbs my wife lost more but she would not want me to say the number! After Hurricane Sandy we had to walk up and down 36 flights of stairs because our building lost power. We made 36 flights very quickly and my heart rate (Heart Rate iPhone app) returned to normal very quickly. (Sorry not going to share too much here lol). If we had tried this before we would have been DOA half the way. We made several trips up and down over the course of a couple days and we had to walk from downtown to mid-town for many things because so much of the area was without power.
    - foobarqux 12y ago
      Since you got the fitbit or since you decided to start exercising?
      - varelse 12y ago
        I've exercised regularly since the age of 22 when my ballerina girlfriend dumped me for someone effectively identical to me in every major way except that he was ripped and he could dance (and oh yeah, Atari ST versus Amiga). He and I have even indirectly intersected over the years. That event was both heartbreaking and catalytic for me. I have been a fitness freak ever since. "Big things have small beginnings" to quote David from _Prometheus_. Anyway, the Fitbit uncovered that I wasn't walking enough even though I had a pulse of 50 or so and all my vital signs were more or less awesome. My response was to address that immediately. But that does not seem to be the norm. The norm (at least in America) is to return to denial. A solution for that IMO is the killer wearable business model.
        foobarqux 12y ago
eroo 12y ago
Once we start seeing reliable metrics for other common vitals, I'm optimistic we'll see massive benefits from data insights. With a large enough sample size and the right vitals, I'm hopeful we can find highly correlated early predictors of some massive events: e.g., does 20 minutes before a heart attack have a reliable signature? Is there any boilerplate legalese for open sourcing that kind of data?
- bluedino 12y ago
  I can't wait for a device that can measure how many calories you've eaten. The possibilities for that would be endless. Beeping after you've hit your goal/limit for the day?
  - evanlivingston 12y ago
    I tend to just pay attention roughly to what I eat, and not eat foods that are generally bad for me/empty calories. However on some days I'll consume twice the amount of "recommended daily calories" for an adult my size. Yet I remain an 140lb adult male. There are no hard/fast rules for calorie consumption, and I don't believe a calorie counter will help. In-fact, it is the precise quantification of food that leads to poor diets/eating habits. EDIT: My fear is that focusing on only a small part of nutrition will further harm the nutrition of individuals. If we place too much attention on calories other things can be overlooked such as vital fats and acids or minerals. I'm trying to make the case that increased awareness and education of food and the human diet/nutrition is more important than counting calories. As someone points out below, there are many situations where calories are not labeled. In my case, I'm aware of what food is decent, and what food is junk and this allows me to forgo strict quantification of the food I consume. I know that food from most food chains is generally junk. This extends beyond the nutrition of the food as well. Food chains typically source their food from the cheapest distributors, and these are often the same distributors that end up distributing massive quantities of contaminated foods. Here's another case. I could potentially consume 5 sodas in a single day and remain under my caloric restriction, but I would have consumed a ton of empty calories. A calorie monitor is not able to help in this case, but my own awareness of health and nutrition keeps me from doing this. The issue of health is far larger simple quantification of a few metrics. It is within any individuals ability to determine for themselves general effects of the food they are consuming. For some of the best arguments contrary to my own: http://www.foodpolitics.com/tag/calorie-labeling/ http://www.foodpolitics.com/tag/calorie-labeling/
bluedino 12y ago
>> “It’s a Fitbit. You synch it with your computer, and it tracks your physical activity.” Is it sync, or synch? The 'h' really bothers me for some reason.
- btgeekboy 12y ago
  It's an abbreviation for "synchronize." Both Webster and Dictionary.com note that it can go either way.
- morgante 12y ago
  Both are correct, though I believe "synch" is slightly British.
  - collyw 12y ago
    That explains why I automatically type "sychdb" instead of "syncdb" every time I want to update my Django app.
- devindotcom 12y ago
  New Yorker style seems to be synch, but they're a bit idiosyncratic when it comes to these things, requiring diaereses in words like cooperation for instance.
tannerc 12y ago
I'm fairly active — running on a treadmill for 20 minutes then lifting weights for 30 every day of the week, walking nearly everywhere, only using stairs, etc. — but I can't bring myself to use these types of trackers. I eagerly ordered the SE Nike+ band when it was announced, I used it for maybe a week before giving it away to a friend. Perhaps it wasn't as interesting to me because there was no way to compare my numbers (no personal friends used similar devices). The idea of personal fitness trackers still intrigues me (it sounds fun), but in reality the moment you discover your "number" as an average, it's easy to lose interest.
- jcromartie 12y ago
  You're not the target market for these things. They are motivational items for people who don't exercise every day, but want to.
  - VLM 12y ago
    "They are motivational items for people who don't exercise every day, but want to" More precisely, metric optimizers or those who like grind games. My chronological experience with my fitbit was exactly the same as my experience with EVEonline and a couple other MMORPGs. They work, and work well, and the exercise trackers are doing a good thing, but only for a small susceptible segment of the population. I still carry the thing in my pocket and charge it and glance at the weekly emails, but when it breaks, I'm all done. Still going to walk after meals and go on weekend hikes, just like I've done for decades without keeping track.
- TarpitCarnivore 12y ago
  Something like the Basis Band may be a better choice for you. It has issues with tracking your heart rate during intense activities, but I think with what you're doing it should still work. The points of data it captures blows away anything else on the market is doing. Unfortunately their future is a bit in limbo since Intel bought them.
  - tannerc 12y ago
anonova 12y ago
I had a Fitbit Force for a couple of weeks before falling victim to the the rash/skin irritation problem [1]. It got quite bad, and my doctor had to prescribe a topical steroid for it to go away. Fitbit handled the situation rather poorly. There were hundreds of users complaining about the problem in their community forum, and it took months for the company to initiate a recall. What annoyed me the most was that during this process, they claimed that there was nothing wrong with the product, and that if there were one, it was due to a nickel allergy. I know, with confidence, that I am not allergic to nickel. This was still their conclusion when they posted the final voluntary recall [2]. I now have a minor scar on my wrist, and I can't recommend any of their products. This isn't because they're bad but how badly the customer service was during that period. I hope they can recover from that slip up, but I don't see myself buying anything Fitbit anytime soon, especially with so many other nicer fitness bands being released. [1]: https://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2014/Fitbit-Recalls-Force-Activity-Tracking-Wristband/ https://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2014/Fitbit-Recalls-Force-Ac... [2]: http://www.fitbit.com/forcesupport http://www.fitbit.com/forcesupport
- halviti 12y ago
  Everything I have read seems to suggest that the problem is not with the product and more with the individual and what happens when you allow something to cover your skin and never take it off for a long period of time. The larger surface area of the force being the biggest problem. I don't think a recall taking a few months is extreme, as an investigation into what is causing a medical problem might not be the easiest thing in the entire world, not to mention the fact that it just takes time to investigate period. I'm also sure that the decision to stop selling them entirely and to ask everyone to return them, likely to have them never be sold again, is not something that is often decided at a moment's notice because someone complained on an internet forum.
jamesRaybould 12y ago
I love my fitbit and wear it pretty much religiously, it tracks how much I move in a day and how much I sleep, but 2 things irk me about it. It is constantly broadcasting my location via bluetooth LE. You have to have an internet connection to retrieve any data from it. As a software dev I'd love to get my raw data out just to see what fun an interesting things I could do/see with it. When I have asked in the past they have turned me down flat saying that they don't provide access to the raw data because people could "figure out how we calculate our raw data and algorithms, so this data is all proprietary"
- Yen 12y ago
  There is one open-source project that manages synchronizing a fitbit to their service. Apparently, one used to be able to get data from listening to this communication, but they now encrypt all data coming off of the device. I got a Jawbone Up24 for my birthday, which seems to be a similar device. I'll see how easy or difficult it is to get data off of that. (I think it's designed to sync via bluetooth directly to a smartphone, which then syncs to their service, so there might be some more wiggle room on communicating to the device).
  - alecdbrooks 12y ago
    It looks like Jawbone has a reasonable-looking API [1]. Alternatively, you can set up Beeminder [2] to collect the data (or for Fitbit) for free and then use Beeminder's API [3]. [1]: https://jawbone.com/up/developer https://jawbone.com/up/developer [2]: https://www.beeminder.com https://www.beeminder.com [2]: https://www.beeminder.com/api https://www.beeminder.com/api
- ejain 12y ago
  You can minute-resolution step counts through their Web API. If you're interested in raw accelerometer data, why not just write an app that uses the accelerometer in your phone?
- kator 12y ago
  Great point about the Bluetooth LE.. I've been doing some BLE investigations recently and one of my apps showed both my Fit Bit One and My Wife's. I've been thinking maybe I could use this to automate some stuff around the house.. ;-) "Supposedly" it randomizes the BDADDR but it seems everytime I look it's the same for both devices.
ejain 12y ago
I've been wearing a Fitbit One for almost two years now. I'm not too interested in the motivational aspect, but use the data to back up health-related decisions. For example, I was able to use the data to confirm that getting exercise late in the evening doesn't affect my sleep (so no need to change my gym routine). I ended up building an entire service to support these kinds of analyses (zenobase.com), hoping to find enough people who care more about data than badges :-)
naveen99 12y ago
I just got into fitness 3 weeks ago. Fitbit seems interesting. There is a ton of info on http://reddit.com/r/fitness http://reddit.com/r/fitness Also http://stronglifts.com http://stronglifts.com Tons of youtube videos on fitness, for example by pendlay Myfitnesspal is very useful also for free. I have already lost 3 lbs and am actually eating more than when I was a couch potato. I am also trying to apply discipline I am learning for fitness in my work and home life also. Love it.
craigching 12y ago
I had heard about "10,000 steps/day", was curious, so asked for one for Father's Day (just over a week ago). After one week, being a software engineer for over 20 years now, it gets me out of my chair once in the morning and once in the afternoon for 10 minutes each, just a walk around the block + some change if I walk for lunch. I don't quite get 10,000 steps with that and I have two young children so it's hit or miss if I can get out after work with them, but I do get 20 to 30 minutes of activity per day that I didn't before. Totally, 100% worth it so far.
gadders 12y ago
I wish someone could invent a FitBit equivalent for strength training, rather than cardio.
- thesehands 12y ago
  presumably this could be done fairly easily using some RFID on the weights and sensor tracking in a wristband or ankleband to identify the activity.
  - gadders 12y ago
    Good point. I was wondering how they would measure "effort" or pressure on the bar. It's not as easy as just counting steps. RFID could work. I wonder if there is a sensor that could check muscle "activation" as well.
unsigner 12y ago
Wonderful article, but it's major effect on me is more curiosity about the iWatch. I hope it does cycling and weightlifting better than the current crop of devices - I'm definitely NOT going to drop my 30 km/day of cycling to walk more.
Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
I have (but no longer wear) a FuelBand. My experience was that I found the data initially interesting (mostly that the idea anyone was under the Nike "average" staggering - I have a desk job and don't consider myself massively active but easily hit it most days) but the problem I had was that in a busy life I found relatively little room to flex what I was doing in any substantial way. My week day routine essentially goes - get up, get ready for work, get kids up, leave, drive to work, work, drive home, get kids bathed and into bed, tidy house, get dinner, eat... and by that time it's about 9pm and I've either got to do whatever jobs need doing or relax. In itself that routine is relatively active outside the desk job (kids...) but there isn't a lot of wiggle room. My commute isn't easily changable (I live in a rural location so anything other than driving is out), I can sometimes get out and go for a walk at lunchtime and I try to do walking meetings if possible (maybe once a week) but generally speaking my day is my day and I can't really change much. As a result measuring it didn't feel like it had much point - the number was the number and it was relatively rare I'd look at it and think I could have done better.
- tptacek 12y ago
  I have roughly similar problems; for instance, I could walk more by taking public transportation instead of driving, but that would add overhead disproportionate to the benefit (I'd lose about 1.5 hours out of every day, and a huge amount of schedule flexibility). But: can you do things like park further away from work? When I lived in Ann Arbor, I was walking distance from the office. I really miss looking forward to that walk (listening to music and clearing my head for an hour a day), and I was definitely healthier then than I am now.
  - jasonkester 12y ago
    Sounds like you're flirting with the answer. Eventually, you hit a point where your health becomes more important than 10 billable hours a week. I made this leap this year, explicitly cutting down to 4 day weeks and making fitness a priority again. The previous 3 years were my least healthy on record. Two separate month-long flus and that annual six-month cold thing that never seems to go away. Coincided nicely with committing to a 40hr/week contract. I'm 5 months in to this now. A bit less billed than this time last year, but not a sniffle in all that time.
tptacek 12y ago
Does anyone have a sense of how accurate the M7 step counter is on the iPhone 5S? Is there a point in having a Fitbit if you basically always carry a 5S around with you? I've been watching the step counter on the phone over my trip to the UK and I'm surprised how motivating it is.

116 points by eroo 12y ago

kator 12y ago

My wife and I are avid fitbit'ers. We used to walk about an hour every day before we got them so it wasn't like we became fanatics when we got them but things have changed in some very subtle ways: We can get the same amount of walking in even when we travel to a new city, we used to slack off sometimes when we travelled because we didn’t have a “route” to follow. Now we just go and often walk until we get to 1/2 our goal and turn around. Meanwhile we get to see so much more of the city we’re visiting. Our last trip to London we had so much fun we walked 8 miles out before we realized we needed to head back to the hotel. We bought them for my Mom and Dad. My dad who is “Seventy something” walks me into the ground every day. He is on the west coast and we’re generally on the east coast. Every day he would beat me by 2,000 or more steps. I thought maybe my dad was taking advantage of the time zone advantage he had over me. To test this I stopped syncing for a couple days and then sync’d “all at once” and I managed to beat him. When I confronted him with this data he laughed and said “What else is an old man to do then to walk his son into the ground!” My best friend has one also and he often loves to taunt me when I’m a bit behind. When we travel we usually smash his weekly records into the ground and the taunting goes the other way! I’m an avid MMORPG player and since getting a fitbit it has slowly taken place of leveling toons or getting that next cool piece of gear. I have managed to make my life more of a game and enjoy the benefits of being more active while feeding that competitive part of my brain that want’s to win. The only thing we love more is we have a Withings WiFi scale, tracking our weight along with activity and intake (Lose It! App for iPhone) makes for a pretty nice trifecta of tools to help meet personal goals. It also makes it easy when I slip up, I can look back “Ohh yea I really slacked off that week because of x, y or z”. I have lost several of these and always replace them immediately. For a time my wife and I actually kept one in her travel case because we lost one when we were traveling and were crushed that we couldn’t replace it the very same day. We gave that one to one of our daughters and needless to say she’s in love with it. Funny story: I lost one in New York city on a rainy night in December of last year. When I figured out it was gone my wife and I retraced our last walk and we found a fitbit in the rain but it wouldn’t turn on. I assumed the rain got to it so I took it home in hopes of reviving it. When I got it dried off I plugged it into the charger and it pops up “Hello Frank”. I laughed so hard I couldn’t stop laughing for ten minutes. My name isn’t Frank. We never found mine, I hope Frank found mine and reloaded it on his account. I’m still using Frank’s FitBit (Thanks again Frank) and happy to say it’s been a good companion in my day to day life.

jgrahamc 12y ago
Great story about the tech. Now... What actual benefits have you seen? For example, weight loss, increased muscle strength, blood pressure, heart rate?
- kator 12y ago
  I lost 35 lbs my wife lost more but she would not want me to say the number! After Hurricane Sandy we had to walk up and down 36 flights of stairs because our building lost power. We made 36 flights very quickly and my heart rate (Heart Rate iPhone app) returned to normal very quickly. (Sorry not going to share too much here lol). If we had tried this before we would have been DOA half the way. We made several trips up and down over the course of a couple days and we had to walk from downtown to mid-town for many things because so much of the area was without power.
  - foobarqux 12y ago
    Since you got the fitbit or since you decided to start exercising?
    - varelse 12y ago
      I've exercised regularly since the age of 22 when my ballerina girlfriend dumped me for someone effectively identical to me in every major way except that he was ripped and he could dance (and oh yeah, Atari ST versus Amiga). He and I have even indirectly intersected over the years. That event was both heartbreaking and catalytic for me. I have been a fitness freak ever since. "Big things have small beginnings" to quote David from _Prometheus_. Anyway, the Fitbit uncovered that I wasn't walking enough even though I had a pulse of 50 or so and all my vital signs were more or less awesome. My response was to address that immediately. But that does not seem to be the norm. The norm (at least in America) is to return to denial. A solution for that IMO is the killer wearable business model.
      - foobarqux 12y ago

eroo 12y ago

Once we start seeing reliable metrics for other common vitals, I'm optimistic we'll see massive benefits from data insights. With a large enough sample size and the right vitals, I'm hopeful we can find highly correlated early predictors of some massive events: e.g., does 20 minutes before a heart attack have a reliable signature? Is there any boilerplate legalese for open sourcing that kind of data?

bluedino 12y ago
I can't wait for a device that can measure how many calories you've eaten. The possibilities for that would be endless. Beeping after you've hit your goal/limit for the day?
- evanlivingston 12y ago
  I tend to just pay attention roughly to what I eat, and not eat foods that are generally bad for me/empty calories. However on some days I'll consume twice the amount of "recommended daily calories" for an adult my size. Yet I remain an 140lb adult male. There are no hard/fast rules for calorie consumption, and I don't believe a calorie counter will help. In-fact, it is the precise quantification of food that leads to poor diets/eating habits. EDIT: My fear is that focusing on only a small part of nutrition will further harm the nutrition of individuals. If we place too much attention on calories other things can be overlooked such as vital fats and acids or minerals. I'm trying to make the case that increased awareness and education of food and the human diet/nutrition is more important than counting calories. As someone points out below, there are many situations where calories are not labeled. In my case, I'm aware of what food is decent, and what food is junk and this allows me to forgo strict quantification of the food I consume. I know that food from most food chains is generally junk. This extends beyond the nutrition of the food as well. Food chains typically source their food from the cheapest distributors, and these are often the same distributors that end up distributing massive quantities of contaminated foods. Here's another case. I could potentially consume 5 sodas in a single day and remain under my caloric restriction, but I would have consumed a ton of empty calories. A calorie monitor is not able to help in this case, but my own awareness of health and nutrition keeps me from doing this. The issue of health is far larger simple quantification of a few metrics. It is within any individuals ability to determine for themselves general effects of the food they are consuming. For some of the best arguments contrary to my own: http://www.foodpolitics.com/tag/calorie-labeling/ http://www.foodpolitics.com/tag/calorie-labeling/

bluedino 12y ago

>> “It’s a Fitbit. You synch it with your computer, and it tracks your physical activity.” Is it sync, or synch? The 'h' really bothers me for some reason.

btgeekboy 12y ago
It's an abbreviation for "synchronize." Both Webster and Dictionary.com note that it can go either way.
morgante 12y ago
Both are correct, though I believe "synch" is slightly British.
- collyw 12y ago
  That explains why I automatically type "sychdb" instead of "syncdb" every time I want to update my Django app.
devindotcom 12y ago
New Yorker style seems to be synch, but they're a bit idiosyncratic when it comes to these things, requiring diaereses in words like cooperation for instance.

tannerc 12y ago

I'm fairly active — running on a treadmill for 20 minutes then lifting weights for 30 every day of the week, walking nearly everywhere, only using stairs, etc. — but I can't bring myself to use these types of trackers. I eagerly ordered the SE Nike+ band when it was announced, I used it for maybe a week before giving it away to a friend. Perhaps it wasn't as interesting to me because there was no way to compare my numbers (no personal friends used similar devices). The idea of personal fitness trackers still intrigues me (it sounds fun), but in reality the moment you discover your "number" as an average, it's easy to lose interest.

jcromartie 12y ago
You're not the target market for these things. They are motivational items for people who don't exercise every day, but want to.
- VLM 12y ago
  "They are motivational items for people who don't exercise every day, but want to" More precisely, metric optimizers or those who like grind games. My chronological experience with my fitbit was exactly the same as my experience with EVEonline and a couple other MMORPGs. They work, and work well, and the exercise trackers are doing a good thing, but only for a small susceptible segment of the population. I still carry the thing in my pocket and charge it and glance at the weekly emails, but when it breaks, I'm all done. Still going to walk after meals and go on weekend hikes, just like I've done for decades without keeping track.
TarpitCarnivore 12y ago
Something like the Basis Band may be a better choice for you. It has issues with tracking your heart rate during intense activities, but I think with what you're doing it should still work. The points of data it captures blows away anything else on the market is doing. Unfortunately their future is a bit in limbo since Intel bought them.
- tannerc 12y ago

anonova 12y ago

I had a Fitbit Force for a couple of weeks before falling victim to the the rash/skin irritation problem [1]. It got quite bad, and my doctor had to prescribe a topical steroid for it to go away. Fitbit handled the situation rather poorly. There were hundreds of users complaining about the problem in their community forum, and it took months for the company to initiate a recall. What annoyed me the most was that during this process, they claimed that there was nothing wrong with the product, and that if there were one, it was due to a nickel allergy. I know, with confidence, that I am not allergic to nickel. This was still their conclusion when they posted the final voluntary recall [2]. I now have a minor scar on my wrist, and I can't recommend any of their products. This isn't because they're bad but how badly the customer service was during that period. I hope they can recover from that slip up, but I don't see myself buying anything Fitbit anytime soon, especially with so many other nicer fitness bands being released. [1]: https://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2014/Fitbit-Recalls-Force-Activity-Tracking-Wristband/ https://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2014/Fitbit-Recalls-Force-Ac... [2]: http://www.fitbit.com/forcesupport http://www.fitbit.com/forcesupport

halviti 12y ago
Everything I have read seems to suggest that the problem is not with the product and more with the individual and what happens when you allow something to cover your skin and never take it off for a long period of time. The larger surface area of the force being the biggest problem. I don't think a recall taking a few months is extreme, as an investigation into what is causing a medical problem might not be the easiest thing in the entire world, not to mention the fact that it just takes time to investigate period. I'm also sure that the decision to stop selling them entirely and to ask everyone to return them, likely to have them never be sold again, is not something that is often decided at a moment's notice because someone complained on an internet forum.

jamesRaybould 12y ago

I love my fitbit and wear it pretty much religiously, it tracks how much I move in a day and how much I sleep, but 2 things irk me about it. It is constantly broadcasting my location via bluetooth LE. You have to have an internet connection to retrieve any data from it. As a software dev I'd love to get my raw data out just to see what fun an interesting things I could do/see with it. When I have asked in the past they have turned me down flat saying that they don't provide access to the raw data because people could "figure out how we calculate our raw data and algorithms, so this data is all proprietary"

Yen 12y ago
There is one open-source project that manages synchronizing a fitbit to their service. Apparently, one used to be able to get data from listening to this communication, but they now encrypt all data coming off of the device. I got a Jawbone Up24 for my birthday, which seems to be a similar device. I'll see how easy or difficult it is to get data off of that. (I think it's designed to sync via bluetooth directly to a smartphone, which then syncs to their service, so there might be some more wiggle room on communicating to the device).
- alecdbrooks 12y ago
  It looks like Jawbone has a reasonable-looking API [1]. Alternatively, you can set up Beeminder [2] to collect the data (or for Fitbit) for free and then use Beeminder's API [3]. [1]: https://jawbone.com/up/developer https://jawbone.com/up/developer [2]: https://www.beeminder.com https://www.beeminder.com [2]: https://www.beeminder.com/api https://www.beeminder.com/api
ejain 12y ago
You can minute-resolution step counts through their Web API. If you're interested in raw accelerometer data, why not just write an app that uses the accelerometer in your phone?
kator 12y ago
Great point about the Bluetooth LE.. I've been doing some BLE investigations recently and one of my apps showed both my Fit Bit One and My Wife's. I've been thinking maybe I could use this to automate some stuff around the house.. ;-) "Supposedly" it randomizes the BDADDR but it seems everytime I look it's the same for both devices.

ejain 12y ago

I've been wearing a Fitbit One for almost two years now. I'm not too interested in the motivational aspect, but use the data to back up health-related decisions. For example, I was able to use the data to confirm that getting exercise late in the evening doesn't affect my sleep (so no need to change my gym routine). I ended up building an entire service to support these kinds of analyses (zenobase.com), hoping to find enough people who care more about data than badges :-)

naveen99 12y ago

I just got into fitness 3 weeks ago. Fitbit seems interesting. There is a ton of info on http://reddit.com/r/fitness http://reddit.com/r/fitness Also http://stronglifts.com http://stronglifts.com Tons of youtube videos on fitness, for example by pendlay Myfitnesspal is very useful also for free. I have already lost 3 lbs and am actually eating more than when I was a couch potato. I am also trying to apply discipline I am learning for fitness in my work and home life also. Love it.

craigching 12y ago

I had heard about "10,000 steps/day", was curious, so asked for one for Father's Day (just over a week ago). After one week, being a software engineer for over 20 years now, it gets me out of my chair once in the morning and once in the afternoon for 10 minutes each, just a walk around the block + some change if I walk for lunch. I don't quite get 10,000 steps with that and I have two young children so it's hit or miss if I can get out after work with them, but I do get 20 to 30 minutes of activity per day that I didn't before. Totally, 100% worth it so far.

gadders 12y ago

I wish someone could invent a FitBit equivalent for strength training, rather than cardio.

thesehands 12y ago
presumably this could be done fairly easily using some RFID on the weights and sensor tracking in a wristband or ankleband to identify the activity.
- gadders 12y ago
  Good point. I was wondering how they would measure "effort" or pressure on the bar. It's not as easy as just counting steps. RFID could work. I wonder if there is a sensor that could check muscle "activation" as well.

unsigner 12y ago

Wonderful article, but it's major effect on me is more curiosity about the iWatch. I hope it does cycling and weightlifting better than the current crop of devices - I'm definitely NOT going to drop my 30 km/day of cycling to walk more.

Tyrannosaurs 12y ago

I have (but no longer wear) a FuelBand. My experience was that I found the data initially interesting (mostly that the idea anyone was under the Nike "average" staggering - I have a desk job and don't consider myself massively active but easily hit it most days) but the problem I had was that in a busy life I found relatively little room to flex what I was doing in any substantial way. My week day routine essentially goes - get up, get ready for work, get kids up, leave, drive to work, work, drive home, get kids bathed and into bed, tidy house, get dinner, eat... and by that time it's about 9pm and I've either got to do whatever jobs need doing or relax. In itself that routine is relatively active outside the desk job (kids...) but there isn't a lot of wiggle room. My commute isn't easily changable (I live in a rural location so anything other than driving is out), I can sometimes get out and go for a walk at lunchtime and I try to do walking meetings if possible (maybe once a week) but generally speaking my day is my day and I can't really change much. As a result measuring it didn't feel like it had much point - the number was the number and it was relatively rare I'd look at it and think I could have done better.

tptacek 12y ago
I have roughly similar problems; for instance, I could walk more by taking public transportation instead of driving, but that would add overhead disproportionate to the benefit (I'd lose about 1.5 hours out of every day, and a huge amount of schedule flexibility). But: can you do things like park further away from work? When I lived in Ann Arbor, I was walking distance from the office. I really miss looking forward to that walk (listening to music and clearing my head for an hour a day), and I was definitely healthier then than I am now.
- jasonkester 12y ago
  Sounds like you're flirting with the answer. Eventually, you hit a point where your health becomes more important than 10 billable hours a week. I made this leap this year, explicitly cutting down to 4 day weeks and making fitness a priority again. The previous 3 years were my least healthy on record. Two separate month-long flus and that annual six-month cold thing that never seems to go away. Coincided nicely with committing to a 40hr/week contract. I'm 5 months in to this now. A bit less billed than this time last year, but not a sniffle in all that time.

tptacek 12y ago

Does anyone have a sense of how accurate the M7 step counter is on the iPhone 5S? Is there a point in having a Fitbit if you basically always carry a 5S around with you? I've been watching the step counter on the phone over my trip to the UK and I'm surprised how motivating it is.