I'd still love to hear a convincing argument from someone as to the benefits of counting steps and measuring heart rate with a wrist band- Are people feeling like they are more fit because they walked to lunch "the long way" so they can reach the 10000 step goal that Fred from accounting has set for them? Do they feel healthier because they were regularly watching their heart rate reading during their hour in the gym to make sure it is in the correct target window, instead of just focusing on working their asses off for the whole hour without looking at metrics?
Convince me this isn't just a distraction and fad with little benefit, besides being an advertising device on your wrist to inform others that you value fitness.
EDIT: OK, looks like everyone here is convinced of the benefits- I'm pretty much on my own in my skepticism, I guess.
It's not going to change your life. Not everybody is going to derive value from it, and that's okay. It's not targeted at everybody. I generally find it quite useful. When running, I can aim at a certain heart rate which keeps me consistent between workouts and gives me a way to quantify if I'm feeling a bit exhausted compared to similar workouts, giving me another data point for planning the rest of my training week. It's also a useful measure of fitness and you can easily track improving fitness with it across workouts across time. It gives me a better sense of where my heart rate is and when, which has given me a bit more confidence in what I can do. It also tracks my sleep, which can also be useful.
There are just a lot of useful, small benefits that easily justify using one. I can easily go without though, so it's not a must-have. If you don't need that kind of detail in your life, just skip the whole thing. I'll sometimes go months without wearing it.
I don't think there's a "killer app" or a "convincing" argument. Rather, either it aligns with your goals and needs or it doesn't.
For me, at least, getting a smart watch with fitness capabilities made me realize how non-active I was before. I wasn't remotely interested in fitness pre-watch, and now I make sure to hit 30 minutes of exercise per day, even if that's just walking around the neighborhood or doing some gentle yoga.
In addition to working in tech, I'm also a certified personal trainer (I got it to volunteer train youth at a YMCA, and have kept at it because I work with a small number of people who are trying to enact transformation in various parts of their health & wellness).
I got an Amazfit Bip (super cheap, with GPS and HRM). I lift (heavy, 5/3/1 style) and trail run.
In short: steps are usually an indication of the aggregate of other things in your life. I leave my goal setting at 8K steps/day. On a 3-4 mile run day, I get it out of the way first thing. Some gym days are good for about 2000 steps.
On other days, I find that I am near the end of the day and I've literally managed all of 500 steps (working at the desk).
I do have more awareness of my distribution of steps/activity throughout the day. If I hit my 8K steps by 7am and have 9K steps at dinner, I know I was pretty sedentary all day.
I like to see 4000 steps at lunch, and 4000 steps at dinner, etc. Getting steps also gets me off the couch if I'm having a lazy day, gets the dog longer dog walks because I see an indicator of what I could give to her, etc etc.
With a busy schedule, hitting 8K steps EVERY SINGLE DAY takes work at least a few days each week. Sometimes my girlfriend needs another 2000 steps for her day, so I go with her too. It's a plus and we get that extra intentional time together. I personally welcome the quantified nudge, and it keeps me and my family out of the ditches of laziness and that lead to more gym, runs, hikes, etc.
Biofeedback has immensely improved my ability to cope with anxiety without needing medication for panic attacks. It helps me spot them as they come on, "snap" my brain out of it, and gives me something to focus on while doing breathing/mindfulness exercises to prevent the worst symptoms from manifesting and requiring more action.
I also find those stats to be gimmicks, but I mostly use my pebble to measure how many hours I work per week (with some simple software I wrote in C, main reason I loved the pebble platform), and since then I stopped working 55-60 hour weeks. In that sense awareness can indeed make a difference.
> Are people feeling like they are more fit because they walked to lunch "the long way" so they can reach the 10000 step goal that Fred from accounting has set for them?
I think it would be hard to argue that it DOESN'T make you more fit? If you normally have say 500 steps in a day, and the FitBit convinces you (through gamification, visibility into the metrics, or whatever it may be) to now take 2,000 steps in a day, then it's not a "feeling like they are more fit", it will indeed make them more fit (assuming nothing else were to change). The health benefit in 2,000 steps vs 500 steps is probably pretty cut and dry.
It's possible that spending time on those 1500 extra steps might help. However, it takes a decent chunk of time to walk 1500 steps, and there are so many forms of exercise you could do in that same time that might be far more valuable for your health... and a lot of them actually could be a lot more fun for most people if they take some effort to discover them.
I worry that these tools perform a sort of psychological trick on people that resembles a "denial of service attack", fooling them into thinking they are using their time wisely by just walking around more, even if the benefits are negligible & leading them to avoid exploring other options.
I think it works for me, but wouldn't necessarily recommend it randomly. I really like having sleep tracking and some relative measure of "activeness." If I want to change up my routine (start walking more) it's good to know roughly how much of an impact it is. I also like getting buzzed every hour if I've been sitting still.
I think it's good if you're otherwise committed to improving on one of those things, but wearing it it wont help you any more than buying dumbbells and leaving them unused int he attic.
My favourite things have been seeing on the daily heart rate graph the moment my favourite band at a festival came on, and the time I had a horrific nightmare.
I also noticed that excercises that I thought were pushing my heart rate to its peak ~180 (i.e. my upwards slog of a bike ride home, or going to the climbing gym) were actually moderately intensive, topping out at like ~130 (although, the absolute accuracy of the cheap HR sensors is questionable: but they're fairly good at detecting relative change). It encouraged me to do more cardio-intensive running mostly just to make the numbers go up.
Also the sleep tracking (again, might not be the most accurate) yields some interesting data. And being able to see the effects of consuming various substances on HR.....
Some of us just geek out over Quantified Self :-)
Also of note: I always felt that the Fitbits are too much of a "walled garden"; the devices' bluetooth communications are locked down and encrypted so only the official app can do anything useful with them. After I went through three broken/lost fitbits I switched to Xiaomi mi bands and the fact that they've had their communications protocol reverse engineered and a really powerful third-party phone app "Notify & Fitness" is great for me as I can play around with the (live!) data coming off the band, without the condition that it touches anyone elses' servers first.
I've also used the band to sync an LED pixel array tshirt I made to my heart rate
I've been wearing an Apple Watch since it launched in 2015.
The activity tracking and workout metrics are useful for keeping track of how active I am. It's not life changing.
The heart rate monitoring has been incredibly useful for me. Over the last year, I've had 2-3 instances where my heart rate got rather high while sedentary. Those moments were times when I was having panic attacks. I could feel my heart racing, my thoughts were spiraling, and I knew something was wrong. When this happens, the Apple Watch notified me that my heart rate was irregular. I consulted my primary doctor about this, showed him the graphs and explained the stressful situations, and he helped get me in contact with someone who could better help me to deal with this.
I know it's a minor thing, but it made a big difference and got me talking with the right kinds of medical professionals for an issue I was seemingly avoiding. Yea, it took almost 4 years of wearing this device, but it's made a difference.
That’s pretty crazy. Anecdotally and what I assumed was the case, everyone I’ve talked to has said the heart rate monitoring is pretty worthless. At least before the last 2 iterations. Maybe they’re better.
The first time this happened, I was wearing a Series 3 Watch, and the last time it happened, I was wearing the Series 5. It's accurate enough to know from daily wearing/monitoring, that my heart rate was irregularly elevated. That's enough for me.
Ah okay. I get incredibly anxious and my heart rate spikes during those times. But Series 1 or 2 (not sure which I have) has never reliably noticed. I might be getting Series 4 this year since they stopped manufacturing it. Will see how it goes then. Thanks.
Have you tried it? I do (or did until a month ago when it got stole at a gym locker room). I have the break alert set so I get a few hundred steps in at least once an hour and I do walk to work once a week or so if my step average has been lower than I’d like during the weekday. I definitely walk more due to my Fitbit. For now I’m checking my phone which is suboptimal.
And you don’t stare at it while working out. You might look at it to see if you’re above or below your target HR if you’re doing long distance running or if you’re doing HIIT. If you’re just trying to get your ass into the gym then yes it’s not that important but if you want to improve your time then it’s great.
I do admit it did give me “sleep anxiety” if my time to fall asleep was a bit longer than usual. The other con was it was a bit bulky so my sleeves would get caught often.
It's probably easier to improve upon a metric if you can measure it. You don't have to suddenly feel healthier, but if you know that your usual daily step count is 7-8k, you know now that walking 10k steps is a slightly more physical activity than usual and that's a good thing.
I'm not a FitBit user, but I think for a group of people (myself included), being able to measure & track the meeting or exceeding (or not) of goals can be a great motivator for continued work/improvement. For example, if I step on the weight scale regularly and record my weight (in a simple app on my phone), I feel more motivated over a longer period of time to make better dietary choices as well as stick to regular exercise. Without doing that, my will-power feels less and it's easier to take the path of least resistance and ignore the consequences of my (lack of) action.
I'm not saying you need a FitBit for this, but if it enables this kind motivation in a convenient way, that could be well worth it.
A couple times I've started to have my heart rate go out of control while not working out, and it's been a sign of not eating enough recently in my case. While not medical-device-level accurate, having a heart rate monitor on hand has been pretty helpful for monitoring that issue and my recovery from it.
I also like sleep tracking, because I don't get enough sleep, and my Fitbit helps keep track of my failure.
That being said, I bought my Fitbit as a smartwatch, not a health tracker. It was the only smartwatch that supported Windows Mobile.
I was surprised how often stress kicks my heart rate to near max for my age. That and seeing how much sleep I get. I don't really care about steps, but 10k isn't that hard.
It works for some people, my wife and daughters like their fitbits, just the encouragement to do something helps. I gradually got rid of all tracking and enjoy my bike rides more.
Heart rate is an interesting way of getting bio feedback for emotions. I am willing to bet that it will be used in future as a way of improving somatic therapy.
TL;DR, for me, the individual measurement is not as important as the quantifiable trend you can gather over time.
I can only speak for myself but for me the gamification of fitness is not in necessarily doing extra things randomly throughout the day just to hit the desired number.
I wore Fitbits for years (before switching to an Apple Watch) to be able to quantify my activity levels on a daily basis. In doing that, I can see trends over time and adjust. I feel that it was very informative to see how my average resting heart rates decreased as I focused on being healthier. I was also able to get a better average of my activity levels and correlate that with how I feel and the average of my weight measurement over time. All of those measurements together is where I see the usefulness.
The value of my Fitbit is not on counting steps, I don't really care about it. I just wanted the smallest device that would be able to wake me up without also waking up my wife and son :).
But I figured it also tracks how many hours I sleep, and I've been using it to try to improve those values. Seeing bad (or good) numbers does affect your motivation to reach the goal.
I got it primarily to track my heart rate while sleeping. It has absolutely helped retain activities that were helping or hurting my heart rate.
For working out, absolutely, if you’re trying to target a specific cardio exercise you want to your heart rate to be in a range and I have used it for that too, though usually a chest sensor which is much more accurate.
most people don't exercise effectively and are too lazy to get a trainer so a workout watch is a good way to know that they didn't really work out as hard as they thought they did.
it's a nice way of tracking your fitness level coz that stuff goes by the wayside in your prime working age 20-50.
if you're a fitness enthusiast then yeah you're definitely monitoring heart rates already with a more expensive watch(more accurate Fitbit matches vs semi accurate Apple)
the value prop exists, people just don't know that much about fitness - there's a reason for the obesity crisis. insurance companies need to start tying rates to medically measured and vetted BMIs
> most people don't exercise effectively and are too lazy to get a trainer so a workout watch is a good way to know that they didn't really work out as hard as they thought they did.
OK, out of all the responses to my question on here, this is actually the only one that sounds like a decent argument to me.
Convince me this isn't just a distraction and fad with little benefit, besides being an advertising device on your wrist to inform others that you value fitness.
EDIT: OK, looks like everyone here is convinced of the benefits- I'm pretty much on my own in my skepticism, I guess.