FITBIT: App flaws and annoyances

Wearables, there are so many out in the market these days, and you can research until the cows come home before you decide which is the one for you.  I was a Jawbone Up girl, I have had 3 Ups within 2 years, and I was quite happy with it.  Then, I developed an allergic reaction to the band, which then forced me to reassess my wearable choice for this year.

I had had my problems with Up, the product itself is flawed and easily broken, but the warranty replacement is amazing and I was able to get a replacement quickly and fairly painlessly.  This said, it did annoy me every time my Up broke and my stats would be disturbed, especially when I was on a good streak.

So, with this in mind, and all the rage around the Fitbit, I decided to go over to the other side and get the Charge HR.  I had done my research, I had read, watched and listened to reviews.  But what I had failed to take note of was how far behind the App for the Fitbit is compared to the Up.

And boy, is it far behind.  It feels as though I have committed myself to buying a new Toyota which is really a 5 year old Lexus rebranded.  That’s what it feels like.

If you’re an Up user, don’t bother with Fitbit, the heartrate monitoring abilities is great, but you must take its accuracy with a pinch of salt.  Everything else about it is annoying.

This is what I’ve found:

1. The Fitbit sometimes registers more steps than I actually take, and sometimes less steps than I actually take. With its display unit, I can tell its accuracy, but I guess, over the course of a day, it might even out.
2. The heartrate monitoring is a little off, but that’s OK for the time being, it’s the best out in the wearable fitness tracker market, without having to integrate the chest strap.
3. The battery life is around 4 days, so charging it more regularly than I’m otherwise used to, which is a little annoying at times.
4. It’s much thicker and looks and feels more cumbersome and less like an accessory and more like an obvious fitness band.
5. The top part of the gadget is a little big and sits a little uncomfortably on smaller female wrist compared to the Up.
6. The App doesn’t always register logged activities, however, the browser dashboard does. This is very very very annoying.  Wanting to see how you’re performing, you have to log in on a computer, otherwise, you’re stuck using an App which doesn’t necessarily update the data it retrieves.
7. When viewing data for an individual day, you can’t figure out what time something occurred, you have to do a random guess as to when something happens. The Up allows you to scroll across accordingly and view the time.
8. All data view is static on the browser dashboard, yet it’s scrollable via the App once you drill down into the individual data information.
9. The sleep data is quite inaccurate, I know because I’m a terrible sleeper, yet, the Fitbit claims that I spend most of the night in deep sleep. It only registers when I wake up to go to the bathroom as when I’m awake.  The Up’s sleep accuracy is much better, or at least, that’s how it made me feel about its sleep data collection and summary.
10. I am unable to log workouts via the Fitbit App, I tried and tried, but it kept rejecting my log and wanting to log a run/walk instead. Hate to say it, but there’s more to exercise that walking or running.
11. And the thing that annoys me the most about the Fitbit is that it wants to charge me almost one third of the price of the actual gadget itself for some premium service which ranks me against my peers.
12. The messaging system is short of being broken. The Up enables you to message your friends directly or via a post of theirs, so, you’re able to encourage a specific event/log.
13. The clasp mechanism is like that of a watch’s, so, it’s more comfortable and much more easily adjustable.  The Up’s clasping mechanism is annoying and takes a lot of time to get used to.

The Up is a superior data display App, and after using both, I have come to the conclusion that the data review and accessibility is more important than being able to see what my heartrate is.

Perhaps it is a matter of letting go and embracing the dashboard.  But it just feels more primitive.  I like that I can see how I’m progressing throughout the day via the Fitbit’s display screen, but is it enough to make up for the App and its almost archaic data summary?  I like graphs and being able to view my data in a graphical format without having to click my way through so many different things.

Those who have never experience Up’s App will not find the Fitbit’s App inferior or lacking.  There are bugs associated with it, but like most Apps, I’m sure Fitbit will fix it with time.

Wearables are great, doesn’t matter which one you go with, so long as it affects your health in a positive way.  I found that when I was no longer accountable, I would make excuses and found myself exercising less and less.  But once that band was on again, I was also back on the exercise band wagon.

I look forward to the next generation of wearables which will come out in the coming years, I am most excited about the improvements in the technology and future biometric readings.