1. Liking the Fitbit

    There’s already more than enough big reviews out there to graze on, but here’s a few quick first impressions of my spanking new Fitbit.

    • Very clever design. And super easy to set up and use. WAY easier than the byzantine SleepTracker watch I used to use.
    • Completely great? This is the first totally do-nothing activity/sleep tracker with full Mac support that I’ve used.
    • Why “do-nothing?” Every 15 minutes, the wireless base station/charger checks to see if a Fitbit is broadcasting nearby (within ~15 ft.); if so it pulls down all the new data in seconds without intervention, notification or anything. Gold.
    • The unit reportedly can go 5-10 days without recharging and holds up to 7 days of full data w/o transmitting. Handy that you won’t need to bring anything but the USB-key-sized Fitbit on a weekend trip.
    • Also awesome: You can have multiple Fitbits per station, and multiple stations. So. The one at home works for both Madeline’s and my Fitbits, but the one at work also works with both without overlapping data. Smart. And, again, all silently and automatically. No manual entry required.
    • The only stuff you really have to enter is your vital stats and — I recommend — the actual length of your walking and running stride. Also,
    • If you want to track activities, you need to do that by hand. But, as you’d expect, it works pretty much like any other similar site you’ve used.
    • Similarly, if you want to track nutrition, calories, etc. (great to compare against your activity), there’s a terrifyingly large database of food and drinks — hilariously enough, with a huge concentration on junk food.
    • Only giant asterisk so far is the — what? — slipperiness of the teeny Fitbit. I tried just flipping it over a jeans pocket, but it repeatedly and with minimal coaxing flew off and tumbled onto the floor; luckily, this happened while I was at home being sedentary. The wrist cuff/holder for sleep tracking works great to use throughout the day, provided you don’t mind looking like a Marin County version of Elliott Smith.
    • Pro Tip for Levi’s wearers: Yep. The fitbit fits perfectly in the right-side watch pocket. There alongside your guitar pick, video game tokens, and extra imodium. Swish.
    • Bottom Line: If you’re a sedentary nerd, love gadgets, need tech-based motivation and have 100 bucks to spare, I’d definitely consider buying one. It’s great. Sure, it’ll get drastically better after 1.0, but, you’re a nerd, so don’t sweat it. This is not a perfect solution for “real” “athletes” (yeah, big problem for you) but if you want to just move more and gorge less, it’s fantastic. Especially for the weirdly modest $100 they charge.

    Extra Credit: The two dudes who run the company strike me as way stand-up guys. While the Fitbit’s (extraordinarily clever and deft) hardware engineering became a big rock — and as it became clear the company would (repeatedly) be horribly behind on delivering pre-orders — they were wonderfully transparent (and fascinating) in updating us on their process and challenges. They were honest and sane, they managed expectations, admitted when they were wrong, and always put the quality of the product above hitting an empty date.

    And, would it surprise you to know? That all gets giant amounts of respect from me. Exactly.

    Great thing, this Fitbit. On first (and wildly cursory) glance and usage, I can highly recommended looking into it — and, yes, then actually moving as a result.

And, then, you were all...

  1. industrialwaste reblogged this from merlin
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  6. davethebrave reblogged this from merlin and added:
    Sold. Absolutely sold.
  7. peroty reblogged this from merlin and added:
    kinda wanted one. Now,...properly track my sleep or lack thereof.
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  9. merlin posted this