It wasn't that long ago that a bathroom scale was the only gadget you needed to track weight loss. Today even videogame consoles, once the bane of the fitness industry, are trying to help you recycle that spare tire, and of course there's no shortage of specialty doo-dads getting in on the action. The Fitbit is one of those, a little accelerometer that pledges to keep an eye on what you do so that you can just go ahead and do it, reporting back at the end of the day on how well you did at staying active. It sounds nice, but it's not quite that self-sufficient. Read on to see if it's worth the commitment.
The Fitbit is basically just an accelerometer packaged in a clip-shaped body that looks a lot like a Bluetooth headset. Slap it onto your person somewhere and it begins to track your motions. Walk around and it counts your steps; sit still and it calls you lethargic; go to sleep and it monitors how well you rested -- or tries to, at least. In reality it's not so accurate; we found that if we threw it in our pocket and bounced our leg while rocking out to Faith No More's classic Epic the thing determined we were out running around the building. Not quite.
A little digging in the device's forums uncovered a note from a Fitbit employee indicating to clip it to your belt or, even better, somewhere on your upper body. Good to know... shame that wasn't in the manual. That's because no manual comes with the thing, the implication being you just throw it on and go to town. Again that's not quite the reality, especially when it comes to sleep. The Fitbit FAQ online says: "When you get into bed, you slide the Fitbit Tracker onto a wristband that is provided with the Tracker.
As you fall in and out of sleep, the Fitbit tracks the movements that your body makes and can tell you how long it took you to fall asleep, how many times you woke up throughout the night and the actual time you were asleep vs the time you were in bed." When we woke up and checked the results, it said we hadn't slept a wink. Digging a little further we found the Fitbit "manual" online (a set of five bullet points on a page) that says to hold the Fitbit's single button for two seconds and wait for it to say "Start." Then, when you awake, do it again until it says "Stop."
Continue reading Fitbit review
Credit : Tim Stevens,engadget
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