Anyone else here tried the FitBit Flex?

[dieselgal]

A couple of my grown kids gave me one as an early birthday present because they know I am a techie geek. I can't explain technology necessarily but I love messing with it to a point and then I'm over it.
Anyway, the FitBit Flex is more or less a fancy Pedometer that you wear on your wrist and it sync's with your computer automatically and lets you know how far you have walked, how hard you are working etc. It also has a sleep tracker mode which I like to use but I will tell you it isn't actually accurate. Since it is on your wrist but not tapped into anything else it really can only tell when you are laying very still or when there is a lot of turning over for example. If you are awake but just laying there it has to assume you are sleeping.
Anyway I have been enjoying it a lot and have found out I am a lot less active than I thought I was!
Here is a link if you are interested in checking out what I am talking about.
http://www.fitbit.com/flex

[Iowamv]

I use a FitBit Zip (cheapest of the FitBit line) and I personally find it to be an amazing motivational tool. It syncs my activity numbers automatically with my iPhone (will also sync with a computer), and then you can track your activity by day/week/month on a free website. I am MUCH more conscious about "getting my steps in" each day. I'm up to walking 14,000 steps each day, which is probably 6-7 miles. Got mine in December. Before I got it, I wasn't all that active.

You can also add "friends" so you can see each others' progress. I find that motivating too!

[Mgsnorer]

Thank you! I am a gadget junkie and have had my eye on this for a while. I know I am not active enough, but am hoping to see if I am headed in the right direction. Do you find that you take stairs, or extra steps when you are wearing it?

[dieselgal]

I think your right, I am motivated to walk just a little further etc. Like I said it did show me that I wasn't walking nearly as far as I felt like I was and I almost never hit the VERY active minutes! Maybe that's why I'm built the way I am. LOL

[Iowamv]

Thank you! I am a gadget junkie and have had my eye on this for a while. I know I am not active enough, but am hoping to see if I am headed in the right direction. Do you find that you take stairs, or extra steps when you are wearing it?

Exactly right. Before I wore it, my goal was to get a "good parking spot" near the door when I drove to a store etc. Now, I look for ways to sneak in extra steps-- using the bathroom on the floor above my office, parking in a different lot, taking laundry upstairs a few items at a time, etc. I even shop at the mall with my wife now, because I know that I'll end up getting steps in. Big groceries and stores like Sam's Club or Walmart are also good, but they are huge.

Most importantly, at the end of a day, it keeps me honest. My job involves a lot of sitting (reading etc.). So I end up walking in the evening to make it to my daily goal. Some nights that's a short walk, other days that's a pretty long walk.

I could not be happier with that little device.

And the company is pretty good too. My wife's Zip stopped working. And of course we had thrown away the receipt. They just shipped a new one to her and told her to dispose of the old one appropriately.

[chunkyfrog]

Is the Fitbit Flex usable off-line?
I have a Zeo, and I was wondering . . .

[dieselgal]

There isn't a display of any kind on it that can be seen without it syncing with your computer. The cool part about it is that it is a bracelet and water resistant so I don't have to remove it except to charge it and that only happens about once a week.

[chunkyfrog]

But, will it work without the Internet?

[dieselgal]

I would say you would need to have the internet because the first thing you do is sign up with fitbit.com and set up an account.

[jedimark]

My wife wants one of these. I told her she's not getting one until I know it's data is fully accessable

For any geeks out there...
http://github.com/openyou/libfitbit/blo ... l.asciidoc
I haven't finished reading this all through yet.

There is also the misfit shine, which looks cool, but I know pretty much zero about it.

[eeckel]

I like gadgets also and first learned about fitbit from lurking at a quantified self form. Fitbit sounds good but I decided to try a free app the the quantified self crowd like. It's called Moves and has many of the same features. http://www.moves-app.com/. I just use the free features and find in motivating. The daily map is especially interesting.

[jeremyclarkson]

I tried Moves.app for awhile but it started to kill my phone's battery. Since then I got a FitBit one and a FitBit Aria scale. Plugged them in to MyFitnessPal (logging calories) and RunKeeper (tracking walks beyond normal daily walking), and am now dropping weight using the basic principles of The Hacker's Diet (calories in < calories out). You can also link your FitBit account to trendweight.com to get a nice moving average trend of your weight based on the formulas from The Hacker's Diet.

10lbs down so far.