This won't be a technical review, just a high level look at my experiences with different products.
First of all, when you are thinking about getting an activity monitor or heart rate monitor - you have to ask yourself the purpose of wanting it. What is important to you? Do you want something that is going to pretty accurately tell you the calories you're burning during your workouts? Are you looking for something just to tell you how many steps you take in a day and how well you're sleeping? Or do you want something that does all of that?
FITBIT FLEX
The Fitbit Flex is a very popular activity monitor. You can get it for about $85-90 now. A lot of people think that regular activity monitors like the Fitbit Flex will give them an accurate picture of the calories they burn per day. The calories that this shows is seriously just an estimate based on the stats you put in and the movement of your arm. So it's an ESTIMATE and I wouldn't say it's accurate. If you don't care too much about this number, then this activity monitor is a great one! It tracks your steps, active minutes per day, sleep, has a gentle vibration alarm on it to wake you up in the morning, is stylish and small and you can change the band colors! A few things I didn't like about it, was the obvious, that I couldn't see what kind of calories I was burning with my workouts. Another thing - I really wanted a band that could have a display on it so I could see some info besides just the 5 white lights that show me how close I am to my goal for the day. One thing I will say - I went through THREE of them because the charger and the battery malfunctioned. Hopefully it was just a crazy coincidence with mine. So overall - its a good activity monitor, but with my experience - I will never buy one again.
Polar FT4
When my clients are looking for a heart rate monitor that they can wear during their workouts to show them how many calories their burning - this is usually the first one that I recommend. You can get it on Amazon.com for a very reasonable price (usually around $50) So many people I know have used this one and have had a great experience. It's the first heart rate monitor that I started with and I LOVED it. It comes in a few different colors, but I chose the pink one because it's super cute. I never had a bad experience with my device and I used it almost every single day for over 2 years. The battery lats FOREVER is super easy to change and the watch is really easy to use. It comes with a heart rate strap that you wear right under your chest during your workouts. It's not uncomfortable and it works great. You turn the watch on before you start your workout and it tracks your heart rate throughout. When you are done with your workout - you turn it off and it tracks your information from your workout.
The reason I love a watch like this is because when I'm working out, I really like to monitor my heart rate. And when I can visibility see the calories I'm burning during a workout and see my heart rate rise, it pushes me to go as hard as I can in my workout. I used to be a calorie counter before I learned about clean eating and portion control - so this was vital in my calorie counting so I could be accurate. But these days I mostly just use it as a tool to push me to go my hardest and try my absolute best during my workouts.
The reason a watch like this is more accurate with calories is because it is directly connected to the heart rate strap that actually measures your heart rate. The Fitbit Flex does NOT measure your heart rate - so its simply an estimate. The problem with this is - we all burn calories SO differently. There are many factors involved and sometimes there really is no rhyme or reason. I'll have challengers who are roughly the same build as me, but they can burn 100 more calories doing the exact same workout! So I will never tell someone how many calories a workout burns - because if you really want to know, you need one of these watches!
Garmin Vivosmart
So after a while of getting sick of my Fitbit Flex battery crapping out of me, I decided I was going to be in the market for a new activity monitor. And how nice would it be to have an activity monitor AND a heart rate monitor all in one. Welcome - Garmin Vivosmart. This little beauty can do SO much!! It's a little pricier but in my opinion, very worth the investment. It looks like you can get it on Amazon.com with the heart rate strap at a special sale price right now of $125. I paid $180, so this is a great deal.
What do I love about it:
- very cute style. small and fits great.
- the heart rate monitor is very accurate based on my experience.
- it has a display on it that shows you so much information just by swiping through. you can see the time (which was nice since I'm not a watch wearer), your steps, set alarms....and much more
- here is the awesome part - it syncs to your phone and updates you when you get a phone call or text message and will even show you the message. this was so nice for me because my phone is ALWAYS on silent. and if you've ever tried to call me, you'll know it's a miracle if I answer. so it was nice that I could be alerted when I was getting a call just from a simple vibration of my watch.
- the battery last super long. you simply charge it with a USB when it gets low.
What I don't love about it:
- honestly the only thing I don't like about this watch is that I can't see calories burned DURING my workout. you put on your heart rate strap and you start your workout on your watch and then you end it when you're done. once you sync the watch to your phone you can see all of the details of your workout - but like I mentioned in the Polar FT4 bit above - I LOVE seeing how hard I'm working during my workout instead of just at the end.
Fitbit Charge HR
This is going to be a really short review because I didn't use it that long. You can get this one for around $140 now. Chad got me this one for Christmas this year because I had been eying it. The intriguing part about this watch is that it's an activity monitor and heart rate monitor all in one just like the Garmin Vivosmart, but you don't have to wear the heart rate strap because it measures your heart rate on your wrist. BUT, the heart rate monitor during my workouts was NOT accurate at all. I tried it several times to make sure it wasn't a fluke and it just was so inaccurate, it just wasn't worth wearing. If you want something that will give you a more accurate picture of the calories you burn throughout the day with just regular activity - this could be fine because you're not moving a ton and it can measure your heart rate better. But I would never wear it to see how many calories I'm burning during my workouts because I just couldn't trust it. I also wasn't a big fan of the style. It felt too bulky on my wrist and too manly. Maybe that's just because I got so used to the Garmin Vivosmart - but I just didn't care for it. Needless to say - we returned this device because I wasn't happy with it and I decided to give another Polar Model a try and then wear my Garmin throughout the day for everything else.
Polar FT60
This is the heart rate monitor I'm currently using and I love it. It's around $80 on Amazon. It's very accurate and that is #1 for me, of course. Why did I decide to try something besides the FT4? Because I love trying new things so I can speak about them through experience. I will be honest though and say I picked this one because I really wanted white! It's reviews were really good and it just has some additional tracking features that the FT4 doesn't have. Nothing that I couldn't live without, so if I were to recommend a heart rate monitor, I couldn't really recommend this one over the FT4 - besides the fact that it's super cute and I really like the material on this one a tiny bit better. But honestly the only different between this watch and the FT4 is that it gives you a little more more info with the training program and it has different colors. So for $30 more you just have to decide if that's worth it to you.
Some fun facts about this watch:
- STAR training program that provides personalized, easy to follow training programs and rewards you when you achieve them.
- displays calories, fat burn percentage, stores 100 training files and has a backlight.
- it is a unisex design with a silicone wrist band that wipes clean super easy
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--> So what am I currently using? The Polar FT60 for my workouts and I wear my Garmin Vivosmart all the time to track everything else. I love that I can sync the Garmin to my phone and see all my stats for the day and I can have contests with friends on there.
If you have any other questions on the bands that I've tried - reach out to me and I'd love to help you decide what could work best for you! Email me or message me on Facebook and I'd love to chat!
