Fitbit One Wireless Activity Plus Sleep Tracker, Black

I have purchased two of these, build quality is better than most other Fitbits (thus 2 stars instead of 1) but the display is difficult, if not impossible, to read outdoors on a sunny day bright sunlight. Unfortunately, Fitbit has discontinued this model and the currently listed price of $267 is from rip-off artists (I bought mine at about $80) At this price and very limited availability, Amazon should remove the #1 product recommendation. Also the supporting software at Fitbit.com (the dashboard, and the community activity groups) are poorly maintained, with outages of essential parts lasting weeks to months, and more minor bugs, although reported, never seem to get fixed. Note that these support software problems are Fitbit wide, including their newest flagship models, not just for the 'One'. My recommendation would be to consider another manufacturer until Fitbit gets their act together.

I've had quite a love-hate relationship with activity trackers over the past 3 years.Over this 3 year period, I've used the Fitbit Ultra, the Fitbit One, the Fitbit Flex, the Jawbone UP, and the Jawbone UP24. And after all of that, I've stuck with the waist-worn Fitbit One. Why? Well, read on, and I'll share my experience with all of these devices over the past 3 years!The Fitbit Ultra (the first activity tracker I owned) was great. It was pretty basic, but it got the job done. I found it to be pretty accurate and easy enough to wear. But I soon became bored with it. All these new, fancy, wrist-worn, bluetooth enabled trackers were coming out and, to be honest, they just seemed to be a lot more fun and offered features (particularly in their accompanying mobile apps). So, after having the Ultra for a year, I decided to upgrade and try a Jawbone UP.I loved the Jawbone UP at first. Having it on my wrist (a huge selling point) meant I didn't have to think about it. It was always there; it was always recording my activity. When I woke up in the morning, I just hit the button to stop recording my sleep, went about my day, and then hit the button to start recording my sleep when I got in bed that night. It captured everything (or didn't... more on that in a bit). It even had awesome features like power nap and silent, smart alarms (which I really liked). But unlike my Fitbit Ultra, I never had to worry about moving it to a new pair of pants, or remembering to move it to the included wristband at night to record my sleep. The mobile app for it was (and still is) light years ahead of Fitbit's rather bland and uninspiring layout... the layout of the Jawbone is much more "encouraging" to use (if that makes sense). Plus, the helpful little bits of encouragement it offered me were really motivating. Simply put, the Jawbone seemed to be giving me a much more thorough experience.One day, however, I decided to wear both my Fitbit Ultra and Jawbone UP to see how they compared. And that's where the problems started.Periodically checking throughout the day, I noticed my Jawbone was vastly under counting steps in some instances, then vastly over counting steps in others, when compared to my Fitbit Ultra. This was very concerning to me. After continuing this dual tracking for a few days, I was eventually able to figure out what the issue was: the Jawbone UP (and any wrist-worn activity tracker) is a fancy 3-axis accelerometer (just like the waist-worn Fitbit Ultra/One). But worn on your wrist. On your *wrist*. It detects motion. Of your wrist.That means, if your arms aren't simply swinging at your sides when you move, it's going to be ridiculously inaccurate. On the days I worked (I work with my hands, usually standing in one spot for extended periods of time), the Jawbone UP would record hundreds of steps when I, in fact, had not moved at all. To make matters even worse, it would count very few (or no) steps if I was doing something like carrying boxes or pushing a cart or carrying shopping bags. Some days, it was a wash: the Fitbit Ultra and Jawbone would be fairly close in their total step counts for the day. Other days, the Jawbone UP was off by 20-30% (we're talking 2000-3000 steps) compared to my Fitbit Ultra... not an acceptable margin of error!And I noticed the problems even when I worked out. My Jawbone UP would consistently under report my steps/distance traveled compared to my Fitbit. I would, say, run a mile on the treadmill and the Fitbit Ultra would be mostly accurate (+/- a few hundredths of a mile), while the Jawbone UP would under report by as much as 2-3 tenths of a mile!Thus, my Jawbone UP was returned. It was just too inaccurate, despite the convenience of having it on my wrist, the better features, and the far superior mobile app. And yes, it was both over and under counting steps, even after multiple calibration attempts.Now, you may be asking... how do you know the Fitbit is accurate? Maybe it's the one that's wrong and the Jawbone is right! Well, I decided to fire up a GPS running app on my phone and put the Fitbit to the test. I ran a loop in my neighborhood, wearing the Fitbit Ultra and using my phone's GPS app to record the run. At the end of it, the GPS said I had run exactly one mile. My Fitbit was only off my 3 hundredths of a mile. A very acceptable margin of error, leading me to believe the Fitbit is quite accurate.Fast-forward a few months, and I decided to give the new Fitbit Flex a try. Again, I loved that it was on my wrist and always there, unlike the Fitbit (which I was still continually forgetting to wear quite frequently). But, as with the Jawbone UP, it would either over or under count steps, depending on the situation (though nowhere near as bad as the Jawbone UP... I think Fitbit's step-counting algorithms are much more refined).And this, my Fitbit Flex was returned.Fast-forward another few months and I decided to give the new, bluetooth-enabled Jawbone UP24 a try. Because I really love the Jawbone UP wrist-worn form factor. I really, truly do. I wanted to love it. I tried my hardest to. It's just so convenient having it on my wrist all the time. And the mobile app and features were just so much better. But, as with the original Jawbone UP and the Fitbit Flex, it was ultimately flawed. And returned.At this point, I snagged a Fitbit One (as I wanted the bluetooth compatibility). It (and the discontinued Fitbit Ultra) are the only activity trackers I've found to be even remotely accurate after repeated comparisons with the wrist-worn alternatives.So, basically, it boils down to this: the wrist-worn trackers track wrist movement. By definition, unless your arms are constantly swinging at your side when you move and you don't do anything else with your hands (i.e. hold a phone to your ear, carry a box, push a shopping cart) they can't be accurate. Even if you walk with your hands in your pockets, they aren't accurate. They just can't be by virtue of how they work and where they're worn. And it took me trying 3 different wrist-worn activity trackers to realize that.If either Jawbone or Fitbit could come out with a wrist-based tracker that was accurate when your arms aren't swinging (or they are swinging, but you're not actually moving), I would be all over that in a heartbeat. I much prefer the wrist-worn form factor. And Jawbone offers many more features and a mobile app that is orders of magnitude better than Fitbit's. But wrist-worn trackers are ultimately flawed, and until they can incorporate something like GPS or heart rate monitoring into them, I don't think the wrist-worn activity trackers will ever be accurate.So, at the end of the day, if you want accuracy nearly on par with that of a GPS: Fitbit One. If you want convenience and more features, but (very) questionable accuracy, go with the Jawbone UP or Fitbit Flex.

I've had this little guy for over a year now - I wanted to get some mileage out of it before I reviewed it - and I'm still a big fan.First - I opted with the Fitbit One because a.) it had high reviews and b.) I wanted something that did both sleep tracking (so Zip was out) and I didn't have to wear in an ugly bracelet on my wrist (so pretty much everything else was out). I usually keep this in my pocket or clipped to my bra - works great in both places.ACCURACY: when I first got it (and a few times since then) I walked around counting my steps then checked with the fitbit -each time it's been within about 3 steps of how many steps I counted out of 50, regardless of if I wear it on my wrist, clipped to my bra, or in my pocket. just now I stuck it on my wrist and shook my hand back and forth vigorously 20 times and it added on 8 steps, so if you really want to cheat the system you can - though it probably will take more effort to shake on extra steps than actually just walk. I haven't had any problems with it adding on a lot of steps after car rides. I had a baby 6 months ago and have found that it counts bouncing up and down to calm a fussy baby as a step, but I'm cool with that - it's pretty much like jogging in place. the floors climbed feature seems fairly accurate - I haven't actually spent a day counting how many times I go up and down our stairs to compare it and it think it sometimes will count walking up a steep hill as a flight of stairs (once again, I'm cool with that), but on days i'm cleaning the house and thus going up and down stairs more often than usual my flight count is significantly higher. whether or not it gets your distance correct depends on how accurately you set your stride length - I think the easiest way to make sure it's set correctly is to go for a walk and set the GPS tracker on your phone if you have one, then once you get to 1 mile on the GPS check and see what your fitbit is telling you then adjust accordingly.SLEEP TRACKER: it's cool, it shows when you're "asleep" (not moving), when your "restless", and when you're "awake" - there are two settings sensitive and normal, apparently normal is if you're wearing it on your wrist and sensitive is if you have it in a pocket or something (because some pajama's have pockets - you know, for when you need to hold stuff while you're sleeping . . .) I set it on normal because I wear it on my wrist. I tried it on sensitive for a while to see if it worked better - it just freaked me out and told me only 1/2 of my time in bed was spent sleeping - I started wondering if I really was tired and not well rested, even though I never felt like I had trouble sleeping before. . . - just read the instructions and don't freak yourself out. Often times it will show me "restless" times during the night when I am definitely awake nursing - I guess there's a certain movement threshold you have to pass to be considered "awake", so it's not 100% accurate in that regard. it also doesn't coach you in sleeping well - just gives you the raw data on what happened during your night. (which has been super helpful with nursing - it's nice to see the trends of how long the baby's sleeping, how often we're getting up, how long we really are up for, etc. without having to have the presence of mind to make note of it while I'm half asleep). you can set goals on the app for how much sleep you're aiming for each night and set goal go-to-bed and wake-up times. putting the fitbit into and out of sleep mode is super easy (you hold down the button till it buzzes) and if you forget to put it in sleep mode one night or accidentally let it run well into your morning it's easy to go in and fix the times on the app. I love the silent alarms - I was skeptical that a little thing buzzing on my wrist would wake me up - but it works great and my husband appreciates how quiet it is. there is no snooze - which is good for me because I'm one of those snooze five times type people - this forces me to set a realistic time to get up and do it (though to be honest, I set a second alarm 10 minutes after the first one just incase. . .) you can set as many alarms as you want and have them go of on any day you want, so if you want to set alarms to remind you to get up an move around every hour or have an alarm that only wakes you up on * Note: I'm not a big fan of the little sleep wrist thing that comes with the fitbit. after a few months the velcro stated pulling it apart. For a while I cut off the top of one of my husband's socks and wore it folded in thirds on my wrist with the fitbit tucked inside- that worked OK but some nights the fitbit slipped out - now I have a cheap 3rd-party silicone wrist band thing made to fit the fitbit in it - it works great.DURABILITY: I have accidentally washed my fitbit twice and dried it once. it survived. And it counted the spin cycle as active minutes. The charge still lasts for a week or more. I don't recommend forgetting the fitbit in your laundry, but it has held up well to the wet and the heat. I wear it while working out and sweat has never seemed to be a problem for it. It's been over a year and is still working exactly the way it did when I got it. Two weeks ago the little plastic piece on the back of the silicone clip broke - I super glued it back together and so far so good. the clip itself would still be somewhat functional without that little plastic piece - it would just have a metal part poking out that could be poky- but you also can buy third-party replacement clips for $5 or spring for the actual Fitbit replacement clip for 3X more if branding is important to you.APP - i Like the app a lot. I've used it both on a Samsung tablet (android) and on an Iphone and both work great. you can set daily goals, see how much of your daily goal you've achieved, get weekly/monthly/quarterly historical graphs, track your weight, amount of water drank, calories, etc. I also like that you can get rid of things you don't want on it - for example I don't track my calories so i took that tile off my app and don't have it sitting there wasting space. in the settings there is a spot to mark if you are pregnant or breastfeeding - I don't know exactly what that does - my guess is it ups your daily calorie allotment - and maybe takes that into consideration when it tells you how many calories you've burned. I don't do the friends and competitions part of it - but there's a platform to connect with people you know and set little competitions or group goals - honestly the idea of me seeing what everyone else is doing and everyone seeing what I'm doing isn't very appealing, but it could be fun accountability if you set a goal with a friend/familyIMPACT ON YOUR LIFE: Know thyself. Having this won't inherently make you healthier. I got this because I like tracking things and this gave me a way to gamify my activity - I set goals and I can see exactly how close I am to hitting them each day - which is a strong motivation factor for me - at 8PM if I see that I'm still 4000 steps shy of my daily step goal I'm much more likely to suggest we take an after-dinner walk in the evening. I've been drinking more water because I'm keeping track of it. It helped me track my activity level through my pregnancy and is helping me see how getting back in shape afterwards is going, I'm also glad I'll have this archived so when I get pregnant again I can see how I track compared to this pregnancy. If you're like me it will be strong motivation for you. If your highly competitive getting one of these then competing with your friends on it might work, or having an accountability partner who can see your daily activity may help keep you motivated. If none of those things pique your interest this probably isn't a good investment, but it is a well made product.

Would never buy another one off amazon! I had my old Fitbit One for a couple of years and it started acting up. I thought it would be a good idea to buy a new one in case my old one stopped working. Sure enough 2 months after I bought the back up one my old Fitbit stopped working. I went to take my new Fitbit out of the box to charge it. I left it on the charger for 4 hours and I went to push the button at the top to see if it was fully charged and it won't even turn on. Not happy that I spent $106 on a device that's junk. Went to see if I could return the item and it doesn't even give me the option to do that. Do NOT waste your money on this!

It’s pretty good.. just takes a bit for it to catch up on the steps sometimes.. I paid like $98 for it a few years ago and see that now it’s close to $300?! What the heck?