Great story about the tech.
Now...
What actual benefits have you seen? For example, weight loss, increased muscle strength, blood pressure, heart rate?
Now...
What actual benefits have you seen? For example, weight loss, increased muscle strength, blood pressure, heart rate?
After Hurricane Sandy we had to walk up and down 36 flights of stairs because our building lost power. We made 36 flights very quickly and my heart rate (Heart Rate iPhone app) returned to normal very quickly. (Sorry not going to share too much here lol). If we had tried this before we would have been DOA half the way. We made several trips up and down over the course of a couple days and we had to walk from downtown to mid-town for many things because so much of the area was without power.
"Big things have small beginnings" to quote David from _Prometheus_.
Anyway, the Fitbit uncovered that I wasn't walking enough even though I had a pulse of 50 or so and all my vital signs were more or less awesome. My response was to address that immediately. But that does not seem to be the norm. The norm (at least in America) is to return to denial. A solution for that IMO is the killer wearable business model.
Or as the old joke goes: How many psychoanalysts does it take to change a light bulb? One, but the light bulb has to want to change. Devices like the fitbit offer you either the blue pill or the red pill. Which one you take is up to you.
Somehow you overcame the bitterness and turned it into a positive.
I am now known as the fitbit fascist by my friends because whenever someone kvetches about their weight, I offer to buy them a fitbit. I have followed through on this twice. In both cases, the victims wore their fitbits for several months and then gave up on increasing their daily step count, removing their fitbit so they'd stop being reminded that they were only walking 2,000-3,000 steps per day rather than do something about that.
Figure out why that happens and I think you'd drastically increase how to increase the mass market appeal of quantified self wearables like this.
fat people are lazy. You need a pill, or a cap full of electrodes that would make them shiver in their sleep .
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/05/shivering-as-a-form...
This is the bit I'd be interested in. Some data to correlate the improved "fitness"[1] (or at least increased activity) with improvements in other metrics.
I'll be gathering such data sometime soon as, altohugh I'm reasonably active, I'm aiming for an Ironman triathlon in 2016 and I'm a long way off being in the right shape for that right now. Whilst I aim to lose the 20kg or so I need to lose I'll be gathering data including: HR (whilst exercising), weight, cycling power output (PowerTap hub).
Although my exercise regieme will vary there will be certain exercises I do every week:
* An hour of 5-a-side football (compare distance covered and average HR)
* A couple of specific training routes on the bike (time, power output, HR avg, segment times)
* Running (time, HR avg, etc)
Having the data to play with is a good motivator in itself!
1. Very hard to actually measure or even quantify.
I've lost almost 60 pounds over the last two years, a bit over half with the use of Fitbit. I find the data from Fitbit let me know how active I really was which enables me to more consistently hit my weight loss goals. This generally meant either eating less or going out and exercising more to hit my daily budget.
My wife uses Fitbit in the same manner.
Fitbit isn't a panacea, but it is a piece of the puzzle. On its own the benefits are small, but it is very helpful as a component in a larger health strategy.
I echo others' comments that better calorie tracking would be great. The biggest problem with their dashboard is duplication: it's overwhelming to have 30 different brands of croutons to choose from when logging your lunch. I think a curated list would be better than an expansive user-generated list.