Fitness / Activity wrist bands

[Slab]

Worse than shopping for golf shoes, there's bloomin hundreds of them!

Pressie for wife and need to know what to look out for i.e crap straps, difficult to use, short battery etc

Need one that does the usual calorie burn, step counter, should have clock (why wouldn't they all have clocks!) downloadable to smartphone, timer, exercise distance tracker etc

Not fussed about heart rate (I hear its unreliable anyway)
Budget around £80-£100

Liking the look of Garmin & Fitbit stuff

Help & advice please

 

[Rooter]

fitbit alta. just got the mrs one, i have a fitbit blaze and the UI is brilliant, the tech is very good.

 

[GB72]

Fitbit do work and have the best and easiest to use App plus share data with myfitnesspal etc. I have the surge which is great. 4 or 5 days battery life, built in GPS, every function you could need and also gives text and call alerts. For a more basic model, however, the Charge does pretty much most things you would need, I only have the better model because my wife gave it to me when she swapped to an apple watch.

 

[Hacker Khan]

Wife just got a fitbit alta which I think are around a 100 notes. She says it is good. But I'd take the distance walked with a pinch of salt. I tracked a walk we went on in the Ordnance Survey app through GPS and there was about half a mile difference in what then fitbit said we had walked to the actual distance in just over a 4 mile walk. Pretty sure it does not have an inbuilt GPS so it make a few assumptions from the amount of steps taken. Suspect you have to go up in the price range to get in built GPS to get accurate distance measurements.

 

[Jbrown2001]

I'd suggest Fitbit.

 

[fundy]

Wife just got a fitbit alta which I think are around a 100 notes. She says it is good. But I'd take the distance walked with a pinch of salt. I tracked a walk we went on in the Ordnance Survey app through GPS and there was about half a mile difference in what then fitbit said we had walked to the actual distance in just over a 4 mile walk. Pretty sure it does not have an inbuilt GPS so it make a few assumptions from the amount of steps taken. Suspect you have to go up in the price range to get in built GPS to get accurate distance measurements.

wife has one too, on all accounts if you input your correct stride length then it becomes more accurate, not sure i fully understand it though

 

[Hacker Khan]

wife has one too, on all accounts if you input your correct stride length then it becomes more accurate, not sure i fully understand it though

She claimed she did that. I suspect one issue is that the walks we mostly go on are across different terrains and up hill and down dale, so you will be taking different stride lengths a lot. I'm sure if you were mostly walking on hard paths it would be better. I think the moral of the story is that if you are after an accurate measure of how far you have walked or run then ensure the device has an in built gps. If you are after a rough approximation then I'm sure the cheaper ones are fine.

 

[Slab]

Thanks guys, much appreciated