my Bodymedia Fit vs Fit Bit experiment

[jzpowahz]

This will be an ongoing experiment for a few weeks to see the differences in the readings.

Background: I have been using the BMF for about 8-9 months now and it has proven to be fairly accurate in that I can predict weight gain/loss over time. The BMF is said to be 90% accurate (which way is it 10% out though :tongue

I just received my fitbit ultra 2 days ago so yesterday was the first day of testing. Here are the results:

 

[jonny987]

Interesting experiment, will be keeping an eye on this. In a recent issue of Weightology.net there was a review on this study:
Movement toward a novel activity monitoring dev... [Sleep Breath. 2011] - PubMed - NCBI

Basically found that the individual error rate was higher than the BodyMedia Fit but not too bad.

I have a BMF and would be interested in seeing a study which looked at individual repeatability of each device rather than absolute accuracy.

 

[jzpowahz]

interesting study Thanks for that.

 

[jzpowahz]

28 March 2012

Interestingly the BMF read higher cals on this day but lower steps. I did a full body workout on all the big compound lifts which including rest breaks and warmup took about 1.5hrs.

 

[jzpowahz]

rest day: nearly exactly the same cals burnt

 

[jzpowahz]

Yesterday was a regular work day and then lifted for an hour after. I did so some more speed stuff with lest rest breaks also for a bit. So far lifting days are lower with fitbit compared to bmf which makes sense seeing as how it thinks I'm just taking slow steps or whatever.

 

[jzpowahz]

no accurate results today.

All I found out is that they are both unreliable when used while riding a motorbike. Apparently I climbed over 100 sets of stairs while riding

 

[Bella]

lol

great stair workout!! On yer...ahh...bike

 

[CaT_SPeW]

did you have to order this from the states? also does it require a monthly membership fee like body media?

 

[jzpowahz]

ebay US for both.

fitbit has optional paid sub but you don't need it.

you can also get around paying for the bmf.

once again BMF reading higher on days I workout.

Was quite active also. Went for a walk this morning, then foam roll/mobility stuff, then went to the beach for frisbee & swim, then off to the movies to see 21 Jump St and then I came back and did a speed based weights session with 75% of normal 8x3 weights and very minimal rest periods.

 

[CaT_SPeW]

I'm going to the states in a month and was thinking about buying a bodymedia there but I dunno if i can register it here if it's not purchased here. I don't mind paying the subscription for awhile

 

[jzpowahz]

Steps were pretty close today. Today was a workout day again but with much longer rest breaks and going for 1rm's. At this stage, as I know that the BMF is pretty accurate for me, it seems the fitbit is reading low for weight training no matter what the rest intervals are & the rep scheme.

I think I'll eventually just use the fitbit still & just make a manual adjustment for the strength training (mainly so I don't have to keep answering questions about it ). I might go and climb a mountain or something on the weekend to see how that compares also.

 

[jzpowahz]

rest day with a beach walk & some pullups and stuff and some cleaning around the house. Pretty close for this sort of stuff.

 

[jzpowahz]

Unsure what the go was with BMF yesterday but that is definitely low. It was reading 1.25cals/min at rest instead of my normal 1.4? I did 2 strength training workouts as well. I'd estimate actual cal burn around 2800.

 

[Hannibal]

Just wondering what your thoughts were following this comparison? I'm a bit of a numbers geek and have a job with big variance in activity so one of these devices gives me a bit of interest to have a trial with.

How did you find the sleep quality data, have always been a light sleeper so this side of the device would also be of interest if accurate ish.

 

[jzpowahz]

I ended up using the fitbit and adding about 250 cals for strength training. That seems to be pretty spot on for me.

My BMF didn't do the sleep thing so can't comment on that sorry. Fitbit seems pretty spot on though.