Do you trust your fitness tracker?

[dbar123]

My Garmin Vivoactive 3 smartwatch is laughably inaccurate. The heart rate monitor is often off by around 30 beats/min (as verified by taking a manual pulse) and it seems to randomly decide whether my exercise minutes count as intensity minutes or not. When biking I usually use my Polar Veritysense arm band to take over heart rate duty but that monitor has its own stupid issues.

Are you happy with your tracker? I’d hate to upgrade only to find out the current tech is no better.

[+ Pensant]

Timely post! When I ride I use a Garmin 1030 which syncs with Strava. It’s accurate as hell. When I run, hike or walk I generally use the Strava app on my iPhone, which is also quite accurate. I finally bought an Apple Watch 8 last summer, and it always undercounts my mileage and is useless for my cardio/lifting program which I do every other day. I’ve only worn it a few times and hate it. I never put my gym time on Strava as a result.

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

I trust my apple watch ultra, knowing what tech they pack into it.  It's pretty accurate and has sensors that are spec-above most other trackers.

However, I have huge questions about the monitor I wear when doing Orange Theory.  

[+ sniper]

I have a Fitbit. I don't think it's super ACCURATE. But it's consistent,  and that is useful.

[MrGraves22]

I had a similar experience with a watch that was all over the place with heart rate and exercise minutes. I switched to a different tracker and found that using tools from places like exercise.com helped me better understand what features might work best for me.

In my case, finding a tracker that offered more reliable readings and integrating it with a solid app made a big difference. It took a bit of trial and error, but I eventually found a setup that I’m much happier with. If you’re thinking of upgrading, maybe looking into user reviews or trying out different models in-store could help you find one that meets your needs better.

[+ JamesB]

I've tried so many trackers that I've lost count. Most of them are, on average, about 20 - 25% off in accuracy, with some features performing better or worse. Currently, I’m using one of the cheapest trackers out there, the Xiaomi Mi Band 7. Although it’s not the most accurate, I’ve found it to be very consistent, so I rely on it for day-to-day comparisons rather than for exact measurements.