Fitbit Flex Wireless Activity + Sleep Wristband, Slate, Small/Large

SUMMARY: This device will not do anything for you, but it will help you make good decisions about what you need to do yourself. Fitness is hard work. If I had to sum up what this device is doing for me, it is this. It is keeping me utterly honest about everything. I cannot lie to myself about how many calories I'm burning. It won't let me. Just knowing there is a record motivates me to make sure it is a good one. It's the same effect one gets if they know they are being graded. ******THE LONG VERSIONI have been using the fitbit flex for five days now and I have fewer pounds and great fitting pants already, so it would be hard to regret my purchase.I went ahead and set my fitbit up to integrate with MyFitnessPal as soon as I set it up, so I have no idea how it works without it. Setting it up was a breeze.Go here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/apps/show/fitbit and follow the instructions.Once it is set up it gives you a warning that you should only enter your food on MFP to avoid double entries. I have entered everything I eat on MFP, and the info magically finds it's way to my fitbit dashboard, and there have been no problems whatsoever.Entering exercise is a little more complicated. Once you've done the integration, your MFP exercise entries will require one extra step--the start time of your exercise. My entries consist mostly of running and swimming. Technically, I don't need to enter the runs, since the pedometer takes care of them just fine, but when I do enter a run, the two apps manage it well. MFP gives the start time and duration of the run to fitbit, and fitbit takes that info and does some calculations that take the pedometer data into account, and comes up with a number of calories burned. I have run into one snag...if I edit the start time of my entry in MFP after I've already logged it, it causes the exercise to log twice on fitbit and I have to go into fitbit and manually remove the double entry. Sometimes I'm lazy and I don't enter the runs in MFP and I just let fitbit use the pedometer data exclusively....I've not taken a close enough look at the difference to comment on it, but it seems to work well either way as far as calorie counting. I just prefer knowing the speed and duration of specific intervals and that data is lost if I don't enter it into MFP.I take the flex off when I swim laps, since I have a watch that counts my laps and distances for me and wearing both would be cumbersome. I enter my swims manually into MFP, and fitbit automatically calculates it all. I've had no problems.You'll have a new thing in your MFP display too. Your exercise log will have a "fitbit calorie adjustment" entry.For whatever reason, fitbit lets me eat just a little less than fitness pal does, so the math is obviously a little different on the two programs.If you are tall and have abnormally long legs like me, you may have to adjust fitbit's default stride settings. Their website can tell you how.The biggest lifestyle change for me has been brought about by the in-your-face awareness of just how sedentary sitting at a computer is. On days when I work at my desk, 6PM rolls around and I've only got maybe 500 steps logged. I'll hit the gym to do my 3 mile jog, and still be no where near the 10 thousand step goal that is the default setting for the fitbit, so I end up walking on the treadmill until I get there. I find myself going on long walks after my swim too. Maybe I'm crazy, but I can't stand to go to bed without meeting my step goals first, even if I've logged a long swim, but whatever the reasons, it is working, and fast. I am losing weight again after stalling out for quite a while.I mentioned only having 500 steps after a day at my desk. Yesterday I had my first day away from my desk...shopping, a little yardwork, housework, just getting all the little things that need done around the house...at 5pm I had logged 8000 steps and was almost to my goal. I mention this because I think this is what makes the fitbit worthwhile. It quantifies how sedentary your life is on a given day and then tells you exactly what you need to do to make up for it.And I know, if you are a desk worker like me, that 10,000 steps is going to seem a bit ridiculous after a day at the office, but trust me, if you can make yourself make up for it, you will be blown away by the results.I hesitate to put the numbers down for my weight loss over the last 5 days, because I have frankly lost weight faster than I should and I don't want to invite trolls or create unrealistic expectations...everyone is different. I am eating more than 2000 calories a day (within the recommendations of the app set at medium plan intensity), I'm not starving myself, and yes, my legs were pretty tired the first few days, but I promise, I feel great. I'll be at my goal of 145 in a couple of weeks at this rate. The fitbit didn't lose that weight for me...I worked my butt off all by myself, but fitbit helped me figure out what I needed to be doing.****I know this review is getting long, but I wanted to mention a couple of other things.I LOVE the sleep monitoring. I have random bouts of insomnia, and I sometimes wake up repeatedly all night, and this thing has done a brilliant job of measuring how much time I've actually spent sleeping vs. how much time I've been in bed. And that number of hours of actual sleep correlates almost perfectly to how I feel, mentally, through the day. The default sensitivity is perfect for me...though I have seen it isn't so much for other people. It is easy to turn it on for naps too. Just tap it five times when you lay down, and again when you get up. You can fix it manually in the website if you forget...it will still have the movement data regardless of whether you tap it or not, it just needs to know when you were sleeping to fix it all.It accidentally goes into sleep mode here and there...once when I was using a hammer drill, once when I was using a hammer, and once when I was shaking a bottle of cat antibiotics to mix it, but when that happens, you know because it vibrates, and if you tap it five times right away to bring it out of sleep mode, it won't mess up your data.

At a glance- good value, good motivation, function is limited but great product if make good use of it.Detail- I was doing research on smart watch/sport wear. At first I didn't consider flex at all as it doesn't monitor my heart rate. However, I received this as a gift and decided to try it out.Features flex offers:Activity track- it only tracks your step count automatically. Like how many steps you've walk every day. It does mistake my driving as step as I raise my hands when I drive. It doesn't count any step if you don't move your hands when you walk. You can track your exercise using GPS but you need to start it with your app before the exercise. Other than the mentioned activities, you need to manually enter other exercise you did, like weightlifting or biking. You can input the calories burned by doing those activities but its not automatic and you have pretty much no way to find out exactly how much you burned. I'm surprise it does record my dog walking as active minutes instead of normal walking. I walk a little faster and longer when I walk my dogs compare to normal daily errand walksfood & drink log- you have to manually input how much you eat and drink, of course. It calculates calories intake and compare it to the calories you burnedGoal setting- it let you set how much you want to walk, in steps and distance , and you can keep track of your progress by tapping the band twice. It shows one dot for every 20% you've done. You can enter a weight you want to achieve and it tells you how much you are away from it. You need to manually enter your weight every time unless you have the aria scale which connects to your app.Sleep pattern- you have to tap the band for a few seconds to put it in sleep mode before you sleep. I found it pretty accurate in tracking my awake hours and restless times at night. Basically it tracks your sleep pattern by tracking your hand movement. The more tou I've, the more restless you are. When you wake up, you tap the band again and put it back to normal mode. Its quite annoying you have to put it in sleep mode every night but as long as you remember yo do it, it works great.Friend connection- you can connect with your friend and compete with each other. Its relatively easy and you can decide what info you want to share on their website, you can't set your privacy level within the app tho.Overall, I like the fitbit flex more than I expected. Like I said, I didn't even put flex into my consideration because its limited function. But after using it for a while, it does motivate me to walk more, eat better, drink more water and let me understand my sleep pattern. Bottom line, this is one of the relatively cheaper sport wear available in the market. Understand its limitation and make good use of it. Most of the things require manual input using the app. Use the app, record everything and you will be motivated. If you are lazy with all the info entering then no smartware in the world can satisfy you because what you ate won't magically appear in your app.A side note about amazon: I got another flex for my friend after I found it useful, got it for 98$ on amazon and the price dropped to 79$ a week after, on amazon or any store available. I contacted azon and they were super cool with refunding the difference to me. No hassles at all, that's why I'm a loyal amazon shopper