Activity tracker bands, like FitBit, Nike Fuel, Jawbone and others only track motion, whereas activity trackers like Polar Loop and Garmin Vivofit track motion and heart rate.
Heart rate is absolutely 100% the only way to go with these devices because those using
Garmin Vivofit adds greater accuracy tracking activity when the wrist is not moving thanks to heart rate.
just motion are giving you, the consumer, errant readings on activity levels. We have proven this repeatedly with multiple testings and step counts are coming out 1,000 to as much as 2,000 steps per day high.
Why is this? I was using an activity tracker the other day and I brushed my teeth with the wrist my activity tracker was on and all of a sudden, miraculously I had taken 150 steps where in reality I took no steps. Scratch my arom, scratch the back of my head, swing my arm at my desk and voila, more steps appear when I took no steps.
Too Much Credit For Activity and Then Too Little Credit
So, if I ride a stationary bike for an hour, or do a spin class, my activity band gives me
Polar Loop and Garmin Vivofit can cover spinning classes thanks to heart rate.
about the same amount of credit as if I was just sitting at my desk at work. Why? Well, it is because it senses no wrist movement. The methods are all flawed here because how hard you are working has everything to do with how hard your heart is working and 99% of the activity trackers on the market do not measure this.
While I may be getting too much activity credit for brushing my teeth I am getting way too little activity credit for riding my bike for an hour. In other words, the method of measurement, wrist movement, is a flawed method for measuring anything accurately.
Garmin Viviofit and Polar Loop
I have said for quite a while now that the only activity trackers our company will carry are the ones that measure heart rate like the Polar Loop and Garmin Vivofit. Why? Because the rest of the market is ripping off the consumer with devices whose methodologies are flawed, dramatically flawed.
I don’t care how well your device interfaces with your phone or how nifty their software is if all the data going into the cool software is flawed. Garbage in, garbage out, it is really that simple.
What I Told Wall Street
I occasionally consult with investment banks regarding fitness technology and did so in the past week. What I told the investment bankers was pretty much the same thing I have told you above.
They wanted to know what the wearables market was like and who would win. Even though the wearables market are the more casual fitness enthusiasts they don’t want to buy products that lack for accuracy but, that is what they have done in droves. The next evolution of this marketplace has to include better technology for more accurate measurement.
Heart rate was the obvious place to start so Polar and Garmin got it right. In the future, these small bands could even potentially contain GPS hardware as they already have, in most cases, lithium-ion rechargeable batteries. This will make distance tracking accurate. Making step tracking more accurate will require a recalibration of how these sensors work.
Why Testing The Products Is Essential
A lot of these “Johnny-come-lately” companies, like FitBit, don’t have decades of experience in the human performance laboratory settings like Polar, Garmin or Suunto do. Nor have they taken advantage of this practice to make an effort to make their products more accurate.
Since most of these products have no stride length calibration they assume that a 4 foot 10 inch woman has the same stride length as a 6 foot 6 inch man, which is preposterous. Thus, the distances they measure are not accurate.
Heart Rate Is The Best Solution – How To Use It
Use an activity tracker with heart rate for your real daily workout. If you walk, run, bike then simply put the heart rate strap on. I would not recommend wearing it all day long but it will give you a better indication of how hard you exercised when you are riding a stationary bike for instance.
I would subtract about 1,000 to 2,000 steps per day from existing activity tracker bands, so if your goal is 10,000 steps than make sure you legitimately hit 11,000 to 12,000 on the band. In my testing the numbers I generally got each day were at least this high to the reality.
What I Do Like
I do like the fact that these products are indeed making people more conscious of their activity, that’s a good start. However, the activity tracker band market is very large and most of the products are quite inferior to your standard GPS watch, or heart rate monitor with a calibrated foot pod, when it comes to accuracy which is why we strongly recommend Polar Loop and Garmin Vivofit. They are the only trackers we will carry until the industry evolves further and creates better products.
–Rusty Squire, copyright 2014, rsquire@heartratewatchcompany.com
