Can we talk about those cheap fitness trackers from the mall kiosk

I bought one for 20 bucks last year and thought it was fine, just counted steps. But my friend got a proper one for her birthday and we compared them on a walk. Hers tracked heart rate and showed a map of our route, mine just said we went 1.2 miles. I realized the cheap one was basically just a pedometer with a screen. Has anyone else tried comparing a budget tracker to a real one?

3 comments

3 Comments

felixb251mo ago

My buddy grabbed a knockoff one that claimed to do sleep tracking. It said he got eight hours of deep sleep on a night he was up with a sick kid three times. His Fitbit showed all the wake ups clear as day.

hugo6451mo ago

Yeah, "eight hours of deep sleep" is a dead giveaway. I read that real trackers need to spot movement and heart rate changes to even guess at sleep stages.

thompson.finley1mo ago

Wait, EIGHT hours of deep sleep? That's not even possible for a human body. Those knockoffs are just making up numbers to look good. I'd trust the Fitbit way more if it actually caught the wake ups. Stuff like this is why people think sleep tracking is junk.