Activity Tracker - Can't decide
 

I have been looking into getting an activity tracker. I am particularly interested in either the Fitbit Flex or Jawbone UP. Can anyone tell me, if you do have either of these, the pros and cons of each? I'm hoping that by deciding on one, I will be more inclined to continue moving around all day. Thank you :)

I have the Jawbone UP24 and my husband has a FitBit (the one you clip on your belt) but first let me say, whichever one you choose will be a great investment. The point is that it will help you challenge yourself to move more, and that is all that matters.

I like that my UP24 syncs wirelessly with my phone, and several times throughout the day I get a pop-up message on my phone that tells me how close I am to my daily goal. Jawbone also occasionally gives me challenges based on my recent progress, things like "Today I will go to bed at 10:45" or "Today I will move 8,500 steps". They don't appear often, but it's fun to challenge myself when they do.

I don't know about friends on Jawbone or FitBit because I don't have any and neither does my husband, so if the social aspect is important to you I can't comment on how they work on each device.

The sleep tracking on the UP24 is interesting, but it doesn't help me much. I sleep very poorly no matter what my diet and exercise are like. But two other features are kind of nice. You can set a silent alarm to wake you up every morning, so that's probably nicer than an alarm clock. And it has a "nap" mode where you set it and it determines (based on what? I can't remember) an ideal nap time. So I will set it, lay down for a nap, and it buzzes when it thinks I should get up, usually somewhere between 20-30 minutes or so. Kind of neat.

I love, more than anything, how it syncs with My Fitness Pal, which I use to track my food. If I have a lot of activity that day, I will know how many extra calories to eat rather than guessing or using MFP's calculators, which are notoriously inaccurate.

If biking or swimming are your go-to exercise, neither of these will help much; get a heart-rate monitor instead.

Overall, I love my UP24 and would highly recommend it. I was hesitant about whether it would truly motivate me, or whether I would start ignoring it. It does motivate me, and I feel like it's my little exercise/activity buddy on my wrist that goes with me everywhere.

edited to add: I forgot about another great feature on the UP24. It has an idle alert that you can set. If you set it for, say, 30 minutes, it will buzz when you have been idle for 30 minutes to remind you to get up and move around. Or an hour, or two hours, whatever you want. And you can set the time period you want the idle alert to be active. That way you can set it for, say, 8am-8pm to buzz you every hour that you are inactive, but then after 8pm (when you know you'll be plopped in front of the tv the rest of the night) it won't buzz you. Pretty cool.

I have a fitbit flex. It is okay I guess. I got it for free, so I can't complain. It syncs with my phone, has a silent alarm, but does not have that naptime feature or the idle time feature(that I know of). I have it synced with my MFP account as well. I also don't do the social thing, but I know lots of people on here have the flex and have friends. I am not totally convinced about its accuracy, but I do think it motivates me a little. It's nice to see it light up and buzz when I reach 10,000 steps.

I have the fitbit one which I really like. I think it's pretty accurate though sometimes it counts elevator rides as escalation. I don't use the sleep feature but it was interesting info for the short time I did use it. I don't use the social functions. I love how indiscreet it is, I clip it to my bra and nobody notices it. It syncs to my smartphone which also keeps long term graphs of my stats. You can set an alarm. Is the flex the one you wear on your wrist? That's inconvenient.