In this brief guide, we are going to answer the question “How does Fitbit work?”, and provide you with more details about the various features Fitbit offers.
How does Fitbit work?
Fitbit has made quite the market share in manufacturing a range of fitness trackers and smartwatches. The fitness tracks work by measuring your step count, exercise time, heart rate, sleep quality and much more.
The company now provides a mobile app for iOS and Android phones as well as an in-browser dashboard that allows you to synchronize your tracker to the app and view the progress of your daily activities. It allows you to manually log your workouts as well.
Fitbit fitness trackers
Fitbit features products in two main categories-smartwatches and fitness trackers. The company makes fitness trackers of four major categories: Charge, Inspire, Ace and Luxe.
Fitbit Charge
The Fitbit Charge is the most advanced inline fitness tracker. It comes with a built-in heart rate monitor and sleep tracker.
The latest Charge 4 also comes with a dynamic GPS, which maps your route using your smartphone, when you take it for a run. This preserves the tracker’s battery and if your phone is not nearby, the tracker uses its inbuilt GPS to map your exercise route.
Charge fitness bands also include features such as touchscreen, smart notification, automatic exercise detection and healthy tracking. The Charge fitness bands are also waterproof and swim proof so they can be used to track your swimming as well.
Fitbit Luxe
The Luxe model is a more recent model series that’s added for its sleek and decorative looks that earn it the ‘luxury name. They are almost as advanced as the Charge series, however, the Charge series is designed for more athletic attraction, whereas the Luxe attracts people with a greater taste in fashion.
Fitbit Inspire
The Inspire model series is slightly less advanced than the Charge. It does come with a heart rate monitor, SpO2 sensor, the ability to track your sleep and much more. Much like the Charge, you can even receive calls, text and calendar notifications on your Inspire Fitbit tracker. However, the Inspire does not come with a built-in GPS that can track your run route during a jog. It can however use your phone’s GPS sensors to capture GPS data when you take it for a run. It also does not come with the feature that tells you of floors climbed.
Fitbit Ace
Then there is the Ace fitness band that is designed for kids aged six and above. They are small in size to fit the wrists of children and they track physical activity. If the device is connected to a smartphone, it can also display call notifications as well. Unlike the Charge, Inspire and Luxe the Ace is not swim-proof but rather only splash-proof, so children can still play around water wearing it but they cannot take it for a swim.
Using any of the above-mentioned devices will provide you with an effortless interaction with your phone, where you are able to view the notification, use specific apps for example the call and music app. With all Fitbit trackers, you would easily be able to use your voice assistant and control your music and much more.
Fitbit Smartwatches
The Fitbit product line features two types of smartwatches: Versa and Sense. They both are packed with features that rely much less on smartphone apps.
Both come with the whole set of fitness modules that their best fitness trackers offer which include a heart rate monitor, SpO2 sensors, sleep recorder calorie counters and much more.
The Sense line of smartwatches have more advanced features as compared to Versa. It incorporates a few extra sensors that monitor skin moisture, which is a common stress indicator and skin temperature.
Together with such readings and built-in algorithms at work, it can notify you of high and low levels of stress. It will even give suggestions to you on how to work on lowering your stress such as breathing exercises.
What does Fitbit track?
As mentioned above there is a whole range of Fitbit products available but for the most, you can expect the fitness band to track your steps, monitor your heart rate and track your sleep times. Fitbit trackers can also track your exercise routines and by seeing your daily and weekly progress, you can work harder in achieving your set goals.
For more information on how to track your exercise use the link and find the Fitbit device you are using to get proper instructions on how to log your exercise routine
How does Fitbit track fitness activity?
Fitbits are fitted with sensors called accelerometers. Micro Electro Mechanical System (MEMS) devices are very small electromechanical devices that contribute to translating mechanical movements into electrical signals.
The accelerometers present in Fitbit trackers are also MEMs devices. They record your movement data and translate them into digital measurements.
The movement combined with algorithms that are made to optimally read such data are used to measure step count, calories burnt and even the quality of your sleep.
However, these algorithms have their limits, for example a bumpy car ride can be mistakenly registered as step count. Also, it’s important to update your height and weight in the Fitbit app. This will give a better reading on stride length and calories burnt while walking.
Apart from distance, you can even measure floors climbed with your Fitbit. The device uses an altimeter ( a device that measures altitude) along with the accelerometer to measure the floors you have climbed. The device registers 10 feet as one floor so depending on the building type it might not be completely accurate.
The Fitbit OS
The Fitbit smartwatches have access to fewer apps as compared to Apple and Samsung watches since it runs on its own proprietary Fitbit OS. There are limitations on how you can interact with notifications using the Fitbit smartwatch.
Some smartphones might allow phone calls and responding to messages while some might not. The Fitbit OS is compatible with iOS and Android and while Apple has Apple Pay and Samsung has Samsung Pay. Fitbit Watches work with their own app Fitbit Pay. They interact in much a similar fashion to Apple and Samsung Pay as well.
The major advantage of Fitbit smartwatches is that you get better prices as compared to Apple and Samsung Smartwatches. This makes it a great alternative, and especially since the features offered are competitively smart as well.
Conclusion
In this brief guide, we answered the question “How does Fitbit work?”, and provided you with more details about the various features Fitbit offers.
If you have any questions or comments, please let us know.
