Fitbit Surge, Charge HR and Charge

[Rob Thompson]

I am curious to hear if anyone has purchased or plans to purchase the new Fitbit Surge or other new Fitbit products.  I have my Surge  on order and it should be delivered today.

I currrenty use the Nike+ watch w/GPS.  It does require a chest strap for heart rate.  My biggest issue is that it only thinks you are running.  So if I go for a bike ride and want to track HR it works but tells me ran a 5K in 10 minutes.  When running I could not ask for anything better but the watch is one dimensional.  Also the HR strap connects sometimes and not others.

I also use the Fitbit Flex for daily tracking of steps.  This works great but you cannnot wear both at the same time and link them to your MyFitnes account because it counts as double the activitly.  If you take the Fitbit off you do not get credit for steps, but if you do not use the watch there is no accuracy to the data entered.

I am hoping to solve this problem with the Surge.  It will allow you to track all forms of activity plus track HR, GPS info and playback controls for my music in one package.  The HR is built into the watch and with additional other functions that the Nike does not offer.

https://www.fitbit.com/surge

Let me know if you have one, hate it or love it.  I am always curious of others opinions on things.

[Golfingdad]

Wife has a fitbit that she's currently not using, so I'm gonna try it out for a couple of weeks.  We'll see how it goes.  (I'm not sure what model it is).

[dennyjones]

I have the Garmin Vivosmart.   It's different and not as classy as the Surge but performs well and so far the tech support has been pretty good.   I bought it from REI which has a one year unquestioned 100% return policy if I don't like it.    So far so good.   I added the heart rate monitor.   It will announce calls, text and other messages, play music from my smart phone, track steps, sleep monitor, phone locator and a few other options.

[Rob Thompson]

Well today was the first day with the new Fitbit Surge.  My initial impression is good.

Like the Fitbit Flex it tracked all my steps but in addition it also tracked floors climbed, average HR, calories burned and miles walked.

When I setup the new Surge it linked seamlessly to my previous account.  Actually I received a notification that I have walked 500 miles while wearing my Fitbit.

Only issue I had was that during my weightlifting this morning it stopped tracking and I had to restart it.  Not sure how long it was not tracking but I'm sure it had no effect on the performance measured but just something to note.

Overall I think I am going to really like this activity tracker.  It appears that it is gong to perform as advertised.  I will keep you all update as time goes on

[Golfingdad]

I got a Flex last Sunday and so far I love it.  It's amazing the motivation to exercise knowing that you have x amount of steps to get to 10k, and that you are x amount of steps ahead of or behind your buddies.  My wife already has one, as do a couple of her friends, a co-worker, his wife, and soon another co-worker.  I've also started drinking a lot of water (instead of soda) and I'm tracking that as well.

Wednesday I decided to try and start a food plan to see if that'll stick.  Put in a goal weight and then choose a difficulty level (I chose hard, which is designed to have me lose 1.5 lbs per week) and it calculates how many less calories you need to consume.  I like the way it works in real time too.  It anticipates how many more I'm likely to burn for the rest of the day and factors that into how many calories I can eat for the rest of the day.

So far in 7 days, I've successfully passed 10k steps every day, even after being shocked to find that by the end of a work day, I'm lucky to be near 3000.  And I've successfully stayed beneath my calorie ceiling as well.

Loving it so far!

[Rob Thompson]

Thats great to hear.  I am loving my Surge also.  My only disappointment is that there is not a cycling tracker.  I guess I should have known that before I bought it, but I was pretty sure I read that it did have it.    My favorite feature is the silent alarm.  I am not easy to wake up but with it vibrating my arm, I seem to wake up fast.

Keep us posted on the weight loss.  I always appreciate the struggle and success of a weight loss goals.