Overview
This post will be a short review explaining what a Fitbit Flex is, what a Fitbit Flex can do, and how to use the Fitbit Flex. I should point out that this is a personal review and that I am in no way affiliated with Fitbit, nor will I gain any income from Fitbit Flex affiliate sales by writing this post.
Name of product:
- Fitbit Flex
Price:
- £79.95
Available at:
What is a Fitbit Flex?
The Fitbit flex is a device which allows you to track your fitness statistics with ease. The device requires nearly zero user interaction but does require you to sign up for an account at the Fitbit website – where you can view your tracked data in a nice user friendly way.
First impressions
Well after 2 months of saving up I finally had enough money to buy a Fitbit Flex. It’s now been a week since I bought the device and I’ve been wearing it on my wrist as I carry on with my daily lifestyle. My first impressions of the device is that I’m rather impressed with what it can do for it’s size.
What comes in the Box?
The Fitbit Flex’s box is a transparent plastic box made out of recycled plastic. It isn’t exactly the best box out there but who really cares? It’s compact and does the job that it was designed to do – hold the product securely when shipped out to consumers or bought from shop shelves.
The Fitbit Flex’s box includes the following items:
- A fitbit tracker.
- A fitbit charging cable.
- A fitbit USB syncing device.
- 2 fitbit wristbands.
What data can you track with a Fitbit Flex?
The FitBit tracker itself is a little black device which includes 5 LED’s. The device fits inside one of the 2 supplied wristbands and fits securely to your wrist. As you progress with your day-to-day life the device will automatically track your activities in the background.
Due to physics restrictions, the actual Fitbit Flex device can only currently track data about how many steps you take in a day and how long you sleep for. However, the online Fitbit dashboard allows you to track data about the following things if you’re really into your fitness:
All of the above data can be shared with the Fitbit community if you decide to purchase a premium subscription to their service, or optionally you can share your fitness progress with your Facebook friends for free. Unfortunately, none of my Facebook friends appear to own a Fitbit, so I can’t compete my personal fitness achievements against them.
How do you use a Fitbit Flex?
As I mentioned above, the Fitbit device itself fits inside a supplied wristband which can then be secured on to your wrist. As long as the Fitbit device has battery power, steps will be tracked automatically throughout the day.
You can set fitness goals for your Fitbit device to track by editing the settings within the online dashboard and then syncing. E.g. you might want to track 20,000 steps a day. By tapping the device twice your Fitbit will display total progress of your target goal by the use blinking lights. There are 5 LED’s within a Fitbit device, each indicating 20% each of your total goal progress. So if you’ve done 4,000 out of your 20,000 daily step target, exactly one light will blink on your Fitbit device.
You can put a Fitbit to sleep (just before you sleep) by tapping your device simultaneously until it’s LED’s blink with a step of 2. You can wake the device by doing the same thing again (when you wake up in the morning).
You can sync your activities by using a windows or mac computer, or optionally by using an Android or iOS app with Bluetooth. It’s worth noting that this feature only works on some newer mobile devices though.
When you’ve synced your device you can filter your data through the online Fitbit dashboard and view your data within custom graphs.
What’s the battery life prodlike on a Fitbit?
Like I said above, I’ve only had my Fitbit for a week but the battery life is actually very good considering it’s size. When I bought the device it already came with around half charge so I plugged it into my laptop’s USB port using the supplied USB connector and it charged within 30 minutes. I’ve charged the device once more since then, so it certainly does provide the 5 days of usage that it promises to.
Is the Fitbit Flex really worth the money?
If I wanted to be really critical towards the Fitbit Flex, I could say that all it is, is an expensive pedometer with a stylish strap as this is exactly what it is… What makes it unique though is that it encourages you to stay active. It’s clever use of technology saves you the need for tracking your daily fitness manually too, which is always a reason to buy it.
Overall even with the slightly steep price tag I still think the Fitbit Flex is a decent device for the price and well worth it if your new years resolution is to stay fit / lose weight.