So Long Fitbit

I have finally decided that I will no longer be a Fitbit customer.  It has taken a long time to convince myself that this was a good idea, but I finally made the leap.  It was on from a good (but not perfect) fitness tracking watch to something better.  I was a very religious Fitbit user from 2013-01-18 to 2017-12-15.  I started with the Fitbit One (which I still occasionally used when I wanted to wear a nice watch) and transitioned to the Fitbit Surge in early 2015.  Almost made it a full five years in the Fitbit ecosystem.  I had made it 13,086,461 steps, 29,855 floors, 6,314.46 miles and burned 4,494,072 calories before I called it quits.  Sad to be leaving a place where all my data resides, but their new tools just don't seem as good as the competition.  (Note: I plan to still use my Aria scale, but replace it with a Garmin smartscale when the Aria dies.  So, I guess I'm not totally leaving.)

I really enjoyed certain aspects of my Surge:

1. Continuous heartrate tracking
2. Reasonable battery life (days), though this was declining to only slightly more than one day if I worked out that day.
3. Vibration alerts from my phone
4. Silent alarms.  My Surge reliably woke me up for a couple of years.
5. Easy to kick off activities
6. Automatic tracking of long walks

Things that I didn't like about my Surge:

1. Rubbery band: stuck on clothing (especially my shirts with French cuffs).
2. Rubbery band: bubbled and eventually had to be replaced without Fitbit providing a name-brand replacement.
3. Black and white screen.
4. No option to pair with a chest heart rate monitor.
5. No replaceable bands.  If something happened to the band, it would have to be replaced.  No option for a nice band or a work-out band.
6. Charging port had gotten less reliable over time.  In fact, this was the proximate cause of me deciding that I needed to do something (i.e., get a new fitness tracker).

I looked at replacement options and decided six months ago that it was likely going to be the Garmin Forerunner 935.  But I also decided that I should hold off and see what else comes down the pike to determine if I would prefer somthing else.  I believe that the legitimate options were:

1. Forerunner 935
2. Apple Watch Series 3
3. Fitbit Ionic
4. Other Garmin watch (Fenix, etc.)

I ruled out the Apple Watch because I didn't really care about the smart watch functionality and didn't like losing sleep tracking.  The Fitbit Ionic has gotten some good reviews, but I feel like it would be more of the same as my current Surge.  I had an old Forerunner GPS watch for running and never once had a problem with it, so my brand view of Garmin was quite strong.

I decided that the "something better" was going to be a Garmin Forerunner 935 along with the Garmin HRM-Tri Heart Rate Monitor (and maybe some more gear down the road).  Some of the most interesting parts that I'm hoping to take advantage of are the following:

1. Other fitness measurements (e.g., VO2 Max)
2. Variable Heartrate (VHR) monitoring for recovery time estimation
3. Easy pairing with a chest heartrate strap
4. Running dynamics feedback with the HRM-Tri HRM.  As I get older, I'm most interested in staying healthy so I can continue to maintain my modest fitness level.  I'm hoping that this can help me correct or keep my running form reasonably solid.
5. Waterproof!  I can take it to the pool or swim and have no concerns.
6. Pairing with some biking measurement gear for long trips on my road bike.
7. Easily replaceable watch bands (quick disconnect).  Eventually, I see myself getting a black leather band and deciding on an "elegant" watch face for special events.

I'm still getting used to the Garmin, but I already have thoughts on the transition:

1. I'm liking the battery life.  On five days of continuous use (with a couple of one hour hikes and some spinning) now after getting to 100% charge.
2. The iOS app is solid
3. The Garmin Connect website is better than Fitbit's
4. I really like the audio prompts when I'm running telling me how my heart rate is doing.
5. I would like to see the heart rate on the screens for the various activities.  I think that this is possible, but I haven't figured it out yet.
6. Too much of the setup of the watch is done by manipulating the watch.  All of it should be accessible on the app.  Creating a new information summary page for running would be so much easier there than on the watch.
7. I do miss the touch screen cababilities on the Surge, but overall, I think it's a win.
8. Garmin should add a feature to turn on the screen's backlight when the user flicks their wrist in a manner consistent with them wanting to see the time.
9. Why does this watch not automatically connect to the Schwinn bike at Equinox to record my spinning workout details (or every treadmill)?
10. Fitbit's assertion that "Your data belongs to you!" is a joke.  Just try to export your information.  One month at a time (or one activity at a time).  No heartrate information for monthly information.  They have the data - they just won't give it to you in a reasonable format.  Even the date selector boxes are insanely designed (can't just type in dates).  Total garbage.

I'm sure I will have more to say, but this is where I am so far.  I'd obviously prefer a more aggressive price point, but this is a fantastic watch.

Fitbit Surge: Not a Review

At this point, I don't think the world needs another Fitbit Surge review.  For instance DC Rainmaker's review is pretty thorough and I would have a hard time adding too much (it really is in-depth).  I can relate my own experience and suggest some (obvious) improvements to the device/Fitbit.

[Updated 2015-05-23:  fitbit has made some changes and I've been using it for a few months now -- see updates noted below.]

My Experience

Overall, I've had a positive experience:

• Battery life has been reasonably good.  I'm charging it every 3 or 4 days, depending how many activities I'm recording.  [Update: I'm still pretty positive on this point.  I've gotten into the habit that if I'm ever watching TV on the sofa, I plug the watch in.  So far, it's worked with only modest thinking about it.  I do make sure that I fully charge before I go on work trips so that I don't have to worry about it on them.]
• The heart rate monitoring is probably better in my experience than in DC Rainmaker's.  That said, there are some very annoying drops during activities like spinning that are just incredibly frustrating.
• The interface to record activities is pretty easy to use.  It took me a week to get completely comfortable, but it works well and I can easily move from a weight lifting session to a treadmill run in a couple of seconds.  [Update: I do this all of the time.  Very easy.  Great interface.]
• The Surge does not really work well with long-sleeved work shirts.  I generally wear french cuffs and for the Surge to work, it has to be too high up on my wrist.  That said, its better than my other watches in terms of being able to type when I'm wearing it.  [Update: I wear short sleeved shirts to work in the summer.  This hasn't been a problem recently.]
• I used my Fitbit One to wake me up in the morning, but had a few instances where it didn't.  The Surge's vibrations have been consistently strong enough to rouse me from my slumber.
• I much prefer the automatic sleep detection over having to tell my One when I'm going to bed.  It's been accurate from what I can tell and even properly captured a mid-afternoon nap that I took a week ago.
• I appreciate the default watch face (Flare) that indicates on the minutes, how active you've been since the start of the hour.  It is a little bit annoying that you can't see past hours, but I understand how that would make the watch face less understandable.  Much more easily accessible information than on the One.
• The long and the short of it is that I've been wearing it non-stop since it arrived on February 16, 2015.  [Update: still wearing it non-stop.  I love the multi-device capability (see below).]

One Step Beyond

Despite my general satisfaction with the Surge, I have some suggestions on how to improve.  These are not hardware suggestions, but things that Fitbit could change immediately and improve their product.  It's in rough order of preference on my part.  Here goes:

• Allow me to use multiple Fitbit devices to track my activity:  It seems obvious to me that I wouldn't want to wear a Surge 24x7.  That said, I'm one of those people who wore the Fitbit One for two solid years missing, perhaps, only 1 or 2 days and those were missed accidentally.  I always wore the One unless I was swimming or showering.  When I set up the Surge on my account, it automatically dropped the One.  Why?  It would be so much better to have the option to use either or both and then have Fitbit pull the data together.  I especially don't want to wear my Surge when I go out to dinner or a bar.  Sure, it buys me some geek cred, but I don't need any more of that.  I could do with less.  But it'd be nice to give my wrist a break every once in a while.  I'd just leave my One plugged in and charging and then just grab it and go when the Surge is not the best option.  [Update: when fitbit updated their systems to allow this, I immediately set up both devices - my One and my Surge.  It works great.  I love the flexibility.]
• Improve the way Calorie Burn is calculated when the heart rate signal is lost: I've noticed that the Surge will often lose my heart rate when I'm spinning.  How it calculates calorie burn under that condition is absurd.  Despite the heart rate graph showing a nice gradual connecting line, the calorie burn calculation assumes that you had a low heart rate during that period.  See this picture (the portion highlighted by the blue box did not have any heart rate readings from about 13:00 to 16:00 and thus they dropped the calorie burn to essentially nothing):  [Update: this is still an issue.]
  
• Allow me to upload activities from other devices to my Fitbit account: Given some of the limitations of the Surge (see DC Rainmaker's comments on GPS accuracy), its more likely that I'm going to be wearing my Garmin 405 (or 920XT if I go crazy and get one) for the time being when I cycle or run outside.  I'm totally good with wearing a heart rate strap for these activities, so the Surge really doesn't get me much.  There have to be a fair number of hard-core "Quantified Self" people out there (like me) for whom would find this a good addition.  And don't make this a premium service.  This is only necessary because the Surge has defects or limitations - Fitbit don't penalize your customers twice.  [Update: I still can't do this to my knowledge.  It shouldn't be that hard to extend the "Log Activity" interface to allow this.  fitbit really should do this.]
• Give me real access to my data: Not even with the premium service can the individual get intraday data.  I'm going to look into the hacking available with Galileo, but I shouldn't have to do this.  I made the data.  It is mine to begin with.  [Update: I will likely complain about this for some time.]
• Running calibration: I ran a solid mile this morning on the treadmill after warming up.  My Surge only counted 0.81 mi total.  The total should have been 1.2 mi (another 0.2 mi in warm-up and cooldown).  Why isn't their a reasonably simple interface on the watch to go through a calibration.  Right now, all I can do is put in my "Stride Length" and "Running Stride Length".  This seems both overly simplistic (let me calibrate at 6 mph, 8 mph & 10 mph) and not particularly easy.  Frankly, the treadmill and the Surge ought to be talking to each other, but that is not a software issue.

Here are my hardware suggestions:

• Make it actually waterproof.  Like certify that is the case.  And potentially even make it useful in the pool.  Garmin is already there.
• Fix the GPS (cycling) defects.  Maybe this could be improved via the software?  [Update: Cycling works, but gets meaningfully different answers than my phone does.  I still record on Strava for bike rides given that I mount my phone on my handlebars anyway.  The Surge underestimates mileage by several 10ths of a mile on a 20 mile ride.  I'm reasonably disappointed with the accuracy for a device on sale in 2015.  My Garmin Forerunner 405 from five years ago is better.  I do like that I can at least record the activity.  But their lack of analytics forces you to use multiple sites/recordings of your activity.]
• Detachable Strap: Make into a device whose strap can be detached (like the 920XT).  That would eliminate the need for my first suggestion above (but at the same time they should add an option to turn off the heart-rate monitoring for times it's sitting in your pocket).  I'm also reasonably concerned that I don't get a long lifetime out of this watch due to the strap.  Are others not buying it due to that reason?
• Connect with Devices: Talk to treadmills and stationary bikes.  More than just one way.  Display my heartrate on the treadmill. The treadmill should tell the watch exactly the distance, speed and angle I was running or walking.

Let's here your thoughts on improvements, too!

Recent Moments of (Gadget) Weakness

Yesterday, I bought a fitbit Surge after reading all about the watches on display at CES.  Today, I ordered an Amazon Echo.  The latter won't be here until mid-year, but I'm expecting the Surge in about a week.  I'll be posting shortly when I've had a chance to gain some experience with it.

When Will Wearables Explode?

Not thinking in the literal sense, but in something more than the industry hype sense.  I hope that the hype has peaked and we are moving into the period of hard work where people make products attractive and usable for the masses, not just the early adopters.

Here are some ill-informed views on when I think that wearables will really take off:

• When "energy harvesting" is built-in from the start.  While I am generally not too annoyed that I have to charge my fitbit once per week, I'd rather I didn't have to.  It seems somewhat ironic, as well, that a device that is capturing my motion data, is not using that motion to its benefit.  How cool would it be if I never had to charge my fitbit (as long as I used it)?
• Data transmission is standardized.  Good example: I have a fitbit and a Garmin ForeRunner 450.  Both require proprietary USB adapters to connect to my computer.  Hopefully, devices will coalesce around using low power BlueTooth or some single suitable technology.  Better than this, it'd be great if the devices didn't use near-field technology at all, but instead connected to Wifi and take the computer out of the equation.
• More complete monitoring.  Steps are a good first step.  But not nearly enough for a compelling fitness / wellness view.  
• How about:
• 3D movement, interpreted, so that you don't have to log what activity you were doing.  Premium systems could include multiple sensors for a better read (wrist, hip & ankle).
• Heart rate (and better yet actual ECG signal)
• Blood oxygen levels
• Respiratory rate
• Perspiration levels
• Blood pressure
• GPS location, even if only through your phone
• Some of this should be real-time, but where that gets hard, at least make near real time (like Azoi could be used right after getting off the treadmill).
• Some better understanding of how people want to change themselves (or remain the same).  
• For instance, is it important to you to:
• Train for a particular event
• Just get "better"
• Remain at your current high fitness level
• Provide real feedback tailored to such.  I'm afraid that this will remain in the "paid extra" category, but I don't think that it will take off until a subscription is not required.  I'd be much more willing to buy a premium version of the product up front that has this built into the cost rather than a subscription and think that many others share my aversion.  It boggles my mind that this isn't being done already with fitbit.
• Capture "uncapturable" information and integrate it into your product.  
• AskMeEvery is a great example of how this could be done:
• Wearable user works out
• Wearable system asks user how fatigued they are after the workout (via email, if necessary)
• Wearable system determines that its pretty much the same workout as they had done three days ago
• Wearable system alerts user that they are making progress: their reported fatigue is only 8 out of 10 instead of the 10 out of 10 they reported three days ago
• To be fair, fitbit and others are doing this with food.  But it comes in the "paid extra" category and still isn't easy enough to do reliably.
• Generally decrease the uncapturable information in the system.  A few thoughts:
• Build a kitchen scale with wifi that can be used in conjunction with a phone app.  Have people weigh their food.  (Seems like this could already exist and I'm just unawares).  It has to be much more accurate that taking a picture or just estimating.  And easier.  I had 18oz of lasagna.  Done.
• [Other ideas to be added as they (hopefully) come to me.]

Insight from Fitbit?

So, I decided that I was going to do something with my fitbit data.  I had to learn something from looking at close to a year's worth of data, right?  I hope.  My first thought was from my scale, it seemed that my body fat routinely increased when my weight was going down.  This didn't make intuitive sense, and it might not actually be true.  Time to test it with data!

My first attempt to do something useful was in Excel.  I quickly grew tired of the stupidity of scatter plots in Excel.  It was because I generated this plot:

Given that I had some issues with my labeling, I will be clear: the x-axis is weight (in pounds) and the y-axis is body fat (in %).  The black lines connect data points in time sequence.  You will note that there seem to be some clusters of data where the points are just a little bit too nicely spaced from one to the next, almost forming a solid line of light blue boxes.  This is due to fitbit cheating.

Biggest complaint so far is the fitbit is inconsistent about representing missing data points.  For blood pressure, they show up as "0/0".  For weight, they come as interpolated data points.  I basically have to algorithmically filter them out or I'm not going to have a very believable relationship between weight and fat.  I gave up trying after doing some conditional statements.  I decided that R would be a better tool.

To be able to use R, I was going to have to export the data I wanted to a csv.  I decided to find an online R platform and did find one that uses my favorite plotting package (ggplot2).  I am a big fan of R-serve, which I use at work all of the time, but didn't find any servers online that let people mess around on it.

Unfortunately, it didn't like the forward slashes in the excel csv export.  I foolishly decided to use TextWrangler's grep'ing capability to find and replace the dates.  I say foolishly, because I thought that I remembered how to use it, but didn't really.  I had to refer to some find and replace strings I had pulled together for work.  Ultimately, the date find took the form of:

(?P\<month>\d)/(?P\<day>\d)/(?P<year>\d),

and the date replace looked like:

20\P<year>-0\P<month>-0\P<day>,

I got there, anyways.  It then did make it quick to replace the slash in the blood pressure column.  I wanted to replace "0/0" with "0,0".  And I replaced the "Blood Pressure" with "Systolic" and "Diastolic".  This was a simpler find string, that I made too complicated, perhaps:

,(?P<systolic>\d+)/(?P<diastolic>\d+),

 and the replacement:

,\P<systolic>,\P<diastolic>,

The only problem was that I had 352 rows of data and it made only 351 replacements.  I hate searching out the one problem child.  One trick is to throw the csv into excel and look for column shifting (I've created a new column with this replacement).  It should be pretty quick given that excel will generally automatically recognize the comma as the column separator.  And if it doesn't - "Text to Columns . . ." works in a jiffy.  It turns out that one row has a non-interger reading for the diastolic, so it didn't match my grep.  Rather than fix the pattern, I made an ad hoc change to the csv.

And . . . it wouldn't upload.  So, back to the desktop version of R.  So here is my best effort so far (using ggplot2):

The plot also includes a linear regression of the data and the standard error band around the estimate.  Despite my initial theory, it looks like my body fat readings are reasonably well correlated with my weight, but only reasonably well.  Its a 20% adjusted R², but the p-value for the model is 4.1e-8.

The code to generate this is right here:
codehere::codehere
It occurred to me that I should really first be interested in how my weight evolved over time.  This is what fitbit.com provides:

I think it hides too much of the variability.  Here's my plot:

The code to generate this plot is simpler:
ss
Clearly, my goal weight is 160 pounds. I'm a bit closer than the last data point here, down to 163.5 pounds.  But what is driving my weight gain & loss?  Is it potentially related to my activity level?  Let's see.

Let's at least start with what my calorie burn looks like.  First, just day by day (are there any trends) and then by day of week.  Here we go:

and the daily average (violin plots with the mean represented as a green dot):

By far, it looks like Saturday is my busiest day, in terms of activity.  But the distribution of Saturday overlaps the other days of the week from lazy to super active.  I guess I have my slow weekend days, as well.  Another view is very derivative and slightly easier to create - that is a monthly view:

I really don't know why January looks so high (this is only the tail end of January 2013), perhaps its just the small number of data points.  It does look like after summer I slowed a bit down and picked it up a bit through November, getting lazier in December again.

And the code to generate the above:
codehere::codehere

Not surprisingly, there is a strong relationship between steps and calories burned.  I think that it'd be reasonable for some dispersion due to other activities that I log (e.g., lifting, biking).  It looks like the outlier day of less than 5,000 steps, was one where I rode 50 miles on my bike.  So I guess it could make sense.

This simple relationship has an adjusted R² of 49%, roughly meaning that about half of the variability in calorie burn is explained by steps.  What really happens by fitbit is a bit more complicated.  I believe that their calculations incorporate the amount of time that you are active - in various states.  The better model would look like the following:

This model (its construction shown in the code below) has a 90% adjusted R² with and an F-stat for the model of over 825.  I think that indicates significance.  Interestingly, the time sedentary is not a (very) significant variable, but the model thinks that the intercept is.  Which probably makes sense, indicating that there is just a baseline number of calories that somebody of my (roughly constant) weight would burn.  The true model that they use is one of both body mass and activity.  They report Activity Calories burned and the above model against that has a 98% R², so I think that indicates a match.

codehere::codehere

Now let's get to a more interesting question/hypothesis.  My guess would be that the more active I am over a period of time, the more likely I am to lose weight.  Seem reasonable?  Let's check it out.  First we need to think about the variables available to us and whether they'd reasonably be expected to show a relationship.  I think that the answer is no, given that all of the observations are for an individual day (no trending).  Keep in mind that the best we are going to be able to do is capture the outflow or burning of calories.  I haven't tracked my food intake over any meaningful period of time.  And fitbit doesn't provide that in the dataset anyway.

So, I will have to do some transformations first, but I'll save that code until after the graph.  So let's look at a weekly time period (average activity calories in a week) versus the weight change over the course of that week in the form of weight(date)-weight(date, seven days later.  With that defined, I can look at the visuals:

While at first glance, this doesn't seem super good.  Its mostly a cloud; don't let the fit line and the standard error band trick you.  If there was something there, it would be in the direction that I think that it should be.  That is to say, as my activity increases, my weight decreases.  The model's adjusted R² is only 3%.  This isn't to say that there couldn't be a different date range that we should be looking over, but I would be concerned that we are finding a spurious relationship.  Even if we did find something, I think that it would be worth doing an in-sample/out-of-sample test for significance.

Before I forget, here is the code:
codehere::codehere

So I'm out of reasonable questions to answer with this data.  How about some random questions:

• Do steps correlate with Floors climbed?  (i.e., when I'm active, am I active in both ways)
• How long do I sleep when I track my sleep?  I have been super inconsistent in tracking it, even though I use my fitbit as an alarm clock on weekday mornings.  How does the fitbit data compare to the AskMeEvery data that I've been collecting for the last two weeks?

Let's tackle these.  For the first, here is the graphic:

With a 35% R2, I think its safe to say that there is some correlation, but its really not definitive.  See the data point at about 17,000 steps - that would be one floor climbed that day.  It can happen.  I guess.  150 floors seems like a lot.  but I also took ~17,000 steps that day.  So there is something there.

And now for sleep.  Here's what I've gotten from AskMeEvery:

So I sleep a lot on weekends.  I try to get 7.5 during the week, it happens, though 7 is much more likely.  How did the fitbit data compare?

Given the limited data from AskMeEvery, I think these are essentially equivalent.  What it does indicate, I think, is that on a night that I think that I get 7.5 hours, I'm really getting ~6.  The rest of the time is getting to sleep and restlessness during the day.

Finally, the code for the last two fitbit graphs:

codehere::codehere

Reflection on the data and FitBit

I have looked around on the web about what people think or have learned by using their FitBit.  It can be summed up as:

• I didn't realize how sedentary I am/was
• I walk more because I'm wearing a FitBit
• I like getting badges

Aside from general behavior changing on the margin, I'm unimpressed with what I see out there.  I think my original review holds up fairly well.  I think the following two changes should be made (at a minimum):

• Add the alarm alerting you that you've been sedentary too long.  Let the user choose this, but provide links or other guidance on the website about what might be a useful interval.  I addressed this in more detail in my initial review.
• Add the option that goes beyond their "Step Goal Milestones" that alert you when you've hit "75%, 100% or 125% of your daily goal."  These are fine notifications, but what if you just get to 70% of your goal.  You never really know that.  I'd prefer time-based notifications that put your day into perspective, allowing the user the time(s) of the day that they'd like to receive them (for me, 8am and noon would be most useful).  I want to be motivated beyond just a fixed goal, which I'm sure most users have never changed from the day they set up their FitBit.  The message I want is like the following:
• You've taken X steps so far today.  This is at the Yth percentile of the last week and Zth percentile of the last month.  Only A steps until your goal!

To keep its users engaged, I think FitBit really needs to do more.  I'm not super convinced the solution is my first anniversary email:

Maybe it'd be more interesting to tell me where I fit in the distribution of all FitBit wearers.  Answer questions like the following:

• I've worn my consistently over the last year.  Have I worn it more than 90% of their customer group?  Shouldn't that make me feel good?
• For people my age (weight/sex/zip code), where am I in terms activity over the last 12 months? Weight gain / loss?  Body fat gain / loss?
• Talk some about the FitBit community - in aggregate, how many pounds lost, miles travelled, steps taken?
• [I will add more as I think of them]

Other thoughts out there?

Your Data is Yours for a Price

I've recently blogged about how I think personal data should be owned by those generating it.  Related, I was just thinking about how long I've owned my fitbit - almost a year - and that I was going to have to write a post summarizing my thoughts on living with a fitbit for a year.  As part of that, I was ready to bitch and moan that they do not provide their users with access to their own underlying information.  To make sure this was a true statement, I did some quick Googling.

What I found was not very satisfying on a few different levels:

1. Access to your own data is only available if you a premium subscriber - that is, you pay an additional $49.99/year (after you've already bought the device).
2. Even when starting a seven day free trial period to download the data, it is only available with nothing greater than daily granularity.  A bit of poking around on the Google Group for fitbit developers indicates that only a "select few" developers will have access to sub-daily data.
3. The data is presented poorly - there are three separate sections in the CSV: body, activities, sleep.  All are keyed on date.  Why not one section with more columns?
4. The data has odd inconsistencies:
1. If you request dates for which you hadn't used your fitbit, you will get information that isn't real - i.e., no minutes of activity rather than null values
2. For data where you have limited entries - weight, blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., fitbit does different things: weight is repeated, blood pressure is 0/0 instead of NA, resting heart rate is 0 instead of NA.

I'm still down on the whole environment that is out there now.  That said, I signed up for a MeetUp group (for DC) that is associated with the Quantified Self.

After I've had a chance to go through the data, I will share my insights (if any).

Fitbit fail

Those who have read my other fitbit related posts, know that I've had my fitbit since mid January 2013.  I wear it non-stop, even most nights to bed.  I'm odd enough that I feel like I'm not getting "credit" for physical activity if I'm not wearing it.  I should be fitbit's best & worst customer all at the same time.  I'm not super thrilled about my most recent fail with the fitbit.

OK, so its not the most important failure ever, but its still quite annoying.  The black plastic piece of my clip came off.  I'm pretty sure that this is a problem that should never happen.  We have engineers that can solve these sorts of things!

Nothing to do but order another one for $9.95 + $3.98 S&H.  Fun fun.

Update 2014-07-04:
The second cover that I had been using over the last year has finally given up the ghost.  While it did last longer than the first, the mode of failure was the same (the plastic piece at the end of the clip came off).  Annoying.  Here are the pictures of the old and new one - the design does seem to have been refined, though for me it mostly means its tougher to get the fitbit into the clip.

The rubber ripping and then peeling back has been an annoying issue for some time, but not a big enough deal to warrant replacement.  The plastic piece missing at the end is too painful to live with for long.

New one is on the right

Also annoying is that the price of a new one has gone up.  To $14.95 on Amazon (+ tax in the state that I live in).  I ordered a new one, but declined to get a new sleep wristband (that also needs to be replaced).  I found another product that looks like it will do a better job and cost less.  I'm considering buying this, instead:

More thoughts on the FitBit One and Personal Data

I've been posting about the FitBit One since I got mine back in January.  I was having lunch with a friend and mentioned that I had a FitBit.  He mentioned that he had one too, a while back, until his son put it in the washer.  But, he wasn't too torn up about it.  He felt that he had learned pretty much what he was going to from the data provided.  This, along with two other incidents got me thinking about the following:

When is Data Most Useful?

I have found in many situations that I care most about my data immediately or soon after it has been created.  This is not always true (e.g., pictures, movies), but for many things it is.  I take notes at work (via Mac Mail, fairly convenient given the built-in synchronization of IMAP) and find that I refer to them most frequently within the next week of writing them.  In addition, I do a fair bit of searching in my email to recall what happened in certain work situations or what decision was made.  That said, it is rare (but still happens) that I want to go beyond the last week or so of email activity to find my answer.

How does this Apply to Personal Data?

I think people need good feedback to change their behavior.  In school, we all got very timely feedback about how well we were learning the material (or at least, to the degree to which testing is an indicator of such).  When we work, we get reviewed at least annually and more importantly get raises that recognize our increased value to our firms.  The physical side of our world has few quick and easy means of providing feedback.  The FitBit should be that feedback mechanism:

• Quick
• Clear
• Actionable (advice?)
• Easy

How does FitBit and its Competitors Stay Relevant?

It seems to me that makers of more race oriented devices will have no problem staying relevant.  Think Garmin with their GPS watches that are serving runners and bikers quite well.  For companies like FitBit that are trying to fit into a more routine, they are going to have to do better in keeping people's attention.  They are trying to do this now, to some degree, by providing weekly summaries of activity and badges.  I think that they'll have to do better if they want to continue to grow and to remain useful for their current customers.

Here are some thoughts on how they can do this:

• Add features/information to the weekly summaries:  Right now my weekly summary only includes the stats for the week and little up or down arrow indicating if a specific statistic increased or decreased over the last week.  Not terribly helpful.  How about links that allow me to see in detail how this compares to other of my weeks / my friends week / all FitBit users' week / all weeks of all FitBit users' / all weeks of FitBit users of my rough characteristics (male, age, location?).  There seems to be a profound lack of imagination on the part of the developers.  
• Compare Variables: Are there any correlations in the data that have been found between certain behavior and weight or other activities?
• Better interpret activities: I've logged the fact that I'm doing weight lifting many mornings before I do some interval running.  Why can't the FitBit suggest that I could have been doing this and let me log it by hitting an "ok" button rather than going through the whole logging experience on the website.  I'm not sure where processing is done on the FitBit (before or after the data is transferred to the website), but in either case, it would seem that it could likely infer what I'm doing and auto-log.
• Send reminders to people: Allow synching of the FitBit to one's iCal or better Google Calendar.  Meeting or other reminders could cause an "alarm" on the FitBit.
• Initiate Long Term Studies of behavior:  I think the risk of losing most of its users is pretty high for FitBit and their competitors.  They'd be in a much better position if most of their new devices were being sold to people upgrading (think the Apple iPhone) than to new customers (churn is a terrible thing).  Studies of the persistence of changes in personal behavior and the potential medical benefits of having long term data about people's movement could be compelling to keep otherwise fence-sitters from dropping it.

Fitbit after 250 miles

Like them or not, when you wear a Fitbit and track your activities, you will get badges.  "Badges", you say, "We don't need no stinkin' badges!"  Maybe not. But in any event, me getting my 250 mile badge was a good trigger for me to sit down and write this blog entry to say what I'm liking and not liking about my Fitbit One.

The Good

• Battery Life: It's been excellent.  I charge for maybe an hour every week or so.  Each time I plug in, it appears as if I'm still halfway charged.  I thought I'd have to manage this more closely and am very glad that I do not need to.
• Data: It collects data in a very seamless way.  Especially when combined with the Aria scale, its a pretty powerful set of information to drive good decision-making.
• Alarm: I no longer wake my wife up in the morning with my alarm clock.  Which is good because I just broke it.  Powerful motivator to wear the Fitbit at night.
• My wife likes it.

The Bad

• Nighttime Braclet: The odd velcro-like closure is already starting to wear and catch on my covers leading to it coming off a number of times while I was tossing and turning.  I expect that I will have to be routinely purchasing these (perhaps at 4 to 6 month intervals).
• Sleep Monitoring: Seemingly uncorrelated with how well I feel when I wake up.  I moved to the sensitive mode because I was routinely sleeping with 99% efficiency.  Now, it claims I'm only sleeping between 4 1/2 and 5 hours a night.  I hope not.
• No feature updates via software (yet): I'd still very much like to be beeped at if I remain stationary for 10 or 15 minutes.  And then more vigorously beeped at if 15 becomes 30 minutes.
• Proprietary Data: Where is it?  Can I get to the raw or treated stuff?  Not clear.
• Dashboard 2.0: I switched over to it not long ago.  Lacks an easy ability to see different date ranges as you could with the original.  Some displays of the data are clunky (while others are notably improved - sleep over the last seven days).
• Changing Logs:  At least for sleep, once a record is created, there doesn't appear to be an easy way of changing it.  Make a mistake and forget to tell it your done sleeping?  You are out of luck.  Seems like an obvious oversight.

One Step Beyond?

• More types of data: I'd love to have my pulse, oxygen levels, sweat levels and blood pressure constantly across the day.  I don't know how to do it, but somebody will figure it out.
• More sensors: I can tell the Fitbit that I did a "light to moderate effort" free-weight workout for 35 minutes.  The moment I go for a run on the treadmill, the Fitbit knows exactly what is up.  It would be much more useful if I didn't have to tell it what I was doing, it should be able to figure whatever it was, out.  I'd be willing to wear ankle sensors, wrist sensors and a waist sensor, almost whatever it would take.  Whoever figures this out, will have me in a heartbeat.
• Waterproofedness: I've been spending a fair bit of time in the pool with the boys (now that we have a basketball hoop and volleyball net).  None of this activity can be logged or reasonably represented from my fitbit, as noted here.  Waterproofing seems like a fairly reasonable upgrade and one that would likely provide some additional robustness to their design (avoid failure due to being overly sweaty). [Added 2013-07-22]

Fitbit - Thoughts a Month In

For those that know me, they know that I like to collect data about myself, my house and things around me (weather, etc.), but particularly about myself.  I have a Garmin GPS watch with a heart rate monitor and am disappointed that I could never get the foot pod to work and give me more information about my pace & stride.  When I saw the opportunity to get information not only about my daily activities, but my nightly activities, I jumped on it.

The Fitbit One is a small accelerometer/pedometer that has been enhanced in a number of very useful ways: it collects data all the time and is capable of transferring it via BlueTooth to your computer or to your iPhone and then synch with the Fitbit website.  It tracks your steps, your stairs climbed (rounded to the nearest flight) and your sleep.  Its as easy as hooking it onto your pants (or bra) and wearing it.  Very easy to use.

Fitbit has taken this One Step Beyond (maybe two) by doing the following things:

• Integrating a wi-fi scale/body fat measurement device called the Aria that synchronizes with the same data.  Pretty sweet.
• Allowing the user to track calories in via food intake.

Overall, I very much like the product and plan on using it for the long haul.  I've been happy to see it making in-roads amongst other nerds and believe Fitbit could have a good future in front of it.  I had a business lunch recently and three of the nerdier ones (myself proudly included in that group) were wearing their Fitbits and all were enthusiasts.  Keep that last comment in mind as you read the below comments, but I would definitely recommend you doing your homework and learning about the product before taking the plunge (but you'll probably want to take the plunge).

Here are my initial thoughts on the positives:

• Easy to get started: It took me only a few minutes to be up and running with my Fitbit.
• No continuing fees: The website is supported by your purchase of the device.  It costs nothing to keep using it.  Though I haven't looked into it, Fitbit appears to be looking for ways to add premium features (like coaching) to the website that would require an on-going payment.  I like the model, as long as it is successful and they don't start requiring me to pay for access (if I don't find the premium features worth the cost).
• Easy to keep it on:  I've been wearing it for over a month and have very rarely forgotten to make sure it's on.  Slight downside that one does have to keep track of one more thing.  My standard check before I leave the house (for phone, wallet, keys, watch) now includes Fitbit.  Not difficult addition to make to the routine.  The wrist band for use during sleep is comfortable and easy to use, as well.
• Well laid out website:  Fitbit's website is mostly easily navigated and you can get to where you want to be quickly.  Body measurements are buried a little bit far, but it does make some sense that they are 
• Long battery life: I charge maybe once per week and there still seems to be a fair amount of juice in the Fitbit.
• Excellent application integration:  Fitbit has some real potential for an eco-system to develop around it.  There are a number of applications available - my favorite part is that Lose It! calorie data can by synch'ed.  Lose It! is my favorite app for easily entering meals and then entering them again in the future.  I'm a creature of habit.  My breakfasts and lunches rarely change too much.
• Can "invite" lots of people to the scale: You get seven invitations for people that can be users of the scale and set up a free Fitbit account to track their body fat and weight.
• Can track other both measurements:  Specifically measurements that matter to me: blood pressure, pulse, and various size measurements (chest, hips, thighs, biceps, forearms, etc.).

Here are my initial thoughts on the negatives:

• Sleep monitoring is very flakey:  The bottom line here is that I don't much trust the sleep monitoring results.  I sleep pretty soundly most of the time and the most useful aspect of the sleep tracking for me will be just the total amount of time asleep.  My wife does not sleep soundly.  She had a night this week where she couldn't sleep for hours - until well after 2am and the Fitbit claimed she slept the whole time.  Gave her a 90% sleep efficiency score.  Not at all realistic.  Also problematic, there is no way to provide Fitbit feedback on this to help them improve.  Perhaps this is just a really hard problem?  [Note that there is a "sensitive" option for sleep tracking, that I just found when poking around the website.  I will use this and see if my results seem more reasonable.]
• Built-in food/calorie tracking is lacking:  I have found it not nearly as convenient/easy to log food and meals on Fitibit as compared to Lose It!  Not a fatal flaw given the comment about the app environment above.
• Would prefer more customizability of the dashboard: From what I can tell, I have no ability to change what I see as a default.  For instance, I don't care so much what my weight is right now, I care more about my body fat percentage.  Perhaps I'm deluding myself that it could happen at my age, but I do lift regularly and would have no problem if my weight stayed constant or went up if my body fat was decreasing at the same time.  It would mean that I was just that much more "buff".
• More flexibility in presenting data, generally:  Allow the users to build graphs that matter to them.  The interface should allow both x-y scatter plots as well as temporal graphs.
• Lack of transparency in body fat calculations:  Fitbit only provides a number (would it be hard to provide a "Learn More" link that they goes into the nuance -- only those that are interested will follow it and you won't confuse those who don't care?).   What they don't provide you with is any sort of perspective on what information they are or are not using.  From what I can tell, they have to be using gender, but beyond that, its not clear if they are using age or height or other body measurements.  They also don't provide you with any guidance as to your confidence interval around the measurement (i.e., what is the 5th percentile to 95 percentile range that your body fat could be given that the statistical relationships are not super strong).  See here for some initial introduction to Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA).  All that said, BIA is supposed to be useful in tracking an individual's body fat over a period of time.  Just try to be as consistent as possible in when and how you take your measurements.  I wake up, pee and then weigh.  Hopefully, I'm not over of under-hydrated and I should get a good day-to-day, week-to-week and month-to-month view of my body fat.  
• Give me direct access to my data: Not through some data vault that Microsoft has developed, but via XML and CSV.  Perhaps this will come over time?  Seems pretty important for me to have long-term confidence in Fitbit.
• Can't wear it in the shower:  Not really serious.

Obviously there are aspects of the Fitbit that I can't comment on (yet):

• Durability: I've only had it for a month.  Haven't dropped it from any height or seen it withstand something impressive.
• Battery life over the long term:  Off to a good start as noted above, but its long-term usability will depend heavily on long battery life.  I don't need something else to charge in everyday.

Areas where I would like Fitbit to improve (not explicitly or implicitly noted above):

• Recognizing what you are doing automatically:  I went skiing with my Fitbit.  It seems to me that Fitbit ought to start asking you if you are skiing if it has tell-tale signs.  These signs should easily crunched out of Fitbit's own data given that presumably thousands of users are logging their activities and Fitbit has their accelerometer data for these periods of time.
• Improve on the silly badges: I don't have great suggestions here, but it would seem like they could come up with some more meaningful badges than what they have.  Perhaps a little fun and silliness is all that they should be, but if so, let me turn them off.  Perhaps what they should really do is allow users to create badges that can be shared by the others in the community.  I'd be interested to see what other people find noteworthy about their health.
• Allow for more nuanced goals: I'd like to maintain a certain minimum percentage of my day that is non-sedentary.  This goal is probably best viewed on a rolling average basis (maybe two or three day average), but matters more to me than just a one day value.
• Improve alarm features: I'd like to have the Fitbit One buzz when I've been sedentary for a particular period of time.  I spend a lot of time in front of my computer at work five days a week.  It'd be good to know when I should think about stretching my legs and doing a lap around the office.  Fortunately, this seems like it can be dealt with solely by software (so we may see this improve).  This may be asking a bit much, but would iCal integration be that hard?

What do you think Fitbit needs to do better?  I plan on doing a follow-up post six or so months in to let you know what my thoughts are then.  Maybe Fitbit will have added some of above requests?