Pedometer advice/suggestions?

valve90210

valve90210

valve90210

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17 Jan 2006
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Hi All

My dad, ever the one for preplanning and being organised, has today asked me to look into wrist worn pedometers and the like.

He wants to spend in the region of £20 - £30, and I have no idea what's about.

Having had a look on amazon, there seems to be a huge range that all seem much of a muchness, does anyone have any experience of such devices and have any suggestions?

If it makes any difference, my mum has a Nexus 7 which if the pedometer could connect to that, would be great but not sure it's a deal breaker. Oh and of course, not shipping from China would be good too.

Really appreciate any advice.
 
I bought my girlfriend's father a Fitbit Zip 7 months ago and he uses it everyday. So much so that my girlfriend and her mother all have a fitbit. They connect it to their android phones/tablet and its awesome; they can see how many steps the other has done - gives awesome graphs. In fact if you go onto the play store and search the Fitbit app you can see what to expect.

It's priced at £33.95 on the rainforest website, which is out of your budget, but it's worth the extra for a polished product that will continue to get software support.
 
My girlfriend has the basic Jawbone Up, seemed to do the job and is nearly as accurate as my Fenix 3. No idea how much it cost though.

She really likes the sleep tracking side of it and it connects fine to Android devices.
 
Dis86 said:
I don't get the point of them. I really don't.
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Same here, just taking steps doesn't burn much off does it?
Obviously if you go for an hour walk that would be different.

I always remember a mate of mine having an early one and he'd wear it while he was standing at a machine all day.
By the end of the day his little movements were converted into a 1500 calorie loss :D
He obviously knew it was BS but he'd shout me over and say something like 'hey Mr Sexy, I've only been here 2 hours and burned 600 calories'.
 
I own a Fitbit One and I would recommend it. Guess the Fitbit Zip is similar with a little less functionality. Now i do know how much steps I take and the amount is always below the recommended 10.000 steps/day
 
SexyGreyFox said:
Same here, just taking steps doesn't burn much off does it?
Obviously if you go for an hour walk that would be different.

I always remember a mate of mine having an early one and he'd wear it while he was standing at a machine all day.
By the end of the day his little movements were converted into a 1500 calorie loss :D
He obviously knew it was BS but he'd shout me over and say something like 'hey Mr Sexy, I've only been here 2 hours and burned 600 calories'.
Click to expand...

It's an easy way to prompt you to go do some more walking, they say if everyone did 10k steps a day no one would be fat, which ok WorldNet be true but it's surprising how lazy a lot of us are day to day and how much calories we burn off walking, standing etc. Hence the recent explosion of standing desks. It's about 30 extra calories an hour standing, which at say 6 hours a day 5 days a week, is a lot. Basically far more than any gym goers can achieve as well as probably being healthier.
Same with walking
These are from compendium of physical activities, much better than the inbuilt figures in most apps.
Chart is Calories per mile.


10000 is probably around 4 miles for most people, so again the calories soon add up over the week.
They're also more reliable than they were, you can change settings for sensitivity etc, and find it's usually within about 10%. Obviously if you going to be working like your mate did, turn it off. Amount if people who don't change the settings though. Most people dong even work out their stride length.

Should be able to get a titbit flex of ebay for £30-50ish.
 
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They are incredibly useful if you are on private healthcare e.g. vitality as your steps earn rewards such as free cinema tickets and half price bikes etc.
 
uvarvu said:
They are incredibly useful if you are on private healthcare e.g. vitality as your steps earn rewards such as free cinema tickets and half price bikes etc.
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There's also a bitcoin like thing starting early next year, with uk being one of the opening countries, that generate them on steps. Need iphone I think, assuming it'll use gps as well as steps.

Edit - here we go, I heard about it a few months back but there wasn't a lot of info
http://www.bitwalking.com/
 
Glaucus said:
It's an easy way to prompt you to go do some more walking, they say if everyone did 10k steps a day no one would be fat, which ok WorldNet be true but it's surprising how lazy a lot of us are day to day and how much calories we burn off walking, standing etc. Hence the recent explosion of standing desks. It's about 30 extra calories an hour standing, which at say 6 hours a day 5 days a week, is a lot. Basically far more than any gym goers can achieve as well as probably being healthier.
Same with walking
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Not really.
30x6x5=900 calories

Anyone who goes to the gym a few times a week and works hard would be able to exceed that easily. 900 calories isn't much of a deficit for a week, anyway, although every little helps I suppose. Not really convinced by the standing desk thing.
 
EvilRob said:
Not really.
30x6x5=900 calories

Anyone who goes to the gym a few times a week and works hard would be able to exceed that easily. 900 calories isn't much of a deficit for a week, anyway, although every little helps I suppose. Not really convinced by the standing desk thing.
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True, all though these sorts of "exercise" are generally considered better. As it's low level work for very long times, rather than 30-60mins 3 times a week.

maccapacca said:
Does it need to be so techy? Would a super cheap belt clip on do?
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Well he did ask for wrist recommendations.
 
Glaucus said:
True, all though these sorts of "exercise" are generally considered better. As it's low level work for very long times, rather than 30-60mins 3 times a week.
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I suppose it also depends on your targets - "better" means different things to different people.
I like to be fit so I can play sports better, run around with the kids in the family and other strenuous activities. I don't think those sort of passive exercise are going to help much with that. If it's just about health - I guess that's where the passive exercises might come in.
 
EvilRob said:
I suppose it also depends on your targets - "better" means different things to different people.
I like to be fit so I can play sports better, run around with the kids in the family and other strenuous activities. I don't think those sort of passive exercise are going to help much with that. If it's just about health - I guess that's where the passive exercises might come in.
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They would help a lot with things like that better posture, core muscles, low level stamina. These sorts of things help on pretty much everything. They obviously dont do everything, but people massively underrated these things. Combine such things with some weight training and cardio and your on to a winner (does not have to be the gym, could be your normal sports and running with the kids)
 
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