The bad world of fitness trackers

edgedemon

edgedemon

edgedemon

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I started getting more active last August when I took up swimming. I still look like someone flailing around, but Ive gone up from 500m in Aug to 1km a day on weekdays and 1.5Km at weekends. I also mix this up with sessions on the cross trainer and the odd bike ride.

Currently I have a Mi band 6, it does the job but getting stuff into Google fit is a pain.
Sync band to Mi fit
Syn Zep fit to Mi fit (gets data into Strava)
Strava then syncs to google fit.

I have started to look at upgrading my fitness tracker, I want one that will measure heartrate whilst Im swimming without having to use a band, and also catalogue other exercises as and when I do them.

From what I have seen, even if I spend a lot of money on trackers, Im still going to have the issue of using multiple apps to get stuff into goggle fit and probably with lots of missing stats along the way.

I like Google fit, but am I missing something, are Garmin that good, is their software something worth having?
Im wondering whether just to ditch google fit entirely and use something else?

The whole recorded stats thing has turned out to be a massive motivator for me, My SWOLF rate has halved which Im proud of, so being able to monitor my stats is important to me which is partly why I want to have a device to track heartrate while swimming.
 
I've not had any problem moving data around - checkout quantified-self.io,
but for swim heart rate, for accuracy , it's still a strap with monitor caching the data(like suunto), when it can't see the watch,
the need for that is really highlighted for running where strap afaik is still best, but, much less hassle wearing than swimming, though.

some recent discussion V ,
equally, on my my christmas is a watch to accurately do something for sleep tracking. or a swim watch with inertial navigation, that can detect laps without an aggressive push-off..

jpaul said:
I don't think it would be any kind of magic bullet for heart rate tracking versus a chest strap see
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/10/garmin-swim-2-openwater-pool-gps-watch-review.html
I performed the comparison that you suggested: alternate between low HR and high HR swimming while wearing both the Swim 2 (tightly on wrist) and the 920XT + HRM-Tri on chest. It was a brief 10-minute test. I’ve overlayed the results here. They both track pretty well for the first 2 minutes and the last 4 minutes; but during a 3-1/2 minute span in the middle, the chest strap rises to 145 and comes back down, while the Swim 2 misses that entirely and instead sinks down to around 110. I think the chest strap is probably correct there (although unfortunately I’m not 100% certain).
https://media.dcrainmaker.com/wp-content/cache/comment-plus/3697630-400x300.png?1610089896

Better than sleep tracking on most watches (well I have not seen any review of a good one)
Click to expand...
 
edgedemon said:
I started getting more active last August when I took up swimming. I still look like someone flailing around, but Ive gone up from 500m in Aug to 1km a day on weekdays and 1.5Km at weekends. I also mix this up with sessions on the cross trainer and the odd bike ride.

Currently I have a Mi band 6, it does the job but getting stuff into Google fit is a pain.
Sync band to Mi fit
Syn Zep fit to Mi fit (gets data into Strava)
Strava then syncs to google fit.
Click to expand...
Why are you doing all that, the Mi Fit app can automatically sync with Google fit.

https://www.androidcentral.com/how-sync-your-fitness-band-google-fit
 
Interesting as that was not an option when I was googling when I bought it, everything was pointing to zepp>Strava>GF. I've ordered a Garmin Venu 2 for the heart rate monitoring whilst swimming so I can set up some custom workouts
Thanks for the link though...
 
Once you go Garmin you never go back. Fitbit is trash, and I refuse to use any 'smart watch' that doesn't last a week on charge.
Not sure on these bands but personally if im going to put crap on my wrist it might as well be watch shape.
 
Interestintg to see the Fitbit hate, I use a Charge 5 (and the Charge 4 before that) and also picked up a Garmin (mainly for running), not sure what the major issue is with the fitbit?
 
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