Pros: Durable, Water-resistant, easy to use, encourages you to be pro-active, lots of functions, allows you to set targets, long battery life, comfortable and unobtrusive
Cons: sometimes a slight lag in syncing. If the battery goes flat, you will lose all unsynchronized data.
This is the age of tech and sweat.
Whether you like it or not, technology is integrating its way into the fitness lifestyle, and it’s here to stay. We review the extremely popular Fitbit flex wireless activity tracker and sleep wristband and see what this little gadget can do.
What Is the Fitbit Flex?
The Fitbit flex is essentially an intelligent wristband. Simple in design, the band is sleek and unobtrusive, with only 5 small LEDs hinting at the technology within. The flex will track your steps, calories consumed and burned, distance traveled, and sleep time. The product is water-resistant and can withstand being submerged to 10 meters. To activate the device, you simply double-tap it.
What you get
- Flex tracker
- Large & small wristbands
- Wireless sync dongle
- Charging cable
- Free Fitbit.com membership – includes the ability to log and track activity, food, sleep, water, body mass, weight, and more.
Using the Fitbit Flex
The display of the wristband will show the current status of a goal you have set. If, for instance, you want to walk 5000 steps in a day, you can check the status of your progression by double-tapping the screen. If you have walked 1000 steps, one dot will glow solid, indicating you have achieved 20% of your goal. The display is small but is really all you require for a quick update on your day’s recorded data. The wristband will also show your distance traveled and calories burned.
Functionality
If by now you think the Fitbit Flex is just a glorified pedometer on your wrist, maybe this will change your mind. The Flex has an interactive app that has all kinds of functionalities that allow for all kinds of data to be recorded, including:
- Steps
- Calories consumed
- Sleep
- Distance
- Water intake
We especially like the sleep monitor – to activate the sleep monitor, tap the screen five times to let it know you are about to sleep. The flex will vibrate to acknowledge this. The flex will track how much sleep you get each night and will record if you are restless and what time you awake.
The app can be viewed from a mobile device such as your smartphone or via the Fitbit website and will display all the recorded data.
The battery is quoted to last around five days, but you can expect 6-7 days of life out of it. Charging the device will take around 75 minutes by simply plugging the wristband’s tracker into the adapter.
The syncing of the flex is good, with background syncing an available option that will update throughout the day to your app profile.
Software
To use the app, you need to create your own profile – this is simple and takes just 2 minutes. You then sync your Fitbit Flex to your phone. The app has a clean, easy-to-use feel about it and is simple to navigate – the current days’ stats are all neatly laid out for you to analyze.
A neat little feature we like is the ‘silent alarm.’ You can set the Flex to vibrate as an alarm at any time via the app – this is useful if you live in a house full of people and don’t wish to wake them when it goes off. The app also allows you to check the battery status of the Flex, edit your Fitbit profile, and check activity from previous days. Your battery status can also be alerted to you by email when it gets low!
If you have friends who also own a Fitbit Flex, you can add them via your app and see their recorded data as well! This is a good/bad feature as it allows you to compare exercise….yet if you have had a lazy day will send you into a state of guilt (maybe this is a good thing too as it will encourage you to move more!)
Overall
The Fitbit Flex is a pretty awesome piece of fitness technology. The functionalities are plenty, and the durability surpasses anything that dares rival it, and the ease of use can cater to a massive audience. By getting a Flex and seeing your day-to-day exercise, we feel it would increase your productiveness and encourage you to be more active.
Overall, we highly recommend the Fitbit Flex because not only does it challenge you to be more proactive, but it makes it fun as well. The Flex comes in many different colors and would make a perfect gift or a treat for yourself.