Has your fitness tracker / smartwatch helped you get fitter?

[sarahb083]

I'm thinking about getting a fitness tracker or smartwatch so that I can track my activity levels and hopefully get a bit more active. The sleep scores and heart rate also look interesting. I'm worried that I'll get one, use it for a few weeks, and it'll end up in a drawer. If you've bought one, what has your experience been?

I've had a FitBit (Charge maybe?) for 6 months. I wear it every day as my watch broke. The thing I love most about it is the vibrating but silent alarm as I can get up in the morning without waking anyone else. The next best thing is the step counter. I probably do do more steps as a result of wearing it - if I notice an hour or so before bed that I'm on 9000 is then I will make myself walk around rather than slump on the sofa to get me to 10000. However, I'm not a slave to it - there were a couple of days last week when I didn't get much above 3000 steps.
DH has had an Apple Watch for almost two years. It basically means he can check his (work) emails at any time - including during meals - and listen to music whenever he likes. He does no exercise.

@PeppermintMocha

can you turn all that stuff off and just use it for exercise? Or if I get one, will I be constantly nagged for not reaching goals (especially if I only use it for when I go out on a walk/run/cycle?)

with the apple watch you can switch the notifications/reminders off. and you can set the goals from easily achievable to more challenging, depending what you want.

@PeppermintMocha

can you turn all that stuff off and just use it for exercise? Or if I get one, will I be constantly nagged for not reaching goals (especially if I only use it for when I go out on a walk/run/cycle?)

Yeah you can turn it off, although you could argue what's the point in having one, you could spend £400 on an equally nice traditional watch.

But yes, I've dropped the heart rate functions from mine and put a pretty butterfly home screen on it

well yes, but an ordinary watch won't: measure my heart rate while out exercising, play music, let me read messages, let me call in an emergency, play a couch to 5k app, record the map of where I've been, etc. I want it to all the usual things when I'm actively wearing it on a walk/run/cycle - it's just the rest of the day that I don't want constant nags and goals and so on!! Plus I'd quite like to have a haptic metronome at times.

I was only looking at the refurbished, series 3 ones though, as that appeared to be the cheapest!