Tell Fitbug your tips for squeezing exercise into a regular day and read MNers feedback on the Fitbug Orb. Chance to win two free Fitbug Orbs. NOW CLOSED

[MichelleMumsnet]

This is the feedback thread for the 50 Mumsnetters who tried Fitbug Orb.

Here’s what Fitbug say: “The system sets you personal targets each week for steps and food, helping you improve your lifestyle at a rate you can gradually adjust to, so it’s not a hardcore exercise regime or a diet that you do for a short time, but a way of improving your habits for the long term."

Testers: We’d like you to post on this thread twice. First with your initial impressions, and then a couple weeks later letting us know how you got on. Please answer the questions below but feel free to add any other thoughts you may have.

First impressions:

Q1. Why did you want to take part in this product test?
Q2. What were your first impressions of the Fitbug Orb when you opened it? Did you like the look of it? If so, why? If not, why not?

Non-testers: What’s the easiest form of exercise that you manage to squeeze into a regular day? Do you have any tips to fit exercise easily into your day to share with other Mumsnetters? Maybe it’s taking the stairs to your office on the top floor of the building, or walking your children to school each day. Whatever it is, we’d love to hear it.

Everyone who adds their thoughts to this thread will be entered into a prize draw to win a pair of Fitbug Orbs (worth £50 each).

Thanks,

MNHQ

Non tester
Walking or pushing dd in the buggy helps but its not nearly enough, so I wait until dd is in bed then I do some deadlifts, squats, kettlebell swings and snatches and a plank. Once a week when dh or a willing babysitter is available, I strap on my HRM and go for a decent run. It all helps me regain pre baby fitness but more importantly keeps me sane

Tester..... I'm still using mine and it's working well. I wear it at work and compare days to see how 'rushed off my feet' I have been!

I've lost 9lbs

Non tester

1. I run to work and walk or run on the way home. Walk to all my meetings, always take the stairs. (Did it through my pregnancy too).
2. I do boxing every Friday am (work from home on that day) and,
3. If time allows, I love to fit Insanity in when my 6-month old sleeps.

Tester - further update...

After 4 weeks, a few more thoughts...
1 it seems to work ok as a pedometer
2 the app is a bit of a letdown ... Very basic and loses stats at end of the day if not refreshed well before midnight... 1 day last week I "lost" most of my aerobic steps due to this
3 food diary just does not work on mobile web
4 sleep detection relies on movement and does not register when DH is keeping me awake due to snoring like a walrus or moving around so it's like sleeping on a trampoline with a hippo

All in all, it's an expensive pedometer really... Nice enough but I don't think I would buy one.... No watch function, doesn't link to hr monitor etc and loses data at end of day if you haven't synced to the app....

Not very exciting, but on my days off, I insist we WALK to school and back - that's 15 mins am and 15 mins pm, ie my 30 mins a day. I also play badminton once a week, on the one night my husband doesn't work away - can't get out any other night. Wish there were more daytime fun exercise / dancercise classes in my area for my 2 days off - they're all evening which is useless to me cos 1) kids need taxiing to their various activities and 2) i'm on my own, no-one to babysit

Tester follow-up
I have enjoyed trying this but have found it quite basic. It works as a pedometer but the exercise targets have not worked well for me as I cannot always fit more in on work days, the sleep function is not terribly accurate and the food bit could not cope at all with my low carb high fat diet. I found it rather clunky that you had to add exercise manually, spent ages trying to figure how to add an hour of mixed exercises with a personal trainer.
I wore it on holiday and it told me I had taken 627 steps one day when friend's mapping app showed we walked over 6 miles [
Overall I have enjoyed trying it out but would not buy one or recommend it at this price

Tester follow up.

I'm afraid that I did not get as much out the fitbug that I was hoping to. It did encourage me to walk more so that I could see how many steps I had taken in a day but no more than an inexpensive pedometer would do to be honest. I cycle quite often but you have to add that to the data and it seems to be be quite clever at what it does but it doesn't seem to do much at all. It looks great but personally I would not splash out or recommend one of these as they are an expensive pedometer.

God has it been four weeks already?! Tester follow up here.

Agree with the comments above, I enjoyed using it once I got it up and working but it was annoying to have to download data to the PC and not to my phone. And some days I forgot as I rarely use the PC nowadays.

Sleep function a bit hit and miss - worked some nights, not others. Like InculKate's, mine made a bid for freedom a couple of times when the wrist strap caught on something and fell off.

The app is pretty useless really - I've all but stopped entering my food. Would do it on my phone on the app as phone is always handy, but PC/ipad not always to hand, so I've been a bit lax in entering it. Annoying to be logged out all the time too.

It has encouraged me to walk more as I've enjoyed seeing how many steps I've done but a pedometer would've done pretty much the same thing I guess. And I downloaded the Moves app to my phone to compare steps and the Fitbug had me doing way more steps than Moves. So I'm not sure which is more accurate. Fitbug hopefully as it was more.

I'm really grateful to have had the opportunity to have tried one of these so thank you Fitbug and MN, but I'm really glad I didn't spend £50 of my hard earned cash on one.

Mine has pinged out of its wrist strap for the final time too Absolutely no idea where it went, and I've had a bloody good look...GPS function next time?

The positives:

• it did motivate me to walk. I liked the challenge of 'beating' my steps each day (even though I didn't think they were wholly accurate). As a pedometer it was good, but VERY overpriced.
• I liked the way it looked, and it was a talking point.
• when it worked, the sleep function was great - really useful to see when I'd woken in the night, but I'm not sure that it was accurate in terms of falling asleep - I think it read 'not moving' as 'sleeping'
• the support from the fitbug team was great - I was literally in receipt of emails 24/7. Very helpful, speedy responses, and they were quick to send me a replacement bug (though this in itself is perhaps indicative of a known problem?)

The negatives:

• I didn't even bother logging food after the first few days. Way too fiddly. This fits into my thoughts about the app - it's simply NOT up to scratch yet and very much shouts beta. Same with the instructions.
• it's not accurate enough for someone who's passionate about monitoring their health and fitness. If I'd paid £50 I'd have been gutted with the results i got because I know some days the sleep and steps were way out.
• the wrist strap isn't safe. First bug pinged out quite a few times - I always caught it and didn't think much of it except it was a vague annoyance. Second (replacement) bug did it, and it's gone for good. I've got very slim wrists (shame it's not elsewhere) so it was on one of the tightest settings - wondering if this is a common factor?

All in all, glad I didn't spend £50 on the bug. I wouldn't be able to recommend it to anyone else either for that price - fun to test, but just not worth that amount of cash for functionality or reliability.

InculKate

Non tester-I used to have a scooter and have ditched it and walk everywhere instead. It helps!

Non-tester
I have started going to an early morning boot camp - no mean feat for someone who hates early starts. I actually love it and it helps that I live in a beautiful part of the world and that we exercise on and around the beach and in the sea. I'm hoping that I'll still love it as much when the weather gets colder and the mornings darker!

I have just updated my iPhone to ios8 and my app won't refresh my steps, so no idea how many steps I have walked today.

I have found the targets set to be very amateur- basically bumping up my original steps by 1000, rather than varying the target on different days, lower than 10,000 on some days and over this on others to keep it interesting. I didn't really want a higher walking target but this can't be changed on the app and I keep forgetting to do it on the laptop. Not great.

I also found that it doesn't update My Fitness Pal very quickly at all, it's very haphazard. I downloaded the Pacer app and this updates MFP much quicker. It also shows (very often) a lower number of steps than FitBug which makes me question the FitBug accuracy. Furthermore Pacer calculates far fewer calories burnt for the same number of steps as Fitbug - today I walked 11,000 steps, Pacer says half of the calories burnt compared to FitBug.

non-tester
I just walk as much as I can. Fortunately my children are all very active so trying to keep up with them gives me a workout. I often carry their schoolbags plus my grocery bags to get some sort of weight-lifting exercise. I would love to have time to do a yoga class or pilates.

Nontester
I like to do easy excercises while waiting for things. For instance while waiting for the oven to heat up or food to cook or while waiting for the bath to run. short bursts add up.

Tester update: food updating is tedious so I gave up. The rubber has peeled off the clip so it doesn't grip any more, so I had to put it in my pocket for fear of losing it (can't wear anything on my wrist for work) and I've not been wearing clothes with pockets recently so it's remained at home. I got a weekly email about targets but it never took me to anything clear about the targets themselves. I'm not sure where the advertised Kik personal trainer came in to it. Life has been too hectic to devote time each night to sitting and remembering what I've eaten etc but I might try again next week.
.
All in all it is a product with potential but it needs a lot of refinement and I'd be annoyed if I'd paid £50 for it as it stands.

Tester:

I still can't get mine to work (though from this thread it doesn't seem like I'm missing out on much).

If I had bought it I would have sent it back. Sorry.

we park the car a bit further away from school ( we live about 3 miles away and park about a mile away) and do run and walk sections all the way to school every morning - we look a bit siolly, but it at least gets me some exercise in

Tester:

I've enjoyed using the fitbug but more as a pedometer than anything else. I like how it differentiates between aerobic steps and steps and it has encouraged me to get more walking in. The fact that it uses a weeks results to set targets for the next week is a good feature. I found entering all my calorie intake a bit tedious as it requires logging onto the computer which is something I very rarely do. I would appreciate it a lot more if I could have my control over entering information via the app so I don't need to log onto the computer.
The sleep tracker was I thought a good idea, but the days I forgot to tell it I was going to bed, then when I checked my progress on the computer, it said 'I need to get to bed early!' :) If I could perhaps revise the information the Orb has tracked, would be good..for example, you can manually input any activities you've done, I think we should also be able to enter how much sleep we've done.z

I do like how it is discreet and easy to wear. I tried wearing it in the wrist strap first then just stuck to clipping it on my bra strap without any problems.

Thank you for giving me the chance to try out the Fitbug Orb, I enjoyed it and will continue to use it.

Tester: 4 weeks on and my Fitbug has stopped working :( It doesn't track any steps at all either on the app or the website.

I did email Fitbug, had a quick respinse within a couple of hours, basically suggesting I reinstall the app. This didn't solve the problem, so I emailed them back. No response. It's been 3 days.

I'm still wearing it in the hope they will fix it and will have stored the data somehow, but I am not impressed at all.

Non-tester

My regular exercise is running around after my two year old. He's never still, always up to mischief - so I don't get a second to sit down. Friends ask why I'm not stick-thin! I often wonder that myself...

I'm walking 1 hr daily, five times a week, it really helps me to stay positive about my body, i feel relaxed and i really like the vibe and i'm slowly increasing it to 70 minutes this week, I will walk moderate to fast and when i get tired i don't stop, i will walk slowly and then continue with my normal routine. I am squeezing 20 minutes of yoga in to my daily routine for stretching and relaxing my body, and it deco helps...