Category: Fitbit

One week wearing a Moto 360 and Fitbit – Part Two

In the first part of this blog, I made a comparison between the major three apps associated with Moto 360 and Fitbit. In this part, I am comparing the data collected from those devices and mentioning which one I preferred.

Data comparison

I extracted the data collected from the two devices during this week and displayed a line chart for each dashboard (Number of Steps, Active Minutes, Calories Burnt and Distance Covered). Monday through Thursday, my activity was low because it only included going to work. On Friday and Saturday, it went a bit higher as I was walking around the city. And finally, on Sunday, I deliberately went for a 30 minutes run.

The charts below clearly show that both devices operate differently. In the case of ‘Active Minutes’ and ‘Calories Burnt’, Fitbit reported numbers 30 and 8 percent higher than the Moto360. Whereas for ‘Steps’ and ‘Distance’, Moto360 was higher by 7 and 15 percent respectively.

Here are the charts

Number of Steps

FitnessChartSteps

Active Minutes

FitnessChartActiveMinutes

Calories Burnt

FitnessChartCalories

Distance Covered

FitnessChartDistance

Fitbit
Google Fit

 Conclusion

Obviously, one of those devices is reporting wrong values, or let’s say inaccurate ones! To know which, we need to understand in details each’s mechanism and then benchmark both and compare the results. I partially tried to do that in this blog. I did a simple benchmark by wearing both at the same time, although there might be a more accurate way but that was the easiest being an end user. I also read a lot about how Fitbit works (check this article), but couldn’t find anything on Moto360. That is why I decided not to include any summary of this mechanism in the blog.

I Chose the Moto360

In my opinion, Moto360 has all the functionalities Fitbit has except for three: sports compatibility (I won’t take the risk of playing squash with my Moto360!), sleep monitor and floor counter. On the other hand, since Fitbit HR is mainly an activity tracker, it lacks the major features of Moto360. Being a Smart Watch which means full integration with the apps on your phone. And, a better design, no one can argue that the Moto360 has a better look!

After a couple of months of wearing the Fitbit, it would be very easy to predict what it will be logging by the end of the day. So, unless you are a sports professional (you might then consider a more sophisticated activity tracker), the Fitbit would be more of an extra gadget on your wrist when wearing a SmartWatch at the same time.

For me, choosing between a smart watch that does everything and an activity tracking device was easy!

 

One week wearing a Moto 360 and Fitbit – Part One

In my previous post, I mentioned that I will be wearing the Moto360 (2nd gen) together with the Fitbit HR to make a comparison between the two devices. I did that for one full week, Monday to Sunday. And to have accurate results, I made sure to have both of them on at the same time.

I will divide my feedback and comparison into two blogs. In this part, I will be comparing the major three mobile apps associated with those devices (Google Fit, MotoBody, and Fitbit). Those apps are used to track, monitor and display the daily, weekly and monthly analysis of your activity.

Moto 360

Google Fit

It is Google’s default fitness tracking app, all the fitness data Google collects from you through any of its devices will be visible through this mobile app or the web interface. The app is installed by default on all Android devices, so whether you like it or not it will be there!

Supported Features:

  1. The default window displays Today’s totals (see image above)
  2. Collects data from the watch using MotoBody
  3. Displays six dashboards (Active Time, Distance, Calories, Steps, Weight and Heart Rate)
  4. You can quickly switch between dashboards
  5. Provides an easy way to manually log activities
  6. Tracks multiple activities (Walking, Running, Biking, Squash, Basketball, etc.)
  7. The activities are broken down to short activities (i.e. short walking intervals)
  8. Short activities are associated with some interesting details such as location, average pace, steps, etc. (left image below).
  9. Some dashboards display multiple activities on the same line chart graph, where each activity is a represented by a color (right image below).
  10. Data is also available on the web

Missing Features:  

  1. Still unstable! It took me many tries to be able to generate the dashboards
  2. It doesn’t display the totals on the top of the weekly dashboard
  3. Sleep and Floors dashboards
  4. The UI can be improved.

MotoBody

On the other hand, MotoBody is the app developed by Motorola for its wear devices. It is essential to have it installed to get the best experience of the Moto360. Unfortunately, I found that it lacks some features.

Watch Screen Shot
Watch Screen Shot
Watch Screen Shot
Watch Screen Shot

 

Supported Features:

  1. Fully integrated with the watch (watch screenshots above)
  2. It has dashboards for Active Minutes, Steps, Calories and Running
  3. It has a good UI that makes it a user-friendly app
  4. The default dashboard displays the data for Heart Activity, Steps, and Calories in the same window
  5. Easily swipe between daily and weekly dashboard
  6. The detailed weekly dashboards have two types of charts (line and bar)
  7. Compares the data from current week with the previous one (gray line image below)
  8. The weekly dashboard displays the total and daily average on the top

Missing Features:

  1. Dashboards for Distance, HeartRate, Sleep
  2. It only shows the daily average, so you will not be able to view your hourly activity
  3. It limits the exercises to Steps and Running
  4. There is no web interface.

Fitbit

You can find tens of apps integrated with the Fitbit device. But I think the official one developed by Fitbit is good enough that you won’t need to check any other, at least, I didn’t.

 

Supported :

  1. Its default window is the daily dashboard displaying all information the device collects (Heart Rate, Active Minutes, Steps, Sleep, etc.)
  2. The daily detailed dashboards display your hourly progress
  3. The weekly dashboard shows the total and daily average on the top
  4. Tracks multiple exercises:
    1. Allows users to start manually outdoor activities (run, walk or hike)
    2. Associates exercises with a map, calories, time and average heart rate
    3. Manually log previous exercises
    4. The latest update automatically tracks six types of activities (walk, run, outdoor bike, elliptical, sport and aerobic workout)
  5. Provides helpful and motivating features such as rewarding badges when exceeding a certain limit
  6. Allows you to connect and compares status with Facebook friends
  7. A customizable web interface

Missing Features:

  1. Requires many user actions to move between the dashboards
  2. Although it displays the hourly activities, it doesn’t show short activities like the Google Fit.
  3. Google Fit supports more exercises

Next Blog

In my next blog, I will be comparing the data collected during that week and explaining why I preferred the Moto 360 over the Fitbit.