Fitbit or Apple Watch

My Fitbit died in Guadeloupe after a few days here. All of a sudden it went out on the beach and I've not managed to charge and reboot it anymore. I have no idea what happened, it is my guess that it caught direct sun and overheated. I was rather annoyed as it was my 2nd Fitbit that died in less than 2,5 years and I do expect them to live a bit longer. So upon our return, I hesitated to buy a new one right away.  

Jan is an active Apple Watch user since many years and beside my Fitbit, we do tend to use Apple products quite loyally.  Jan has had no issues with the lifetime of his Apple Watches, but of course the buying price of an Apple Watch is not quite comparable to that of a Fitbit.  Jan checked me in the first weeks if I had ordered something new already and what I was going to buy.  He always buys right away when he has a need for something , which is very irritating when you need to get a gift. I do believe in the value of "wanting and waiting" for something, saving up for something, ...

So when we returned and I felt bare on my wrist, I decided to first give an old Apple Watch of Jan a try. It's one of the first editions, very old, so some functionality is not comparable to the newer versions.  

So what is my first impression when I compare a Fitbit over an Apple Watch? 

Well frankly, my first impression is that I hate an Apple Watch.  And that's probably because they are quite different in concept, and I approach the Apple Watch from my Fitbit expectations. 

First of all there is the battery autonomy.  I need to charge the Apple Watch each day rather than once a week for the Fitbit.  I consider the devices tracking devices that measure my daily steps, sleep, heart rate etc, so I don't want it to sit for an hour each day in a charging station, creating a hole in my trackings each day.  Since I want to track all my walks each time I leave the house and since I want to track my sleep, I only have limited availability to charge on the right moment eg when at home and having dinner or so.  But often I forget and so I run around with an empty Apple Watch. 


Secondly, there is the app. I immediately downloaded the Watch app on my phone but to my surprise it is just a place where you can do some settings (as to which other apps can have access to the Watch).  The data collected by the Apple Watch on tracking goes to the default health app already existing on the phone, which on its terms merge it with data already collected by the phone itself or other apps that you allow to connect to the Health app. 


Tracking data 
I find the data tracking less detailed (& accurate??) compared to the Fitbit. And the Health app is messy and confusing. 

For sleep data I know it's due to the old version of the Apple Watch.  It will only tell me that I slept x amount of hours without split in deep sleep, light sleep, REM, ... The newer versions do.  It estimates my sleep considerably higher than Fitbit. The latter always showed me at least 30' of tiny interruptions in my sleep which I assume is normal. 

For steps: I seem to walk considerably less with an Apple Watch. Now this is something that I have noticed before with the Fitbit and walking with friends with other tracking devices.  My Fitbit seemed always generous with calculating steps. I assume here that at the base the calculations of step width can be quite different. The Apple Watch constantly recalculates and adjusts the step width within the day. My reach is between 35-85 cms??  Fitbit didn't. Not sure what to think of it. 

For heart rate: the health app only shows my heart rate at rest (comparable levels as with Fitbit) and heart rate during work-outs but not at other moments.  For my Fitbit I could track the entire day at any moment my heart rate.  And when I was working out, it showed me how much time I spent in different heart rate zones I was, which seems relevant to me.  I don't find any of that at all on my Apple Watch/ Health data. 

Training minutes: similar results but I don't know how Health calculates it. 

Breathing at night / kcalorie use / ...: things I don't pay attention to. 

So is there nothing good at Apple Watch? 

Well I think at the base it is not conceived as a pure tracking device so it should not be valued as such. It is truly an extra interface to your iPhone.  So it loads many other apps to the Apple Watch device.
For example, and the first times to my surprise, my phone rings on the watch even when I don't carry my phone with me (but it is within reasonable distance) and I can answer talking to my wrist.  Practical...but also a bit awkward. 

I can see all sorts of messages on my Apple Watch if I would bother to scroll and read them there. Because I didn't pay attention when setting it up, there's a lot more notifications on my watch currently than I allow on my phone.  But I prefer not getting much notifications so at least there is no sound or so on my watch and I ignore them unless I am sitting somewhere waiting being bored.  Frankly the interface of such a small watch is not ideal for reading a lot of updates. 
However my Fitbit promised to give me messages updates on my Fitbit but that never seemed to work on either of my 2 Fitbits.  I don't need it but if you claim it is functionality, then better make it work, and at least Apple Watch does that well. 

I do enjoy the ease with one click where I can start tracking (with gps etc) a walk or run or do some breathing exercises. 

I could also load some other apps eg download a few of my favourite Apple Music songs and then listen to them on the go. Likewise, I could use it as a dictaphone. I can pay with it with Apple Pay, or consult tickets etc from my Apple Wallet. Furthermore, I can use it as a remote for my iPhone camera etc. 
But I don't use it...so I don't use a lot of the value that Apple Watch is intended to bring. 

So the conclusion seems that I will buy a Fitbit again? 

Well funny enough, the experience of swapping to an old Apple Watch has enabled me to in fact not care about tracking so much anymore. So often I have a non charged watch that once or twice a week I didn't track sleep or I'm missing out on walks. I notice that Jan often charges his watch at night or when he's gone so he's not tracking everything either. 

I still like to track my walks and the trend in how much I move since, due to my knee injury this year, that has decreased a lot and I want to lift it up again.  But do I really need to see that my weekly and monthly average passes 10000 steps again?  My Apple Watch says it doesn't.  But I guess I go out to walk because I feel like a walk and not because I need to increase an average. That's never been the case...somehow I am now walking less. Fine. 


So all in all I simply don't care as much anymore. I do like to wear something on my wrist as I do got used having the time on me again (which I had given up somewhere in 2000  and had not worn for almost 20 years!!). And I am still interested in data but not so much anymore that I want to spend a lot of money on it.  So right now I am continuing to recycle Jan's old watch and we'll see when I feel motivated to buy something new in the future.