Yep. Or the Moto 360
As an aside, I think it's dumb when a company makes their companion watch only work with their own phones or own OS.
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The Gear fit
- Thread starter The Game 161
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Yep. Or the Moto 360
As an aside, I think it's dumb when a company makes their companion watch only work with their own phones or own OS.
Want sales? Make the watch compatible with everything you can!
How is the hearrate sensor on the Fit? I had heard that you would have to stop and stand still to take HR, which defeats the purpose of it and makes it useless if true. Can you still be running or sprinting and see your HR? Is it continuous, ie you can see your HR in real time, or do you have to keep checking it?
Also is the HR sensor standalone, ie do I have to use a phone with it? If it's realtime and accurate I may just grab one of these for my HIIT sprint training as it would be more comfortable than my current chest strap.
Also is the HR sensor standalone, ie do I have to use a phone with it? If it's realtime and accurate I may just grab one of these for my HIIT sprint training as it would be more comfortable than my current chest strap.
The reviews I have seen sen to think you have to be stationary to get an accurate reading, which I believe the watch says the same. However their own reviews say the heart rate monitor tracks in real time letting you know when you slow down and speed up during a run. I just want to be able to track my milage and heart rate when I run without bringing my Note 3 along for the run.
Hmm, can anyone who owns the fit test it? Can you jog/sprint and have your HR continuously read so you just have to glance at your wrist? Or do you have to stop and take a reading?
http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2014/04/pinnacle-samsungs-activity.html
He does very good fitness devices reviews
From the review:
"Most of the time, in my experience, the sensor will fail to read anything, resulting in a number of different error messages. Like the Eskimos with a hundred words for snow, Samsung seemingly has a hundred error messages for failure."
"As a general rule, Ive found that the heart rate while cycling was never accurate. At least, not when compared to four other heart rate monitoring devices I was wearing. All of those agreed within 1-2 BPM. The Gear Fit was about 30-100bpm off. Which, is basically the difference between telling a police officer you were going between 55MPH and 125MPH in that 25MPH school zone."
"Next, I took it running on an interval workout. Its a hard workout and thus has high intensity mixed with immediately low intensity as you alternate between running hard and the 90-second rest breaks.
I found that throughout my 8x800m workout, some of the intervals it tracked the HR fairly well, within a beat or two of a traditional HR strap:
But about half the time it was just off in left field, showing me at 80BPM when I was closing in on 180BPM. I would have loved to show you the actual heart rate data on a chart, comparing to the two. But more on why I cant do that in a minute."
"Looking at the sports angle, the optical sensor is on a good day, barely half-functional. And thus, theres really no point in using it."
What a shame, I had high hopes for this replacing my chest strap. For $199 I'd expect this to function flawlessly.
This is the same review I linked to on the last page. However if the iWatch is half as good as I think it will be, I'll be making the switch back to the iPhone. I absolutely love Android and the Note 3, but I also need a high quality fitness tracker to take with me on my runs. We'll see, perhaps updates can fix what ails the Gear Fit.
If it fails to read, it's probably about how tight the band is, and/or the person's physiology.
If it's put on loose, or the person's wrist is concave where the sensor is, of course it cannot get a good reading.
Also, I let my son try my Fit the other day, and it couldn't read him at first... but he has hairy wrists. So we moved it around to a clearer spot, and it read every time.
For myself and others, it doesn't fail.
I really want to get this but the reviews are putting me off slightly. I want to badly use it due to walking, running and cycling
More info:
I always find it handy to check out the Amazon Q&A section:
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Gear-...ql?_encoding=UTF8&asin=B00JBJ3JBI&cdSort=best
And the reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Gear-...JBI/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?showViewpoints=1
I like what one reviewer did: took pictures of his dress shirt sleeves and uploaded them as backgrounds, so his Fit could be made to match whatever he was wearing that day. Neat idea!
Judging from the reviews, apparently this device is much more popular with people like me who wanted a notification watch with extras, than with those who wanted a fitness device that recorded everything you do.
I always find it handy to check out the Amazon Q&A section:
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Gear-...ql?_encoding=UTF8&asin=B00JBJ3JBI&cdSort=best
And the reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Gear-...JBI/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?showViewpoints=1
I like what one reviewer did: took pictures of his dress shirt sleeves and uploaded them as backgrounds, so his Fit could be made to match whatever he was wearing that day. Neat idea!
Judging from the reviews, apparently this device is much more popular with people like me who wanted a notification watch with extras, than with those who wanted a fitness device that recorded everything you do.
Supposedly Samsung is sold out of them, which is nice for them. It's a nice device, but it doesn't seem to have the accuracy I need for fitness, I'm seeing a ton of very bad reviews for the fitness aspect of it. It would be nice for the notifications though, especially since I don't really want another watch.
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I am in that group of people as well. If the fitness aspect was very important for me I would likely have a Fitbit, Jawbone, FuelBand or something like that already. It is nice to have in a device like this, and I like to play around with it when I am out walking, but it is not that important to me.
What sold me on the Gear Fit was the screen and notifications - and I am already getting very used to it in my daily life. It is also fun to see people's reaction to it - I have yet to see anyone that has asked to take a closer look that was not at least a little bit impressed.
It is a shame that a lot of the reviews have put majority of the weight into the fitness features - which, when comparing apples to apples, probably aren't that much different from other wrist mounted devices. For me the step counter is actually very close to the real number the few times I have counted my steps. The software (on the cell phone side) needs a bit of work, but the readouts from the device itself can hardly be called bad when compared to Fuelbands and such.
Instead I see things like belt-mounted step counters and chest-mounted heart sensors being the reference point in lots of reviews, which is comparing apples to coconuts at best.
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So I decided to pull the trigger on a Gear Fit. I decided for the money, it was worth it to test out the actual fitness features. I run a lot so this should be interesting. I thought about all of the cons and other possible watches on the horizon, but this one just seems worth it considering it doesn't have a lot of added bulk. I'll give a further review after some time with it.
And of the 5 large photos he has from testing the heart rate monitor on the Gear Fit (and complaining about it not being accurate) not a single one has the sensor facing the inside of the wrist like the Gear Fit guide says... See the screenshot I took right now from my Note 3.
It also goes without saying that the heart rate monitor needs to be snug against the skin to work - if it is flopping around on your arm like a bracelet or like many wear their watches you won't get good readings.
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Wait, so you have to flip the device around on your wrist when you work out? Kind of a pain, but if it means it will work perfectly then I'd deal with the annoyance. I definitely want to buy one if they HR monitor truly can work well. Taking a continuous HR while moving is a definite must though and anything below that is useless IMO for any type of fitness activity.
Unfortunately I was up late watching basketball last night so I missed the gym altogether today. I will test this out tomorrow.
Still haven't decided if I should get one... What worries me the most is that a lot of choices (and probably better) will be available soon!!!
What's holding me back is that they will only work with Samsung phones, if I stick with android the best option will be to get a "universal" smart watch/band.
I've had a few test runs with this device and I'm a bit concerned that the step count may be a little off but the distance recorded is accurate. I also love the fact that it tracks in real time my heart rate as I run. Getting notifications on my wrist without having to pull out my phone is also a plus. I think I'll be keeping this device.