Garmin vivofit versus the Fitbit Force, Flex, and One

There was a time when I used to wonder and ask the ancient question of, "how much farther?" Now, in the year 2014 the question is as antiquated as the Sprint Treo smartphone or the iPhone 3g. The are too many choices these days for gadgets and fitness monitors. Many have resorted to name calling the +Fitbit Force, +Fitbit One, or even their newest model, the +Fitbit Flex as a fancy pedometers. Well, to those name callers I say - you are wrong! The Fitbit devices are fitness trackers for at any given time I am told how much farther to walk, climb, sleep, drink, and eat. Through the leaderboard, of which I love, I receive cheers, messages, and daily motivation from friends, co-workers, and family. There are sports watches, and smartwatches out there which 'attempt' to counts steps. However, they lack the one powerful selling and refer trait of +Fitbit  - the community. Once you start and really dedicate yourself to a healthy lifestyle one finds themselves going back and forth searching for motivation. When there are 25 people on your leaderboard expecting you to pass them, keep up, or simply reach your daily goal the motivationcomes back right back at you day after day and week after week. That being said, what about the new +Garmin Vivofit ?

The +Garmin Vivofit made by +Garmin was released around January, 2014. Here in Utah and Salt Lake County, Utah I have seen about a dozen others wearing them proudly. Believe it or not, I have asked over half of everyone their opinion and they answer is normally, "I like or love my vivofit." I purchased one from www. REI.com and then was carefully and maticulously testing the device for one month comparing it to my Fitbit Force, a Fitbit One, and my wife's Fitbit Flex. As far the overall daily stamps it was within hundreds of steps each day. For example on a really long day of hiking the Fitbit Force worn on my right wrist and the vivofit on my left wrist the statistics were:
vivofit = 19,570
Force = 20,900
Flex = 20,551

The longer the day and the more the steps the vivofit seemed to fall behind... I switched wrists and let the software know whether it was on the dominent. The results were about the same. I swam with the Garmin vivofit and hardly any steps were counted; although, with the Fitbit Flex the same result happened.

Display
The vivofit has an electronic ink display of types and the display is always on except after one-minute of inactivity in which the display automatically turns off. This is a fun game to play at church or in a long meeting. Can you sit still long enough for the display to turn off just like you attention did? During daylight hours the display is great! Night time or a dusk or early morning, and laying down in your bed, no dice! You'll end up turning on a night light or using your $400.00 smartphone as a flashlight to read the display. There is no back light to enable - bummer! All three Fitbit devices have the ability to read with the awesome OLED (organic LED) screens. The Flex just shows dots about your progress or does a blinking sequence to let you know when you're in sleep mode.

Sleep Mode
Press the button on the vivofit for about four seconds until the word, SLEEP appears. Next, you sleep or take a nap for a least ten minutes. Sync your device the next more or directly after sleep modes ends which is when you press the button again. While in sleep mode your Garmin fitness tracker cannot sync to app on your phone. Moreover, while in sleep mode at 04:00 when you wake-up to strange noises in the night and may be curious to how long you have been asleep, well, it doesn't tell you that. Neither does the +Fitbit Flex. However, the Fitbit Force, which is not discontinued after their voluntary recall, and the currently sold Fitbit one have a mode timer built in which allows you to view your stats while in sleep mode or activity mode. The Fitbit trackers base the activity upon the overall movement during the timed event. For example, if I am at work and initiate the sleep mode by holding down the button for three seconds the time starts. If I lean back and sleep or just don't move for a good 15 minutes then 15 minutes of sleep is added to my June 4th sleep time. This also worked the recently deceased Fitbit Force of which I still miss.

History
Garmin did a great job on the app for their vivofit! The app was interface was great as was the website. You can easily view your daily, weekly, and monthly totals. The Garmin connect website was upgraded 105% since my first Garmin GPS watch the Forerunner 201. Garmin even allows other devices to connect and all activity summarized between cycling using GPS and the vivofit step mileage - very cool features. The history about the sleep sessions could use a little more detail though.

Synchronization & Battery Life
The Fitbit product line syncs without hardly any trouble at all for the last 13 months. Back in early 2013 there was some difficulty with Bluetooth communication, alas, it was resolved. The +Fitbit trackers allow the customer to sync once daily, all day, or whenever one feels like it! Although, they, the programmers, recommend you sync one or twice each day. I tried only synchronizing every other day and the battery life didn't really make a different. Ergo, I now sync about three to five times daily and the battery life of the Fitbit One lasts a good 10 days. Doing the same scenario with the Fitbit Force I was able to make it a good 13 days still using alarms. With the Fitbit Flex only eight days was my max life. So, what about the battery life for the late-to-the-party vivofit? How does one year sound? Awesome! With the screen technology, engineering, and size, there are two replaceable batteries. I was synchronizing my slate colored vivofit three to five times a day and never received a battery warning in four weeks time. I was also using the heart-rate monitor which apparently uses even more battery life. To sync the vivofit you simply open the app and then hold down the button on the device until sync appears. The app then detects the device you paired and pulls in the data. This feature was not the greatest. More often than not my vivofit and iPhone 5s did not play nicely. I would close all other apps running, be on a fast Wi-fi connection and still the Bluetooth sycn would timeout. More than twice weekly I would end up closing the Garmin app and then re-opening and then the sync would complete - ugh! One of the main reasons I returned it back to REI.com.

Wearing Your Fitness Tracker
Are you used to wearing a watch? If not, you are not likely going to enjoy the Fitbit Flex or Garmin Vivofit. However, at least the Garmin tracker displays the time of day and date whereas the Flex only displays dots. I liked and enjoyed the always on feature of the vivofit. There are even two modes - how far you have gone and how far you have left!

Instant Feedback or Live Connection
Both the Fitbit One and the Flex have a "connected" feature with the Apple iOS app and the Google Android OS app which allows you to be running, walking, climbing up stairs or simply moving and see you step count, calories, mileage, and leaderboard stats in real-time.

The Recommendation
I endorse the Fitbit ecosystem and their amazing Bluetooth connectivity. Any week now the next generation of Fitbit fitness trackers is scheduled to be announced. If it is anything similar to the Fitbit Force, well, game on!