Vivofit is a smart pedometer bracelet that tracks your daily steps, distance, calories burned and heart rate for more or less one month (then the data gets deleted, one needs to upload the data before this happens). It has a rubber wrist band that is durable and water resistant. Vivofit's battery should last for a year and that is one of the reasons why I chose this product in the first place. Many other pedometers need to be recharged once a week and I really hate charging any device.
As for accuracy I don't really have means to test it but I used Garmin GPS system to track the distance and counted the number of steps based on the average length of my step. There was only a very slight difference. I tried walking three different distances and with (heavy bag or a big heavy box) or without anything in my hand (wearing the bracelet) the result was the same. This wasn't the case though when I ran. (I moved less distance according to Vivofit).
Vivofit also sets a daily goal for you. This is actually quite a nice feature. Based on your average daily steps it will adjust the goal. I set my own goal around 7km per day. My goal on the device ranges from 9800 steps (when my activity suddenly drops a lot) to 12000 steps (when it gets higher). At the time when I was looking for such a device one had to manually set the goal and this one allowed automatic setting. This automatic goal setting allows the wearer to be progressively more active. (or at least in theory^_^)
Other feature that seemed handy for me at first is an inactivity bar. It has several stages. After first 2 hours of inactivity first bar appears. After after 15 minutes another bar shows up. To get rid of the red bars one just need to get up and move actively for about a minute (if the bar is all red). The bar does not fill while asleep.
The last feature I did not mention is sleep monitoring. Vivofit records your movement during sleep and distuinguishes light sleep stages from deep sleep stages and it also shows when one awakens. (this fairly works, when I was waking up I wrote down the time and then checked what the bracelet recorded). By browsing the data from this I found out that before major tournaments in Magic (or any other event that seems to put pressure on me) I do not enter the deep sleep state. I used to be awake the whole night before such events. Now I fall asleep. When I wake up though I do not feel refreshed or anything, just completely dead and feeling the same way I used to when not sleeping at all. This is most probably due to the fact that I do not enter the deep sleep stage during which the body regenerates. I also noticed that while lucid dreaming I wake up at the end of deep sleep stage. When I fall asleep again I go immediately to deep sleep again and the dream continues (unless I get up from the bed and then go back to sleep, in that case the sleep cycle starts at the beginning - light sleep). When I wake from a dream I'm fully awake and aware unlike when I wake up not remembering dreaming prior waking up. That's when I'm dizzy and my head aches and it takes time to adjust to 'being awake'.
Vivofit uses Garmin Connect to sync data and show them. The application works on Android and iOS devices. Synchronization via PC proved to be a bit complicated (but that might be due to the fact that Garmin Connect wasn't working the way it was supposed to in January and February). I only use iOS app now (it takes a while - a day sometimes - to see all the data from the pedometer for some reason, it either does not show on Garmin Connect site or in the app...that's why you don't see the Sleep data on the screenshot below).
I did not really talk about calories much. The reason is that the calories that it shows probably do not correspond to reality. It shows the non-active calories (basal metabolic rate) well I guess based on ones weight etc. but as for the active calories burned I have no idea. It probably shows more burned calories if one moves faster but after playing Pump it Up or ITG for two hours the calories hardly moved from the 1900 to 2100 I usually get. In that case the machine itself would tell me that I burned something in between 1500 and 2000 calories. Workouts can be added manually via Garmin Connect. This will add the calories burned (that who knows how are set). Anyway the only thing I managed to figure out out of the calories is this - when I reach over 2100 calories I'm hungry the next day. The day after it is back to normal unless I'm physically active once again.
Overal I like this device, it suits my needs and helps me monitor my activity and this way I can hopefully get a better sleep and keep myself active (and monitor my weight, which is a rather depressing thing to see^_^).
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