Electron Hut: Kyle Bedell’s Blog

A finalist at TechCrunch’s TC50 2008, the Fitbit has been a long time coming. A year after its debut, the wireless pedometer is finally shipping to the public! A few days ago, I received mine in the mail courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service. So, what makes the Fitbit different from a $10 pedometer you can buy at the store, you ask?

• Improved step and activity tracking (courtesy of a gyroscopic motion sensor, the same one in the Nintendo Wii’s controller)
• Sleep tracking (measures when you fall asleep, how many times you wake up, etc.)
• Wireless uploading to Fitbit.com through the included base station
• Rechargable battery (the Fitbit clips on to the supplied base station)

The uploaded data is sent to your personal Dashboard at Fitbit.com, which takes your information and turns it in to this (click to enlarge):

In addition, the Fitbit.com site also offers a  meal tracking system with a user-maintained database and the ability to manually record activities that the pedometer isn’t particularly good at figuring out (lifting weights, for example). You can sign up and use all of the manual features for free, even if you don’t buy a Fitbit tracker. For the more competitive folks, there’s even a friends-based Leaderboard for comparing statistics.

Speaking of the tracker, the build quality is excellent. Good plastics and a bit of metal for structural integrity. If you pry open the clip a bit, you’ll see a set of electrical contacts (for charging, initial setup, and firmware updates) lining both ends. One of the nifty things about this is that you can just push the clip over the top of the base station for charging, no need to worry about orientation. As far as buttons go, there’s just one on the back! It serves two purposes: flipping between the various trackable statistics (calories, steps, miles walked, and the fitness flower)…

…and toggling Activity Mode on and off (which allows you to track specific step/calorie/distance counts for a span of time and track sleep). The first three statistics will reset at midnight every day, but the flower shrinks and grows based on your recent activity level. It you’ve been sitting in your office chair for 4 hours, it will resemble a small weed. Climb to the summit of Everest and you’ll see a flower that fills the tracker’s screen.

So is it worth it? There’s a lot of subjectivity in reviewing a gadget like this. The Fitbit is only as useful as you make it. If you wear it all the time, keep it charged (mine’s been running for four days and it still has a 90% full battery), and make use of the information you get on your Dashboard, $99 is a steal for insight in to your exercise habits and sleep quality. If you leave it at home all the time, it’s a waste of money. My honest opinion? The automatic data uploading and “put it on and forget about it” usage model is perfect for me. It’s like I say:

The best technology is the kind you don’t realize you’re using.

If you’re interested in learning more about your sleep and activity levels, and the idea of automated data collection seems cool to you, the Fitbit comes with my highest recommendation.

One of my sister  Micaela’s journal posts really got me thinking (my emphasis in bold):

It’s so sad that nowadays we have to screen our internet lives in fear that respectable, reputable people might be insulted or think less of us because of them. I don’t care if my college, my employer, or even my Grandma can see photos of me on Facebook or read my user info. I don’t care if one of my friends stumbles upon my Deviantart account or that old Inuyasha fan fiction I wrote in 7th grade. My internet history is very telling to who I am as a person and how I have grown, and if I need to screen that.. then there’s something wrong with the way I live my life.

I think she has an excellent point; anyone who posts in a LiveJournal, has a Facebook or MySpace page, or countless other sites is almost writing an autobiography of themselves. An eternal archive of their stories, achievements, pastimes, and projects. Just a few examples:

• The first website I ever made in January of 1999
• Back in the early days of Palm OS, my friend Alex and I used to write little PIM apps and ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ type games. I guess they’re still floating around
• All of my angsty high school years in one compact LiveJournal
• Our old virtual UO/tabletop D&D group’s site

I’m feeling all nostalgic now…anyone else care to share some of their early internet works?