For those of you who have been subscribers for more than a few months you may remember
back to this past holiday season when I would not make a recommendation for a smart watch.
The reason for that was because I knew about three products that were in production that
got me really excited about them.
Two of those three are now available; The FitBit Charge HR, the FitBit Surge, and the
Apple watch which as of today is not yet available.
Today in this video I’ll give you a review of both of the fitbit products and why you
might want to consider them over the Apple Watch as well as give you a tutorial of how
to set it up.
Thats what you can expect next on PC Classes Online.
The first product were talking about today is the fit bit search this smart watch retails
for $249 I have been using this product for about one month and I found to be very comfortable
I have showered with it I have even gone into the ocean with it when I went on vacation
last month.
It captures information like your pulse, how many steps you've taken that day, how many
miles you've walked, how many calories you burned and how many floors you've climbed.
This information wirelessly syncs to your computer or smart phone see you can monitor
your progress.
The battery life on both the surge and the charge HR seemed to last between 5-7 days
and at the end of this video I’ll give you a trick to get the most out of the battery.
The second gadget were talking about today is the fit bit charge HR.
At $149, the charge HR is $100 less than its big brother.
It only has one button on the side which makes it the easier of the two to use.
It’s also significantly lighter and much easier to wear for those of you who wear long
sleeve shirts.
Differences between the two
The surge has built in GPS so for those of you who are runners you can record distance,
pace, and elevation.
Also while both devices can show caller ID, only the surge will also display incoming
SMS messages.
You can’t respond to these messages so you’d need to take your phone out of your pocket
regardless.
One really nice feature of the Surge is the ability to tell it exactly what kind of workout
you’re doing whether its yoga, weight lifting, or using an elliptical.
There were a three major down sides to both the surge and the charge HR that I wanted
to share with you guys.
This may be a deal breaker for some of you depending about what features you care about
as well as what kind of smartphone you own.
The first is that both of these require a proprietary charging cable so if you’re
on vacation and forget to pack it, you’ll either need to buy a new one or wait till
you return home.
The second downside is there is no way to export pulse information out of the device
either through the App or the fitbit website.
I myself have to see a cardiologist for an irregular heartbeat so this was a major disappointment.
And the third disappointing feature is that as of todays date no fitbit product will communicate
with the Apple Health App.
Now lets go over how to setup your fitbit.
Each includes a usb transmitter which is necessary for the initial setup, but not necessarily
beyond that if you choose to use your smartphone to sync the data.
After you’ve plugged it into your computer open your web browser and go to fitbit.com/setup
where you’ll answer a few simple questions, this will then prompt you to download the
Fitbit software to your Mac or Windows PC to finish the setup process.
Once you’ve done this be sure to download the FitBit App to your smartphone.
It’s actually pretty nice and you can also connect to your friends who also have a FitBit
through e-mail or Facebook.
You can challenge and help motivate each other to see who can be the most active in a day.
As of right now I only have one friend who is also on Facebook and has a fitbit so if
you’d like to add me to your list there will be a link to my Facebook profile in the
description of the video.
As I said in the beginning of the video I do have a heart arrhythmia so you’ll probably
end up beating me most days.
Earlier in this video I mentioned a trick to prolong your fitbit’s battery life.
Just go into the App and tap the “account” button at the bottom right.
From here tap on the device you own at the top just under your name.
From there scroll down a bit and turn off all-day sync.
This way your fitbit will only update when you launch the app so you will need to do
that on a regular basis.
Also from this screen you can setup a whole bunch of features like silent alarms.
This is great when you don’t want to wake up the person sleeping next to you.
You can setup call notifications, create a daily goal which can be based by the number
of steps, distance, calories burned, or floors climbed.
If I could only recommend one of these two products it would probably be the Charge HR.
It’s less expensive, weighs less, and still has access to most of the features of the
Surge.
If you’d like to purchase either of these products there are links to both in the description
of this video.
If you’ve enjoyed watching this video please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel.
That’s all for today everyone.
This is David A. Cox with PC Classes Online.
Class dismissed.