Fitness Tracker Test: Does Price Equal Accuracy?
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DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Mother of four and trainer at Camp Gladiator, Missy Cheatham, loves pushing herself and others.
"Personally, I feel great when I'm working out," said Cheatham, who wears a heart rate monitor during her work outs.
"For the one hour, tracking my heart rate and calories," said Cheatham.
She doesn't wear a fitness tracker but she wants one.
"Anytime I ask questions, I get such mixed reviews that I just have never committed," said Cheatham.
Cheatham agreed to be part of the CBS11 Consumer Justice Fitness Tracker Test to see if price equals accuracy. CBS11 chose three fitness trackers for the test at three different price points for all with heart monitors.
Here's how they stacked up:
The Fitbit Charge HR for $150. This tracker was more expensive but the most well-known brand.
The Garmin Vivo Smart for $72. This fitness tracker was our middle of the road price point but users must wear a separate chest strap for the device to monitor their heart.
The Xiaomi Mifit for $27. This was one of the most inexpensive trackers with a heart monitor tested but all of the instructions came in Chinese.
Professors at UT Arlington agreed to help CBS11 test the accuracy of each device when it came to measuring heart rate, calories burned, steps taken and distance. Cheatham wore each of the fitness trackers and a device that had to be strapped to her head and mouth.
"It's going to measure the oxygen she consumes, the carbon monoxide she expires and the heart rate," said Professor Mark Ricard. Cheatham ran on a treadmill for 12 minutes at 6 mph and each step was counted using a step counter and the metabolic analyzer tracked everything else.
Metabolic Analyzer Results:
Steps: 2,179 steps
Distance: 1.2 miles
Calories: 122 total
Heart rate: Generally stabilized around 154
Tracker Results:
Then CBS11 checked the app for each fitness tracker for their results.
Fitbit:
Steps: 2286
Distance: 1.23 miles
Calories: 163
Heart rate: 166
Garmin:
Steps: 2138
Distance: 1.6 miles
Calories: 110
Heartrate-It's not logged on the app so when we checked on the actual tracker it had gone down to 93.
Xiaomi:
Steps: 2256
Distance: 1.6 miles
Calories: 136
Heartrate-236
Takeaway
Garmin was the most accurate but you have to wear a separate chest strap and check your heartrate on the band in real time unless you go into the app and hit start activity before your workout.
Fitbit was by far the easiest to use and close to accurate in most categories except one. Fitbit was 33 percent off in measuring calories burned.
Xiaomi is a good device for $27 if you don't care about measuring your heart rate. The device was way off at 236 for the heart rate category.
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