Hmm

[telophase]

I washed my Fitbit today.






The Fitbit is a fancy pedometer with the same sort of tech that the Wii uses to measure your motion. I managed to forget to unclip it from my bra before throwing it in the wash today.

It tracks various things--I'd have posted the Steps Taken graph instead except that the Calories Burned graph is more colorful. :D (It also thinks I climbed 4 floors during the time in the washing machine. Toby and I find what it tracks as floors amusing.)

I have high hopes of it surviving - as you can see, it was in contact with the base station and updating through its trip, and as I buried it in dry white rice to sit overnight and dry out, the display flashed at me like normal. Poking about on the intartubes reveals that it's a bit more likely to survive a trip through an high efficiency machine like we have than a normal one. Fingers crossed!

Comments

[matildarose.livejournal.com]

This fitbit thing looks great, but the one star reviews talk a lot about the bad customer service. Has your experience been good so far?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Well...I got one a year and a half ago, from Amazon. It bricked after almost a month, and when I reported it, it took them several days to get back to me and when it didn't respond after I did what they asked me to do, they said as I'd purchased it from someone else via Amazon, they could do nothing more. I sent them a nasty letter, as Amazon has a 30-day return policy and it was now 31 days, due to their inefficieny at getting back to me. Luckily, after I sent that email I tried a customer service email with Amazon, and they agreed to take it back and refund my money even though it was past the deadline.

Fast-forward a year. I've still been wanting one, as I loved it for the 3 weeks before it bricked. And Toby was considering one, too. So we went ahead and bought Fitbits, from Best Buy this time. And they've performed well.

So: excellent customer service, provided you order directly from the company and not via Amazon. People report that the company has replaced their Fitbits after washing them, and after simply losing them, and I think the lag problem in replies may be fixed now, as people don't seem to be complaining any more. (Last year, they were backed up with support email--they'd mentioned it on the forums.)

I considered the BodyBugg, but it requires you strap it on your arm and it'd be visible and I didn't want to talk to people about it all the time. There were a couple of similar things at Best Buy, but they were more expensive than the Fitbit, so we just did that.

I feel vaguely like a traitor buying another one after sending them that nasty letter. It was very nasty!

[matildarose.livejournal.com]

I think they may, if they think anything of it at all, see it as a sign that they've improved. XD

[matildarose.livejournal.com]

Also, the reason I asked is that I like the idea of something that tracks me as I go, just so I can see how many calories I spend at, say, work, instead of manually putting it in and trying to average down.

Plus there's a game aspect to it that might make me exercise more. STEPMANIA.... MANIA

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Quite often we'll look at it before bed, realize there's only a couple of hundred steps to the next milestone, and leg it around the house in circles until it ticks over. XD

[lady-noremon.livejournal.com]

I hope it is alright! Though I am amused that it decided you were walking up stairs.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

It works! Woo! It goes by altitude for stairs, and assumes that 10 ft in altitude equals one flight. So I guess all the foot increments up and down it got in tumbling in the washer tripped it!