Byebye lost Fitbit One

As I have long predicted, yesterday was the day I lost my Fitbit One somewhere in the teeming streets of London.

It's a great piece of technology, but the crucial flaw is that you can't wear it directly.

During the day, there's a plastic clip to slip it into, and then clip to a pocket, while at night you have to put it within a soft cloth bracelet.

Compared to a wearable bracelet design such as Jawbone Up, a pod monitor is just too easy to mislay.

So where does that put me? I had a Jawbone Up for six months before the sleep/active button broke, and I had a Fitbit One for six weeks before I lost it.

Clearly, I now need to buy a proper wearable monitor, but one that is more robust than the Up band.

But my options are limited as I don't like the Nike+ Fuelband and the Fitbit Force, Polar Loop, Larklife Lark etc isn't available in Europe yet....

Two weeks with Fitbit One

So the good news.

I haven't lost my Fitbit One yet, and week 2 saw more activity than week 1; something I can clearly see thanks to my handy weekly roundup email.

Indeed, my daily average was over the 10,000 steps recommended, although we know that as with other government recommendations, it's pretty much a random number.

What more impressive - for me at least - is that I did a 10km run during week 1 so I've clearly been more broadly active in week 2, although I have been travelling during part of the week so that will have a lot to do with it.

The only downside is my average sleep is down 40 minutes; again that's due to travelling.

However, in my even-running comparison between Fitbit One and Jawbone Up, there's been a big development. The Up band has stopped working.

Of course, this is after 6 months of use (compared to 2 weeks), so let's see how the One's operating in April 2014 (if I haven't lost it by then).

This also underlines a key issue with wearables. You have to be able to wear them all the time and they have to be robust and not easy to lose. 

First impressions of the Fitbit One

Fitbit's Flex bracelet fitness tracker ($99/£75) looks pretty interesting.

But now it's being replaced by the more advanced Force bracelet ($130) - something that's only available in North America.

That was the reason I ended up with the Fitbit One (£80).

It's a pod tracker that comes with a clip so you can attach it to your clothes during the day and a soft bracelet for sleeping.

As well as the small size, I'm also hoping the hard case means that it won't get trashed like my Jawbone Up.

Set up is fairly straightforward.

You have to install a small program on your PC or Mac, also plugging in the USB dongle that wireless syncs with the pod to make the first connection between the two.

Using the PC, you have to register and log into the web-based dashboard, which is where your stats are displayed. Fitbit One also supports iOS and some Android devices if you want to take the app approach. However, in terms of set up, it seems you need to do the initial set up via computer.

In terms of my first impressions, I like the way you can personalise the welcome message - mine says 'Ola Fita' - while the button you press to toggle sleep/awake mode seems much more robust than the poor old Up (which I am still using as a comparator by the way).

More, later...