Fitbit Inspire HR vs. Mi Band 4: Best fitness tracker By CNET

So, if you buy a fitness tracker, there's probably one big reason why you do that? It's because you want to keep an eye on your fitness, your exercise and your steps. So, let's break down each of the things that these to track and see how they compare this is the Fitbit inspire HR with a heart rate tracker, and it's around a hundred dollars. Now I chose this top-of-the-line Fitbit because it's one of the most current models, but there are some higher-end models like the charge three, although they are not so recent, and they were released last year. This is the competitor. This is the Xiaomi me band four, and it costs around forty dollars in the US and I think it's going to present a little of a challenge to this guy. So, let's start with steps.

I've been wearing both of these trackers side by side for a couple of weeks to get a baseline reading of what they can. Both do. I think the Fitbit is slightly overestimating. The number of steps I take, whereas the knee band might be underestimating, based on previous metrics I've used from other fitness trackers other smartwatches and I just generally didn't feel like I completed 10,000 steps when the Fitbit told me I did, and then I felt like actually did more when I was wearing the band 4 anyway, regardless I was doing a little of chair dancing. To give you an idea of how the Fitbit overestimates I was just like jamming out and all of a sudden.

It said that I hit 10,000 steps, and I was like I haven't been walking I'm literally in my chair. Moving, so don't be, like me, don't chair dance, do your steps properly, and then you can still hit your 10000 and feel good about it. I did a couple of different workouts with both of these bands. At the same time, the first being an outdoor run and I have to say that the readings from both were fairly consistent when it came to the heart rate, so the maximum and the average was within a few BPM on board. So the variance wasn't huge there.

So I really liked that the splits were a little faster on the Fitbit ban on the band and the calorie count was a little different or should I say very different between the two I think the band was a little under and the Fitbit maybe was a little over regardless with the band telling me my calorie readout I couldn't eat a big lunch afterwards, the Fitbit I could go to town and go to the buffet. If I wanted to one thing that I found that was really frustrating when I was doing, my outdoor run was the screens okay, so the mad for has a beautiful, bright screen, but to inspire HR. While it looks great when you're inside as soon as you go outside- and you are in a situation where it's bright, you can't see anything and I turn the brightness up to its maximum I was running around, like literally on my run, doing a great lap and I just I couldn't see the screen. I was you know, trying to hold my hand over it. Didn't work.

I almost felt like I needed to stop by an umbrella check. My watch then throw the umbrella away and just keep running, because that's how frustrated I was that I couldn't see the screen during my workout. Both of these trackers have connected GPS. That basically means that you do need to take the phone with you when you go outside on a run. Otherwise, you won't be able to get that nice map of your route, as well as your distance information.

So let's talk about activities other than walking. The Fitbit has 15 activity types that it can track in terms of exercises such as yoga, Pilates swimming and running, whereas the band 4 only has six activity types which is not as great when it comes to tracking a variety of different workouts, but fortunately there is a generic exercise, type that you can use. If you do something that doesn't fall in with one of the preset categories that it already has when it comes to automatic workout detection, that is on the Fitbit. But it's only for a couple of different activities like walking, running or bike riding. The Bradford doesn't have workout detection automatically now the Fitbit it's pretty good, except that one time when I was on the bus doing my morning commute and I logged into the Fitbit app, and it said, Oh congratulate Shannon, completing your bike ride in a wet my bike ride on the bus, I, don't think, so it didn't quite get that right.

It must be very stressful bus ride because it said my BPM was like 86 beats per minute anyway. Don't know what happened there, but Fitbit has automatic workout detection me van for doesn't when it comes to the actual data on the app itself. I love how the Fitbit app gives you a full breakdown of what your heart rate zones actually mean. So it tells you if it's cardio or fat burn. You get the heart rate analysis on the band for in the fit app, but it's not as nice, and you just can't do as much with it or at least I couldn't interpret it as well as I could on the Fitbit.

App part of your health and wellness program is sleep because, yes, that's very! Very important, and both of these can track your sleep if you wear them to bed. I think the Fitbit takes this one, because the data definitely matched up more to my experience, and I'll tell you why, when you are lying awake in bed in the middle of the night, and you're staring at the ceiling, you're going I'm awake can I just go to sleep, please. What do I need to do? Do we need to count sheep in the morning when you check the apps? The bad fall was like this way. You got around 8 hours of sleep with zero minutes awake time, your! What seriously this, did it pretty good? This actually said: oh yeah, you were awake for an hour, I mean it didn't apologize already, think it's totally my fault, but at least I had an idea that this was much more accurate in tracking my sleep than this, the bad fall 10 track resting heart rate, so can to inspire H up, however, I have had some very interesting readings from the meet and fall, so I've been sitting on my desk go. Let's just take the resting heart rate reading sitting there, Bhutan photo wait for it to come on Oh 120 BPM, it's like I'm in a workout class at my desk, but then I'll do it again, and it will give me something: that's more normal, like 60 BPM, so I, don't really trust it when it does come to the resting heart rate reading, although when it comes to workouts, it seems to be fine, it gets it accurately.

On my run, it was giving me good reading, so I think just resting heart rate. It has a bit of a problem with this was giving me very good, resting heart rate readings as in consistent and normal, so not doing a workout on my desk readings. Both these trackers give you little prompts to nudge you along the way in making sure that you hit your step goals each hour or at least get you moving a little so on the move at four. It will give you a nudge and say you've been sitting too long. It's pretty accusatory like someone's coming up behind you and just you know, yelling at you, whereas the Fitbit is a little nicer, it will come and say: yeah you have a couple more steps left to go to hit your goal this hour.

Furthermore, it's like the supportive friend, even though the fit app, is not my favorite app to use, especially when you compare it to how great the Fitbit app is. You can sync the data from this to Apple Health, which is great. So if you don't like the fit app like me, you can just do away with it almost all together and sync it across to Apple Health, which is great Fitbit. Unfortunately, you're only going to be doing that in the Fitbit app. It does not sync to Apple Health, but then the band fool has a lot more redeeming features when it comes to things like the screen.

It is a beautiful color, AMOLED screen compared to the monochrome OLED on the Fitbit. Furthermore, it just looks so much more premium. Now these fans don't just track your fitness. They can also get some notifications from your phone and have a couple of extra smart features onboard, but they do it a little differently, so they can both work with iOS and Android and get things like text messages and call notifications on the band 4. There is a notification section that you can see all the previous ones that you've received until you clear them, which is nice, because I can often miss what comes through on the inspire HR, it just buzzes and then just peers.

These bands can also tell you the time which is a nice bonus and the band for it works. Ok when I've been testing it out over the past week, I've been raising it to wake and going nothing, nothing, nothing! Oh, there's the time. Ok! Thank you very much, whereas on the inspire HR it just pops up automatically, which is nice I like music, and if you do —, then you'll appreciate music, playback control, which is available on the band for to inspire HR. It doesn't give you anything like that. The band for is a little of a powerhouse.

So I've been wearing both of these side by side, as I've mentioned, and I'm, pretty sure that this is going to hit two weeks straight. No problem be inspired. Hr, however, died after one week and two days. However, that is pretty impressive, because what they say on the box is, it will only last up to five days. So the fact that I got pretty much seven, eight nine days out of it before it totally went.

Kaput I was very impressed. Battery indicators are kind of useful because then you need to know like when you need to charge on them, even for its nice and visible at the top of the screen. Great love it inspires HR turn it on okay, no battery indicator tap through nope, nothing bad scroll through some settings. Nope I'm cuffing there, either great tip for you press and hold the button to find the battery indicator. It took me a week to work that out, but I just wanted to share, because it's really helped me I like to be able to customize my fitness bands to my needs and a big part of that is changing out.

The watch face, so let me give you the bad news. First, the Fitbit only has a couple of different watch faces to choose from, and they're all kind of boring I mean they're, just not that exciting. The main band 4, though, has so many options to choose from and third-party ones. It's like a cornucopia of watch faces I feel like a kid in a candy store. It's great I love it.

Let's take a look at what's in the box with the Bank, for you get the tracker a band and charger, we be inspired. H R, you get the tracker a bound with two strap lengths and the charger. To inspire HR has a monochrome plan touch screen, while the band four has a color AMOLED touchscreen. They both have a heart rate sensor. The Fitbit is water-resistant to 50 meters, while the band 4 is rated at 5 ATM.

The Fitbit weighs 7 grams, while the been for weighs ten point six and both work on iOS and Android. Now it comes to the time when I need to pick a winner between these two, to inspire HR and meet band 4. This is a tough one, because I love the price of the meal and fall, but I love the actual fitness tracking on the Fitbit and the Fitbit app itself. So with that in mind for value for money, I'm going to pick the Java meat band for because it does a lot of what the Fitbit does. Maybe it doesn't do everything as well, such as sleep, tracking or resting heart rate, but if that doesn't matter to you, and you want sort of more of a hybrid of fitness tracker with some smart features and a beautiful color screen and a battery that lasts for two weeks, then this is gonna, be the one to get I really enjoyed wearing it and I.

Just think it gives you a lot more for your money than this does. But if you just want the straight-up fitness tracking features- and you love what Fitbit does this is a great Buy. Now there is another Fitbit that addresses a couple of the things that I had with the inspire HR, which is, namely the screen brightness and those notifications just disappearing into the ether. That's the charge 3, although I chose to compare the band 4 to the inspire HR rather than the charge 3, because this is the latest and greatest. The charge tree is a little more expensive, but it's at the end of its lifecycle now, and it was released in 2018.

So it's not the newest out there, and we're probably expecting a new charge any day. Now, if you want something a little more than just a basic fitness tracker, maybe something that's a bit more of a hybrid with Smartwatch and maybe check out this $80.00 amazed. If and if you want to find out more, you know where to click thanks, so much for watching I hope you enjoyed the episode and if you did give it a thumbs up, and please come back in two weeks when I will be comparing yet another expensive product to a cheap alternative to work out. If you need to spend more or less.

Source : CNET