New Simple, Long Battery Life, Clip Fitbit

[KimFu]

If we are trying to get people moving than Fitbit needs a Back to Basics model. The elderly or those who don't want to track sleep, heartbeat, gps, music and that sort of thing really need a quality basic model. This model should have Clip, lanyard option and the hook up for the bands. The step count accuracy of "Fitbit One" was very high. It has been my favorite out of all the fitness trackers I've had. I can't wear bands on my wrist, I never wear bracelets or watches. Those models had to be put in a pocket which was less than convenient. Here is what I am hoping for in a fitness tracker.

1.Accuracy in counting steps 2. Stair climbing counter 3. For the tracker to be small and clip comfortably to the middle of my bra. 4. estimated calorie burn 5. 2 week battery life like the fitbit One. 6. A button to click through the features quickly 7. The clip to come in various colors and at least one clip to be included with the purchase 8. a clock 9. waterproof for swimming

I also think that to improve any current models it would be amazing if we could go to our dashboard and shut off all the features we don't use to save battery life. 

Moderator edit: Clarified subject

[JEH1]

Hello @HikerJohn @and @Lovestofly 

My One is still with me but I know that can’t last forever, so I would love to hear how your Gamin and Bellabeat( never heard of that one!) work for you,

Do they track sleep? Can you set little alarms the way you can on the One?

Thanks!

[Lovestofly]

Yes, the Bellabeat does track sleep, and I can set alarms on it. I have one set for when I take my medication in the evening.

What makes it different from the one for me is that there’s no display screen on it I have to look at my phone app, and it does not do stairs. As I said above though, not doing stairs does not bother me as much as I thought it would. I can always look at the Health app on my phone to see how many stairs I’ve done, and really I am still encouraged to take the stairs so that I get the steps. 

Bellabeat is, primarily, for women although I can’t really see why someone else couldn’t use it. It is rather feminine looking as it can be used as a bracelet necklace or clip, but mine is always clipped and hidden under my clothing anyway

[YojanaFitbit]

Hi @Katekenn! Great suggestion, thanks for sharing your feedback. I've moved it into a similar request. Post a comment or click on the thumbs-up to show your support. You can also check our Fitbit Inspire™ Fitness Tracker with the clip option. In case that you have more questions about it, please feel free to post on the Product Help Forums: Inspire & Inspire HR board.

Have a good one!

[momice]

People want a SIMPLE clip-on like the One, that includes recording flights of stairs and we don’t watch a tracker that we have to pay an extra $20 for to make it a clip on. The Inspire is not what we want! I don’t need one with all the extras that the one did not have. The One IS THE ONE we want!

[stonelms19]

I found this in another post “Goodbye My Fitbit One”

it is abound replacing the battery to restore it to life as well as a source for batteries.  I have not done this yet, but if my One fails, I am certainly going to try it.  Of course it won’t work if I lose it.

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/One/Goodbye-My-Fitbit-One/m-p/3805079

[maryclaire3]

Thanks, Hiker John. I wish your wife luck with her new device. Still looking for that perfect device that tracks stairs and clips on... Oh, yeah, that would be the One.

[gmt18]

Yes, please make a clip on that tracks floors climbed, steps, calories. Improve on the fitbit one!  

[HikerJohn]

@YojanaFitbit It would be really nice if Fitbit staff could stop spouting the same tired corporate twaddle and actually, you know, listen to what customers are saying.

When people are saying over and over that the Inspire doesn't meet our needs, and you come up and suggest we try the Inspire, all it tells me (and I'm sure I'm not the only one) is that Fitbit not only isn't listening to its customers but it doesn't care what its customers actually want. You know, the corporate idea that you know better than I do what needs I have and how best to meet them.

You've already lost my wife as a customer, probably forever. When my One finally dies (and frankly the new software on my Android is so bad it might not even take that long) the chances are you'll lose me, probably forever. This thread is full of people who are putting out similar sentiments.

How about you stop drinking the corporate Kool-Aid and give us, the customers, a product that meets our needs?

[DevFixer]

You hit my points exactly although I want it on my pants pocket, I don't wear a bra 😛  

But I've had 5 One's so far since Feb 2013, I just had to use my last backup that i bought when #3 died on me, after Fitbit stopped making the One. I was lucky to get a 3rd party seller on a popular web store.  Well #4 just gave up, so i cracked open #5 and went to the same site and the One is still out there, but now selling for $350!  We want this device option. I wear a real watch and do not want this, will not wear a apple or android watch, mine are mechanical and styling not some lame LCD display. I will never use it to pay for anything nor ever want it to integrate to my phone to use other apps or messaging. keep that out of my sight, on my phone or in my wallet I will not ever use google pay, I carry a wallet and use a credit card or goodness... cash. Fitbit needs to stay with it's core competency and give us the One.

Also since i sit at my desk a lot, I don't want arm movements to count as false steps or if my hand is riding the rail in a stairway so it wouldn't count the steps or stairs properly, no thanks, on my pocket is where it belongs innocuous and non-descript and tracking real steps, where I don't even notice its there. Turning one of these other FB's into a pocket watch won't do, I want my steps and my stairs and in my pocket and not paying $200. I see the inspire you offer a belt clip, but it's not as cheap as it should be ($20 is an outrage when the wristband will not be used) or just included and also the Inspire does not do floors climbed so it's not an option and I don't care about my heartrate or sleep monitoring as I don't wear a watch to bed.

Once this One dies... unless fitBit listens to their customers and offers us a proper replacement I'll be moving on. FB helped me lose 135 pounds, and it will be a sad parting but without the option I want, i will go no further.

[NZLisa]

For those looking at the Inspire to replace their One - I have now test-driven the Inspire right next to my One, which is still functioning perfectly well after 7 years of continuous use.  I know it can't last forever and since my husband wanted a pedometer, I got him the Inspire and used it myself first, to compare against the One.

I wore it as a watch to begin with, even though I didn't think I would want to do so.  In fact, I didn't mind it at all.  It was comfortable and not too obtrusive, being relatively small.  However, what it WASN'T was accurate - it was about 1,500 steps less than my One, on about an 8,000 step average day.  It did not count steps at the grocery store, which really annoys me.

By then, my clip (which for us is $30 NZD) - which had been on backorder - arrived and I then wore them both clipped on my bra, side by side.  Hey presto - the Inspire was almost identical in count to the One.  

Big downside though - the Inspire has such tiny text font that I usually need my glasses to read it - big thumbs down.  

It doesn't count stairs, but if you want to stick with something clipped, there doesn't seem to be any choice out there.  

So, in summary, when my One dies, if I hear of a brand that does count steps while pushing a trolley, I might go with that, but otherwise, I will be wearing an Inspire - CLIPPED.

[Lovestofly]

I actually did the same thing, I bought the inspire and word as a watch for a little while while I was wearing my Bellabeat clip. I found it pretty good but a few less steps. Interestingly I have continued to wear it as a watch. Mostly because I love how convenient it is to get my text messages I know when my phone is ringing from my wrist. I never thought I would like wearing a tracker on my wrist however I do, I just wish I liked how it looked better. I think eventually I will move up to a fossil smart watch That will have the function of a Fitbit with the look of the watches I like. 

My biggest issue with the inspire us that it’s kind of glitchy. Sometimes it will not scroll properly, and sometimes the notifications stop coming even though everything is set up properly. These things happen randomly. 

I’ve been without floor counting for about six months now, I’ve gotten used to it. I’m still motivated to take the stairs because it gets me more steps and activity time. 

[HikerJohn]

The key thing for me, and the thing Fitbit seem determined not to hear as they keep pumping more of their corporate Kool-Aid, is that I don't want to spend $150 in order to get used to not having a feature that is important to me. I might as well pay $0 and get used to not having step counting either.

The way the market is supposed to work is that companies provide what their customers want. The way Fitbit seems to work is that they tell us what they think we should want and then ignore anything that suggests otherwise.

My wife has been using her new Garmin for a few days now and loves it. It's a watch-based thing. We ruled out Fitbit wristbands because they draw enough negative reviews to be concerned and our own experience is that quality control is appalling. We had four Charge models fail over the course of two years, all with the exact same problem, and Fitbit's "support" (using the term in its loosest possible sense) was little more than "sorry to hear that, would you like to buy another Charge?". So as far as my wife is concerned it's goodbye to Fitbit, probably forever. And for good measure a lower-spec Garmin comes in cheaper than a Fitbit watch, not much more expensive than an Inspire, and - get this - it actually does the things I want it to do. 

Since Fitbit clearly doesn't care about what its customers actually want, as evidenced by the total lack of useful response here and elsewhere, when my One dies I'll be saying goodbye to Fitbit, probably forever.

Over and out Fitbit. You can only ignore your customers for so long before they turn their backs on you.

[Lovestofly]

For sure, but it is what it is. Fitbit has made it clear that they will not be making something that lives up to our beloved One, as far as I can tell neither does anybody else. Unless I have the skills and technology to make my own tracker,  my options are limited. For the record I did not spend $150 on it, I got it on amazon on sale on Black Friday for $70 (I did not get the HR just the basic one, I have never tracked my heart rate and have no interest in it. I prefer perceived exertion. I have a very high resting heart rate and always have) 

I’ve discovered that not counting stairs really haunt really made a difference. I’m just sharing that for people that are considering it a dealbreaker. I thought it was too, turns out it’s not. The difference in a step count and activity from using the stairs versus escalators or elevators is enough to keep me using them even if I don’t see it on my tracker. 

[HikerJohn]

Yep, Fitbit has made it clear they don't care what their customers actually want because they know best.

For some people counting stairs might not be a dealbreaker. For me it is. If I'm going to drop counting stairs and just guess I might as well stop counting steps too - I can guess those just as well. With respect, I imagine people who figure they don't need stairs and want a clip-on device will already have figure out that an Inspire will work for them, even if only on a kinda-sorta basis.

For me the elevation gain is mostly about hiking in the mountains rather than taking stairs instead of escalators or elevators. I've got a few routes I like to hike that clock up between 100-250 flights of stairs equivalent and I want to see how many floors I've chalked up on a month by month basis. Sometimes I spend a big chunk of a day working on stuff in my house and multiple trips between the attic and the basement can rack up 50-60 floors in a day. If anything I'm more interested in that than in knowing how many steps I took going back and forth across the attic. 

I guess it would be nice if Fitbit could just cut to the chase and admit they don't care about customers like me. If they'd just come out and say "sorry, we have no interest in doing that" it would be so much more refreshing than having some corporate lackey trying to tell me the Inspire meets my needs when I've been about as clear as it's possible to be that the Inspire doesn't meet my needs at all.

I have to wonder why they even bother having threads like this one, when there's no sign of any official response other than stock answers that don't answer the questions people are asking.

[JEH1]

How very nice it would be to see the Inspire upgraded to a One!

[Lovestofly]

Yeah I totally don’t understand why you would say dropping stairs is like dropping steps entirely. Having a tracker makes me more active and move more. Although I would prefer that it tracked stairs, the fact that it doesn’t does not really change that. I still move more when I am tracking my steps. 

Anyway, for me it was definitely not a given that I would be able to make something that did not track stairs work for me, but I was willing to try because the Bellabeat was on sale and I needed something. To be honest when I got my Bellabeat, which does not track stairs, I did not think it would work for me and was very upset....it was the only reasonable non-watch option so I thought I would try. I have always loved tracking my stairs! Turns out I was fine without it…so that’s why am sharing. If it’s not helpful to you, ignore? 

Im no mountain climber, if I was I would definitely still want it. The few times a year I do go hiking I like seeing the stair count, but it’s not very often so I’m fine using my phone for that.

I do hope that Fitbit does eventually listen to to what we want and deliver. 

[Katekenn]

I’ve officially given up on Fitbit. I saw that Inspire can be clipped on and when I looked at the product, I decided to go with Inspire HR so I could occasionally check my heartbeat or wear it to check my sleeping efficiency. After trying it out, I didn’t like the wristband at all and only then found out that the HR can NOT be used as a clip on. I had a long online discussion with a Fitbit customer service rep and found that the algorithm is different used as a clip. If you have an Inspire, you can tell it that you’re using the clip, but the HR doesn’t give you that option - so the step count on a clip won’t be accurate. Nice to find out only after purchasing the product. 

After 2 different Fitbit clip ons, I’m giving up and returning this one. I might just go and look at an Apple Watch. 

[HikerJohn]

Lovestofly - you probably didn't get why I said dropping floors was like dropping steps because that's not what I said. I said that if I were to give up counting floors I might as well give up counting steps too. For my purposes I'd rather drop counting steps than counting floors, but it's about what metrics people want.

A hardcore fitness fanatic is probably more interested in their heart rate than in steps or floors. For me heartrate figures are a matter of occasional curiosity, like knowing how hard I'm working when I'm hiking in the mountains. Most of the time I don't care - I can gauge my pulse by putting my finger on my neck and counting.

I really don't understand why Fitbit would create a product that offers functionality, then take the functionality away while telling their customers that we don't need it. They took a nice neat product (the One), then turned it into something bigger with less functionality and acted like they were doing us a favor. Just for bonus points they threw in the twist the post above me mentioned, where it's less than clear that the Inspire HR doesn't even work with the clip. Awesome job Fitbit. 

On a positive note, at least customer service can't get much worse under Google's ownership.

[JenElls]

AGREED!  I moved to the Inspire (Using clip on) from the ONE because my One was starting to die QUICKLY (2 days), and was having difficulty syncing.  I do NOT like the Inspire!  The font is SOOOO Tiny I can't read it (Bifocals), the step count seems meh (Sitting at my desk, wearing it on my bra, I did 20 steps.  Yay me!)....  Bring back a ONE-esque!  Please!

[atljewell]

I'm a simple woman.  I want to replace my old Fitbit One with a similar product.  Basic clip-on that counts steps and stairs. Period.  

[JEH1]

Well said!

[KirinIncognito]

Since Fitbit does not provide repair services for their products.

As an owner of a dying Fitbit One, there is no equivalent option available in their product line.

The closest clip on tracker is the Inspire.

However, it does not have an altimeter and it's battery life is half of the One.

To further add insult onto injury, the clip for the Inspire is a separate accessory for purchase.

[LizFitbit]

Hi everyone, and thanks for sharing this suggestion. We’re very happy to let you know that this was released with the launch of the Fitbit Inspire last year, which has a clip, calories, screen, a variety of colors, step-count, a heart rate version and up to 5 days battery life. 

@KimFu, in recognition of your excellent suggestion, each of your votes will now count as 5 votes – you have the power! Thank you for sharing this idea, and thanks to all the voters and commenters for your enthusiasm which has now materialized for everyone’s benefit. We hope you all enjoy this new addition to the Fitbit product or service

[green_iis]

Anything that does not count flights of stairs does not give us what we've been asking for.  We don't want to lose any of the functionality, small size and reasonable price of the One.  If you don't get that you aren't listening to us.Sent from my Sprint Samsung Galaxy S8.

[JenElls]

Exactly, and my complaint was about the FONT size. If I can't read it,
what's the point?

Moderator Edit: Personal info removed