Options: 7 Series

184 of 187 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars Excellent, easy to use blood pressure monitor, January 26, 2011
By P. Smith (Northeast) See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME) This review is from: Omron Bp652 seven Series Blood Pressure Wrist Unit (Health and Beauty)
Buyer review from the Vine™ Program () I was excited to be able to review this product as I have high blood pressure and searched for many years for an easy to use, correct monitor. Years ago, the best I could find in the marketplace were upper arm, clunky auto blood pressure monitors that were hard to use and made wild, varying results. The Omron Bp652 is an unbelievable leap forward for correct and exact home monitoring of one’s blood pressure via a wrist monitor. I of course have to state at the beginning of this review that if you have hypertension, you have to be under a doctor’s care and this product doesn’t replace a physician’s care, but, it’s a great tool for monitoring at home how well your meds are , or aren’t, keeping your blood pressure under control.

To test the accuracy of this monitor, I took it with me to my doctor’s office. My physician calculated my bp as 120/81. Minutes afterward, I used the Omron which gave a measurement of 121/83. That’s remarkably close to my physicians bp measurement. Now, I wanted to look at how exact the Omron was, i.E. Were some number of measurements taken back to back close? Yes they were! Three back to back measurements by the Omron that night were 116/79, 118/81 and 118/82. Those measurements point to a high degree of precision. In my restricted testing that day, the Omron appeared to be very correct and exact. I was impressed.

I think the reason for the Omron’s excellent measurements is in big part caused by the superb information enclosed with the monitor in conjunction with excellent technology built into the monitor itself. Good sketches and descriptions are given of how and where to properly position the monitor on the wrist. Then there’s the great Heart Sense technology the Omron employs. For best results, the wrist should be at heart level, or in the “Heart Zone”. To guide the user to this Zone, the monitor uses a system of orange and blue lights. If the light is orange, you’re outside of the Zone or aren’t wearing the monitor properly and will get an erroneous reading. If the monitor is being worn properly and the wrist (with monitor) are placed inside the Heart Zone, a blue light will come on and the cuff will begin inflating. At the beginning of using this monitor I had a bit of trouble finding the right position to wear the cuff on my wrist and I also had problems finding my Heart Zone. But the orange/blue light system led me quickly to the correct way to wear the monitor , then position my wrist relative to my heart. It was a really interesting experience. When the Omron indicated (by the orange light) that everything wasn’t best, I didn’t get good readings. But when I got it right and the blue light popped on, the results stunnedly correct and exact as evidenced by the data I gave earlier. It is really a easy procedure, dummy evidence (I may be one so I should know!) and fast.

I really like this bp monitor and could greatly recommend it to anybody with blood pressure issues. High blood pressure is an insidious but serious sickness able of killing over time, and it needs to be monitored. The Omron Bp652 is a great home partner for the control of hypertension. And it also needs to be mentioned that the Omron will pick up an irregular heart beat and report that to the user valuable. If the pulse is regular, having the pulse rate calculated is convenient as I also suffer from tachycardia (an strangely fast heart rate) so I can do different actions at home and give my doctor feedback on my heart rate.

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45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars Fast, Convenient, movable, February 3, 2011
By Mr. Fred (Honolulu, Hawaii) See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE) This review is from: Omron Bp652 seven Series Blood Pressure Wrist Unit (Health and Beauty)
Buyer review from the Vine™ Program () The Omron wrist blood pressure unit is exactly what I wished it to be: easy to use, convenient, and most of all, quite movable.

Taking a reading is very simple and the fitted guidance system leads to no fail correct readings. You put the unit on your wrist, orienting it as shown in the directions (and a little picture on the unit itself). An orange light comes on; you fold your arm across your chest, and when the correct position is reached, a blue light comes on and the unit begins its operation. It’s possibly twice as fast as the discount store arm unit that we have, and of course so much smaller and lighter. While I did not benchmark exact readings, the wrist unit and the arm unit usually agree inside some points; since blood pressures differ all the time, I deem the accuracy good, surely good enough to tell you now if your blood pressure is too high or possibly too low.

Unlike the arm unit, the wrist unit stores up to 100 readings for each of two people. The only lack here is that the readings, as far as I can tell, can not be downloaded to a computer for review and storage. As well, setting the time and date is easy enough but requires elimination of the battery cover; I judge this a minor bother as it is something you will not have to do frequently.

All of this is great, but better is that the unit slips virtually unnoticed (in size and weight) in a briefcase or purse, and you may be able to take a reading just about anywhere and everywhere. Many of care clearly went into the design.

This product is easy to recommend. If you already have an arm unit, it is a great supplement but if you have still to purchase your 1st unit, this is the only one you may want to ever need.

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48 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of five stars Good blood pressure monitor, January 26, 2011
By Bass Cadet (California) See all my reviews This review is from: Omron Bp652 seven Series Blood Pressure Wrist Unit (Health and Beauty)
Buyer review from the Vine™ Program () As someone with borderline hypertension, sometimes measuring my blood pressure is vital. I have been using the Microlife 3AX1 4U Premium Wrist Blood Pressure Monitor with Dot Matrix Technology for some number of years. It’s reasonably correct and easier to use in comparison to a manual blood pressure cuff.

The Omron blood pressure monitor is a alike design to the Microlife. They’re both wrist monitors that use the oscillometric measuring technique. The Omron is more convenient in that it guides the user to the correct arm position. The Microlife requires the user to set the arm in the standard position but doesn’t supply any guidance.

Some differences between the two are the Omron takes measurements from low to high while the Microlife typically takes three measurements and, like most other monitors, goes from high to low. The three measurements are meant to offer a more correct averaged reading, but it does take over three times as long.

The low to high measurement is especially convenient and useful. That means there’s no delay waiting to inflate the cuff , then waiting for the cuff to deflate while listening to the blood flow sounds/tapping. For people with elevated blood pressure, this also means no have to have the monitor inflate, waiting for sound, , then re inflating above the original pressure.

The Microlife is more sophisticated, has fitted charts, and comes with software and an interface for connecting to the computer. The charts show trends and display more info than the Omron. For many people, this and the three reading averaging can be more useful, but I favor the simpler and faster Omron.

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Color: Black/Blue

381 of 390 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars Life changing gadget, October 9, 2011
By Liora Hess (Atlanta, GA USA) See all my reviews
(REAL NAME) () This review is from: Fitbit Wireless Activity/Sleep Tracker, Black/Blue (Health and Beauty) I bought the original Fitbit (now called the Fitbit Classic) only to have the company roll out the Fitbit super a couple of days afterward. The overlap between the two devices has given me a great opportunity to experience both and know what is different about this one.

How both Fitbits Work: You have some choices on where to wear the Fitbit (typically waist, pocket, chest pocket or bra), and you keep that Fitbit on you for 24 hours. There is another part that may be attached to the Fitbit if you have thicker clothing on in order not to spread the Fitbit separately too far and damage it. Every time you are inside 15 ft range of your WiFi base station plugged into your computer, the Fitbit tries to upload your data. After an upload it then does not attempt again for another 15 minutes. You may be able to force an update by putting your Fitbit really on the base. This is the way you charge the Fitbit.

Speaking of the charge, it’s fast and lasts days, maybe weeks. Many decide to charge the Fitbit in the base while they are in the shower. Since I work at the computer, I just take it off once a day or so and rest it in the base till I am prepared to get up and go do something.

I should also talk about installing and pairing the device is hassle free. The information are clear. You download the software from their website. Pairing the device with the software on your computer is a part of cake. It is also easy enough to do if you have a substitute Fitbit you are installing. Just right click on Account Setup in the system tray, and the Fitbit guides you through the fast procedure.

What will the Fitbit super do? The Fitbit super is a correct step counter. It also shows calories burned and distance walked. There is a cute (not too girly, guys) flower that you make “grow” the more activity you do. And it tracks your sleep. You have a little Velcro wrist band (perfect size for women and men) with a pocket. At night, you slip the Fitbit into the pocket and press and hold the button, which puts the Fitbit in sleep mode. You have an option between normal and sensitive setting, adjustable from the website.

The sleep somethed I thought could be kind of gimmicky and not really that vital to me. Boy was I wrong. I really enjoy seeing how many times I wake up throughout the night and if there is that common 90 minute cycle of sleep reflected or if I barely moved at all. On the website, this info is reflected as a sleep efficiency . Now, it is not very correct, because Fitbit does not know the difference between your lying there still and your being asleep. But, you will most likely realize soon that if you are lying there, reading a book, just move your hand each one in a while. Afterward, in the morning, you may be able to change your sleep times through the website to cut off any needless activity at the beginning.

What is Fitbit Not Good at? It is step oriented, so that means it is not going to precisely record your use of an elliptical machine, Pilates, weight lifting, rowing machine, swimming (don’t get it wet!) or anything else that does not result in a common stepping motion. But, you may be able to manually record these actions on the website, and it’ll overwrite the data for that time period.

New to this version:
It will also count stairs climbed (hills count) and translate those into floors. It is just another way to challenge yourself. On the website you may be able to earn badges for how many stairs and floors you have climbed. The site also gives you interesting little messages about what that climbing equals, like “you’ve just climbed the world’s tallest snowman,” and if you are the inquisitive type, you may be able to click the message to learn more.
You’ve got a clock! Since I nearly generally have a phone on me, I underestimated how much I goed to take pleasure in this feature. It is so much easier and to just press a button at your waist and look down to see the time.
There’s a stopwatch. Training for a race? Just trying to defeat your last times? You may be able to use the stopwatch to record an activity.
Righty and lefty friendly. I am right handed, but I like to wear the Fitbit at the left side of my waist. The words were backwards, but I learned that through the website I could change the direction of the words.
Give it a name. You have eight characters to input a name or another information. That is not enough for a full phone number with area code. But, you if you search the Internet for “short email address,” there are some email address services that could fit that 8 character allotment and let you to forward any email to your regular email address. This may come in useful if you (heaven forbid) were to lose your Fitbit.
Friendly little chatter. So you are sitting on the sofa and you realize you may want to really get up and move your body. You stand up, and a blinked message catches your eye: GO GO GO or Hello! or I like you. You are bonding already, and the feeling is mutual. And if it is not, you may be able to disable this from the website. You may be able to really disable any of the features you do not want to see on your Fitbit.

With either variant of the Fitbit, you get a great website with lots of features to keep you busy. Track your nutrition, particular actions (like swimming, weight lifting or yoga) that are not reflected well on Fitbit (you can not expose it to water). Monitor your weight, blood pressure, glucose, fat, and more. With the free variant, you have one customizable tracker also. Wanting more motivation, you may be able to upgrade to their Premium plan for 50 bucks a year and get more in depth records on how you compare against your peers, your records over time, unlimited number of customizable trackers, and my personal favorite the Trainer. The Trainer looks at your history and devises a plan to gradually increase your activity. It is just a slow, steady increase that you will barely notice at all, and over time, they are the types of changes that last. After a week, the Trainer noted I exceeded its plan for me, so it asked me if I wanted to ramp up a little faster. I loved the choice!

If you are debating, I will tell you this. The device has made me more aware of my activity (or inactivity) and pushes me to do more. It becomes rather addictive to hit those marks and have those successes daily. I am moving more and losing weight. I am drinking more water, as that is also tracked on the website. Fitbit just makes you more aware overall. I do not think money is ever wasted if it makes you more active and healthy and you use whatever it’s you purchase (be it a gym membership or a Fitbit).

If you have a now Fitbit Classic and are wondering if to upgrade, I will tell you that I am pleasantly surprised by how much I like many of the features. Many things I felt that I could take or leave ended up being my favorite like the clock. Also know that the color of blue in the Fitbit super isn’t the same as the sort of teal color of the Fitbit Classic. It is not better or worse, but different.

In summary, I greatly recommend this Fitbit super, if you are new to Fitbit or considering upgrading. It is well worth the money. Meanwhile, you do not have to own a Fitbit to be able to use the website. If you are on the fence, why not join the website and start recording things like your weight and get active in the Community forum? That will get you a feel for how things work and how Fitbit may be life changing for you also.

P.S. If/when you do take the plunge, I greatly recommend ordering this inexpensive lanyard Safety Leash for Pedometer (1) Unit. Helps Save Pedometers From Loss and Misplacing and Not Lose Them While Running or Walking and Exercising. Too many users have horror stories of losing their Fitbits, drowning them in toilets and oceans, etc. Both things work well together and supply peace of mind.

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97 of 99 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars The centerpiece of your strength gadgets, October 18, 2011
By Gaz Rendar (Chicago, IL USA) See all my reviews This review is from: Fitbit Wireless Activity/Sleep Tracker, Black/Blue (Health and Beauty) I have been a Fitbit user for two years now and convinced some number of people to purchase Fitbits and join my social strength group. The new Fitbit super is a small upgrade over the old Fitbit, and as such, does not warrant replacing your old Fitbit with the super variant. But, the super is still a 5 star product when used properly. If you already have a heart rate monitor and a GPS unit, the Fitbit can become the center of your active world.

I’ll start by saying that nobody “needs” a Fitbit. It’s a luxury item. If you are active, and goto the gym on a regular base, and do a decent job watching what you eat, this device may not seem useful. I have also had lots of people defiantly tell me that they just need a cheap pedometer that costs 1/10th the price of a Fitbit plus a journal and they can get the same functionality. To a degree, these statements are all true. The power of the Fitbit resides in its simplicity and social networking, but it is hard to completely appreciate without using the device for two weeks. Once you are aware of what the Fitbit gives, though, you may be able to never go back.

INSTALLATION
There are minimal information included with the Fitbit. Luckily the install is rather simple. Goto the Fitbit web site, create a user name and login for yourself, download and install the driver, plug in the USB charging stand and you may want to be prepared. You will have to place your Fitbit onto the charger when prompted to get a pin number that identifies your Fitbit with your user name, but the complete procedure only takes about five minutes.

HARDWARE
The Fitbit super looks and feels the same as the original bit (you can get the plum accent color, though). There’s only one button on the device and a small OLED screen. The screen has a sharp, nice blue hue and is bright enough to read in all conditions except broad daylight. The button is nothing cool, but has a hard enough click for my taste. I guess you may be able to say that the Fitbit has a hinge, but it only opens some degrees, which is enough to clip the device directly onto a bra strap or that little coin pocket on a pair a of jeans. A belt clip attachment is included to situate the Fitbit on belts of most thicknesses. There’s also a USB charging stand that doubles as the wireless data base and a soft wrist strap for wearing your tracker while you sleep. The Fitbit is lasting, but the one thing it can not handle is water. Clearly, you can not swim with it, but I have had friends of mine wear their bits in their bra strap underneath a shirt and fleece on a cool fall day, work up a sweat, and have their Fitbits die caused by the greatly wet environment inside their shirt. Its good throughout a gym workout, just be cautious if you are keeping it contained in a non breathable place while sweating.

PERFORMANCE
At its core, yes, the Fitbit is an costly pedometer but a greatly correct one. I have counted 150 steps in my head many times and it was spot on. I have used a PreCor elliptical that told me I went 2873 steps and the Fitbit told me I went 2870. That is quality. Distance accuracy can get close to 5 error, but only if you calibrate your walking and running stride lengths in your profile settings (calibrate by measuring off 50 feet, walk the 50 feet and count the # of steps, divide the 600 inches by your number of walking steps. Repeat two more times and take the average. Do the same for running). Otherwise your distance may be off by 20. The Ultra’s major difference from the last model is that it keeps track of flights of stairs. In a three step ranch house, walking up and down the three steps eight times in a five minute period did not seem to register as a flight or two. But, when I have gone up five consecutive flights all now it does seem to be pretty correct. As long as you keep the Fitbit clipped to your waist/pocket regions or bra strap, it looks to be good. The super also has a stopwatch function, but looking down to my waist, hitting the button and trying to see the timer was not really practical throughout a run. Just wear a watch instead. , the sleep tracking works well, but I find it to be some an annoyance. If you want to wear the soft wrist strap and keep track of your sleep efficiency, it’ll certainly assist you. But after two weeks I found that I was such a sound sleeper that I did not want to deal with the two minutes of set up time to find the wrist strap and put it on. Instead, I now just start the sleep timer when I crawl in bed and put the Fitbit on my nightstand. When I wake up, I hit stop. This way it still gives me a smart idea of how many hours I am sleeping per night. It is helped me realize that if I average under 6.25 6.5 hours of sleep per day for a week, I feel terrible, but if I am over that mark, I perform better throughout the day.

WEBSITE
Simply sitting near the wireless base while your computer is on will upload the data from your Fitbit (it takes seconds to upload all data) for analysis into 5 minute, binned increments. Meaning, it keeps track of all the steps you take from 7:30 7:35 , then 7:35 7:40, and so on.For 24 hrs a day, up to seven days. You don’t have to charge the Fitbit on the base for it to move data. My battery lasts about 6 7 days with normal use, and I only have to leave it on the charger for 30 minutes to go from low battery to full.

Once the data are uploaded to the web site (it all happens automatically, you do not have to hit any upload buttons), they’re prepared to be analyzed. There’s many of data to mine through, but the web site is organized and available. Just by looking at your day’s 5 minute bins, you may be able to generally recognize where you walked from the parking garage to your office, where you walked to the far conference room, how many times you walked to the bathroom, etc. For me, once I saw my sedentary daily life, the Fitbit helped me break my lazy behavior. Once you are keeping track of your life stats, anybody with a shred of competitiveness will want to enhance on them. The Fitbit drives you to walk to the far bathroom instead of the once close to your desk. When you get home from work and see that you only have 5000 steps it compels you to goto the gym for 5000 more, particularly if you see that you have only been averaging 7,000 steps a day for the past two weeks.

The last incentive for to get a Fitbit is for the social parts. I am not a social web site kinda man, but here is an example where the social connections seem right. You may be able to invite friends to your profile, and based on everyones’ privacy settings, you may be able to see their daily stats. The web site makes a complete leaderboard section where you may be able to compare yourself to your friends and the Fitbit community as a whole. The company also has redesigned the web site some number of times in the past two years. Now you may be able to track your lifetime steps (I have over 3.5 million so far), flights, and distance. There are badges that you may earn (think accomplishments for xbox games) for objectives like 10,000 step days.

The site also keeps track of manually inputted data. I enter my weight every day and it has kept those numbers for over a year. It is more valuable, and powerful, to see your weight loss over the course of months and years instead of just day to day. And it’s all automatically graphed for you after you enter the numbers. There are tracking tabs for glucose, heart rate, blood pressure, and custom groups that you may create. The last tracking choice is food, and it’s very complete. The web site has a big log of foods and their calorie contents, just start typing “hamburger,” and alternatives for generic hamburgers, McDonald’s, Bob Evans, Wendy’s, In N Out and LOTS more will appear from a drop down list. You may be able to create favorites for 1 click logging, which is convenient if you have the same bag lunch a couple times a week. It does take awhile to log everything here, so I rarely use the food track feature, but it much there if you want to take benefit of it.

CONCLUSION
You do not have to get a Fitbit. It’s a toy, a gadget, a luxury. But, it does its job very well. You still have to have the right mindset to use the device, though. If you have NEVER worked out and dont have interest in doing this device will not yell at you like a personal trainer will. But if you have many motivation, a weak kindling fire, and possibly have to be a bit more economical to get you moving more and more, the Fitbit will certainly help. More if you have friends with Fitbits so you may be able to challenge yourselves on the leaderboards. Once you get used to mindlessly putting it on everyday like I have, it simply becomes part of your life. Tracking your stats for your life is very useful and can not completely be appreciated till you wear this device for two weeks. After those two weeks, attempt giving this little gadget up.I doubt anybody will be able to unclip it from your jeans coin pocket without a fight.

I hope this review was useful if you have been on the fence about purchasing one, but in general I feel like this is a 5 star product.

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82 of 91 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of five stars in general pleased, but stairs do not work Update 12/14/11, October 19, 2011
By boothmeg See all my reviews () This review is from: Fitbit Wireless Activity/Sleep Tracker, Black/Blue (Health and Beauty) I received my fitbit last Thursday and tried it on Friday after charging.

I have a bodymedia armband and I love it for the info it gives, but I wanted to attempt out the fitbit and see if I can get comparable data without the monthly cost or constant contact with my skin.

So far the fitbit is pretty close to the armband. The sleep is pretty close (the 1st day the real sleep number was exactly the same between the fitbit and the bodymedia).

The fitbit does read a little low on the calories and steps compared to the bodmedia, but that is better than reading too high. At least I work harder and hopefully burn more calories, but it is close enough where I get useful and efficient info.

Here are many comparisons:
Date (steps) Fitbit BodyMedia
10/14/2011 9457 10609
10/15/2011 6678 7523
10/16/2011 10673 12024
10/17/2011 16804 14179
10/18/2011 5724 6159

Date (calories) Fitbit BodyMedia
10/14/2011 1845 2285
10/15/2011 1828 2303
10/16/2011 2113 2567
10/17/2011 1933 2588
10/18/2011 1642 1958

Date (sleep) Fitbit BodyMedia
10/14/2011 5hrs 4min 5hrs 4min
10/15/2011 3hrs 56min 6hrs 14min (may be how I started counter on fitbit)
10/16/2011 5hrs 8min 5hrs 37min
10/17/2011 4hrs 59min 5hrs 21min
10/18/2011 4hrs 57min 4hrs 48min

So the data isn’t right on, but not that far off. Particularly considering this is lower in cost (initial buy price and no monthly fee) and does not have to read your real body measurements/parameters.

It is nice that the Fitbit is so small and unnoticeable. It does not get in my way and it does not bulge like the armband does. I have had my bodymedia armband for some years now and up till newly I did not seem to have an issue. But, recently the armband leave my skin irritated.

Another positive about the fitbit is that the display allows you to see the steps, calories, activity (love the flower) without having the synch it to a PC. I love seeing my data live, during the day. I can change my actions if I see I am low.

My only problem is that my stairs aren’t working. Hence, the three stars.

No matter how many stairs I take, the stairs continually show “0.” Not motivating to see that message. I have four floors at work that I take and one floor in my house (to get from the major level to my bedroom). So I am inquisitive to see how many stairs I take and see how much that influences if I take them more frequently.

I sent an email and Friday and heard back on Monday with a question for my fitbit email info (I had sent them an email from a separate email). I had not heard back and sent them another email to see if they received it okay. They did write back today, but with the answer that this is a recognized issue.

This is the part that disappoints me, if it is a recognized issue should not it have been resolved before sending the units out???

I do not believe it affects everyone as I have seen posts on the fitbit community site where people discuss how many stairs they log (It sounds like a neat feature and majority of people seem happy with it, when it works).

So now I am just waiting to hear back on why my stairs are not logging and when (or if) it may be fixed.

12/14/2011 Update:
I’ve been working with the fitbit team (Farrah is awesome). She helped me out and communicated back and forth till I got my substitute (yah!). Excited to have working stairs, it’s a pretty awesome feature and is a motivator to take the stairs more frequently. It’s fun to see what I have “climbed” depending on the altitude I have climbed on the stairs! Not only did the team replace my unit, they worked to learn what happened to make my last unit stop. This is appealing feature in a company, mistakes or issues will happen. I think how they handle issues is what defines a good company. The fact that they want to take the time to figure out what happened and be sure it does not happen again, is pretty cool I believe.

The reason for four stairs after having a completely working unit was the sleep feature. This is only because I am comparing it against the bodymedia armband. The extra effort to set the start/stop frequently makes me skip the sleep feature, whereas the bodymedia automatically registers the sleep. That is my only con (but that is comparing to the bodymedia). Otherwise, their sleep feature is pretty neat (when I take the time to start/stop it).

11/2/2011:
An update to ranking caused by disappointing buyer service. Still have an issue with the stair logging. When I wrote this issue on their help and support forum, they gave an email to contact saying to get a substitute.

When I wrote the support email they said it is a recognized issue (after a week) and that the projected fix availability is not recognized. Irritated with the discrepant responses from different departments inside the company and that they still post on their help and community forum to write their support email for a substitute (which did not happen after writing their support email).

If you read their community forum for help and support, some users have issues with their stair logging. Just a note: they do say their stair logging doesn’t work on stair machines or machines. It has an altimeter that reads altitude change so it’ll only log when you CLIMB an real staircase. It’ll not log when you descend an real staircase.

I tryed to be patient, but after 19 days I am a little fed up with their buyer service. I hoped to attempt this out and get many for family and recommend to friends, but not sure now.

When you purchase something depending on features, you expect those to work or many sort of resolution. It is nearly been three weeks and still no resolution.

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