Nike FuelBand vs Fitbit charge comparison

If you are looking for an activity tracker which can motivate you to workout, you might get confused by a number of cool items from different brands out there. The most important thing you should concern when choosing a new device is not how modern it is but how suitable it is to you and your daily activities. Let’s make a comparison among Nike’s and Fitbit’s items, the two popular brands of fitness trackers.

 

As the early company introducing the wearable activity tracking device, Fitbit has become a popular name among many fitness technology companies and the word “fitbit” is also often used to call this kind of gadgets in general. Fitbit has released many versions of fitness trackers and the most popular items are Fitbit Charge 2 and Fitbit Charge HR.

Despite launching after the first-ever Fitbit’s, Nike+ FuelBand has attracted many people by the cool Fuel Point – the new metric to measure people’s activities, and became a big competitor of Fitbit.

In this article, we will focus on pointing out the similarity and difference, as well as the good and bad side of Nike FuelBand vs Fitbit Charge and other Fitbit’s version on each feature and aspect.

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Battery life

Both Nike FuelBand vs Fitbit make a good impression of battery life, compared to other wearable devices.

Many customers feel satisfied to use the fitbit all day and night and only take off the item to charge 30 mins while they take a shower. Battery can last for 2 – 3 days for Fitbit Charge HR and even 5 days for Fitbit Charge 2 .

Although Nike claims that the tracker could stay charged for up to 4 days, some users also confirm they can use their bands during 7 days, which is the similarity of Nike Fuelband vs Fitbit Surge. It seems like you will never have to worry about the battery of these gadgets.

Tracking accuracy and goal setting

To compare Nike Fuelband vs Fitbit, the Fuel Point gains a great point for Nike. At first, many users enjoy the way Nike combines all factors such as steps taken, calories burnt, hour won and kilometers run into one single unit. Although we do not know how exactly the tracker calculates its score, we can easily monitor our activities, set and break our daily goals. We can also share the goal with friends through the group.

However, Nike should improve the tracking accuracy of these items. Some Amazon users claim that the tracker is not accurate while it calculates the score based on arms’ movement. Therefore, it has a limitation on the types of activities to record. Nike FuelBand works very well with running and Jumba, but it cannot track some hold-hand activities like cycling or horseback riding.

Fitbit, on the other hand, can deal with many other daily activities and give you the detailed monitoring. For example, Fitbit Charge HR can detect the changes in elevation and monitor the move when you are climbing stairs. Besides, you can also manually choose the activity you are working on like running, walking, cycling and lifting weights or just simply turn to “multisport mode”, which give the best calories burnt estimation.

For the activities that your hands are not in motion, the Fitbit’s has an algorithm which tries to pick up as many step as possible. That is also the reason why sometimes Fitbit tracker will show some extra steps, when you are cooking or working at a desk. However, some users suggest wearing the tracker on the ankle to get the actual step more accurate.

Sleep tracking and heart rate monitor

The Nike Fuelband does not provide sleep tracking, but the SE version do. However, to compare the Nike FuelBand SE vs Fitbit, sleep tracking function of FuelBand SE is very basic and it does not really monitor your sleep. It is just a simple session called “Sleep” for you to register the start and end of your sleep, which is expected that you can note to your paper or mobile phone.

The Fitbit’s sleep tracking feature has been improved through versions to automatically record and analyze the sleep. Using the heart rate and accelerometer data, the “sleep state” algorithm can estimate your sleep pattern, calculate how well you sleep at night based on the duration of the light, deep, and REM sleep.

Regarding the heart rate monitor, Nike’s devices are also not included this feature while this of the Fitbit Charge HR are reported that quite accurate in most case, from a normal walk to a fast run.

Water resistance

fitbit flex water resistance

Nike and Fitbit both claimed that their products are water resistant and received many positive feedbacks from customers on this aspect. Many say that they often wear the tracker device on their arm while taking a shower twice a day and it still works very well.

Furthermore, Fitbit might get a higher score when we consider the water resistance ability between Nike FuelBand vs Fitbit Flex. Though Fitbit does not guarantee that the Flex can work for a long time under the water, on some Amazon reviews, people share that they can swim with their Flex, even in salt water. Yet the Fitbit cannot track the swimming movement while that is not an actual step, so it is better to take off the device to protect it when you are swimming.

Editor’s suggestion: Fitbit Charge 2 waterproof, is it true?

Design

In term of the design, comparing the Nike FuelBand vs Fitbit Force, some users prefer the lighter and less obtrusive Fitbit rather than the FuelBand while others appreciate the Nike’s elegant design. Nike FuelBand has the coloring display and the auto-adjust LED – which helps user to read the number easily in different light conditions. The band of Nike’s is also mentioned as easy-to-wear. In contrast, some Amazon users complain that the Fitbit wristband is hard to line up the hole on the band and easy to fall off.

Compatibility with other devices

Although both brands provide the Android App to manage your tracker, some reviewers say that they have problems to set up the Nike FuelBand and connect it with their Android devices. It seems like the Nike tracker is only fully compatible with Apple’s. In addition, the Nike FuelBand IOS app size is nearly 47MB, consuming 3 times more space than the 14MB Fitbit App.

Nike’s and Fitbit’s can sync to wireless, cloud and other fitness services such as Mapmyfitness, Loseit and Myfitnesspal. Yet only Fitbit Charge HR has the auto-sync feature to sync your data when in range of your computer or smartphone.

Could you decide Nike Fuelband vs Fitbit  which is the best fitness tracker for yourself? Leave a comment below to share your decision and opinion.

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