When is fitbit flex

The actual tracker itself is only about an inch long, and weighs next to nothing, even when inserted into its band, which can make it a great fitness tracker for athletes. Once charged, a Fitbit Flex can offer about a week of biometric tracking, alarms and reminders, and other data. And getting a full charge should only take about an hour, so go ahead and connect the Flex the next chance you get. Pop the Flex out of the back of its band, using a finger to press the unit free.

Once the Fitbit Flex displays five little glowing LEDs on its face, it is fully charged and can be put back in the band and strapped back onto your wrist.

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We purchased the Fitbit Flex 2 so our reviewer could thoroughly test and assess it. Keep reading for our full product review.

These days, wearing an activity tracker on your wrist seems like a given. Kidding of course! But when the original Fitbit Flex debuted way back in , it was actually the first wristband wearable to market. Of course, the device still tracks your steps taken, distance walked, and calories burned, and you can track even more health-related data within the user-friendly, recently redesigned Fitbit app.

Read on to see if this tracker is the one that can help you reach your goals. The device also automatically tracks your sleep quality, logging when you fall asleep and when you wake up you can even set a goal for how many hours you want to sleep, and the device will wake you up with a gentle vibration versus a blaring alarm.

In addition to tracking those basic metrics, the Flex 2 improves upon the original version with the addition of an exercise recognition feature called SmartTrack that automatically picks up select high-movement activities—like walking, running, outdoor cycling , sports, aerobic workouts, elliptical workouts , and even swimming the device is waterproof up to 50 meters and will track your laps swam and calories burned in the water, something most budget trackers are incapable of —and record them in the exercise section of the app.

Even without heart rate tracking and GPS, I found the numbers to line up with those recorded by my Apple Watch, which I wore simultaneously. The device is waterproof up to 50 meters and will track your laps swam and calories burned in the water, something most budget trackers are incapable of. That automatic tracking is great for beginners who are just starting to monitor their behaviors. The Fitbit Flex has been slim and minimalistic since its beginning, and the Flex 2 is no exception—this version, though, is 30 percent smaller than the original at less than half an inch wide.

It's a good thing, too; the Flex is so light and comfortable, I often forgot it was there. In my opinion, the Flex is more comfortable to wear than the Jawbone Up , another well-designed and highly ergonomic wristband tracker. Features and performance The most recent fitness tracker from Fitbit, the Flex offers almost all the same features as the company's One product.

It relies on an internal accelerometer to record the steps you take, the calories you burn. The device calculates this by factoring in your age, height, and weight, which you punch into a linked Fitbit account online. Another trick the Flex takes from the One is its ability to track the length and quality of your sleep plus how many times you woke during the night. The Flex is much more convenient gadget for sleep tracking, though, since it's already strapped to your arm.

That means you can wear it straight to bed and don't have to mess with a separate armband like you do with the Fitbit One. That said, the initiation process for kicking the Flex into sleep mode takes a little practice. You have to tap the device's screen six times to tell it to start recording your Z's. Only the right tempo of taps will work -- go too fast or too slow and the Flex won't register your input correctly.

By contrast, the big physical button on the Jawbone Up which also tracks sleep, steps, and calories is much easier to manipulate. One upside to the Flex is its LED screen, which displays how far you are towards your daily step goal.

Just hit the screen once with your fingertip and the Flex shows your progress on a scale of one to five. When all five lights illuminate you've reached the default daily step quota of 10, steps.

The device will even perform a happy dance when you achieve your goal, complete with haptic buzzing and all lights flashing in a random pattern.

Of course you can tailor your goals to match personal targets, too, but not from within the companion mobile apps iOS and Android.

To tweak your custom settings you need to log on to the Fitbit Web site. Despite the proximity of the two devices, the results were quite varied. On the sleep front, the Jawbone was easily the stronger device. Nights spent getting up and down to unsettled children were accurately broken up by the Up as times awake, while the Fitbit app claimed that sleep was just a little unsettled. But when it came to step counting, the devices offered such varied results that you had to wonder how they could both claim to count the same thing.

Without fail, the Flex reported a significantly higher number of steps taken than the Up. On a day where we conquered our 10, step goal on the Flex, the Up would bring us back to earth by reporting only 8, steps taken. To test which of the two was more accurate, we physically walked steps, counting as we went. Neither device tracked the steps per cent accurately, although the Flex did come up slightly closer to the mark.

How that extrapolates to larger numbers is unclear, but there's a real question mark over the accuracy of the wrist-mounted device, which is something we didn't encounter with the pocket-mounted One or Flex. Fitbit's app is easy enough to come to grips with for even the most novice of users, but does let you drill down into more and more layers of information. That said, it still struggles with food tracking thanks to a lack of internationally localised cuisines, although that is something that can be worked around thanks to the third party app ecosystem and services like MyFitnessPal.

There have been some massive improvements over the past few months with the Fitbit app, allowing a much easier social connection to friends to allow you to harness that competitive edge. Fitbit has also launched IFTTT compatibility, which will automate many functions and help improve the overall function of the device with very little effort. Which goes back to the verdict we came to in our Jawbone Up review, that the Fitbit is a much more useful fitness tool, while the Up is a lifestyle tech accessory.

The Flex does start to veer to the accessory side of the fence with its design, but it's app keeps it firmly in the fitness tool category. The Fitbit ecosystem is a great way to start using technology to keep on top of your personal health.

While the Flex is starting to show its age a bit, like a fine wine it has actually improved with time. The fact it's now more affordable is also a welcome one. But there's a lot of competition in the fitness tracker space now from different companies, as well as the Fitbit Blaze , Fitbit Charge 2 or even the Fitbit Flex 2.