I’ve been using the Fitbit for several years now, but when I got my Pebble, I threw the Misfit app on there to see how it fared (the Pebble can’t use more than one activity tracker at a time, or I can guarantee you I’d have tried something else on there to see if it trended similarly to Misfit!)

Now, yes, clearly I like that my step count for the month on Fitbit (5.19K) is 29% higher (if I did that math right, yes sometimes I struggle to use a calculator) than that on Misfit (3.67K)–152,000 steps is kind of a lot (some of which potentially accounted for within the five days that the Misfit/Pebble combo just apparently mostly gave up, and then slowly rose back to life? Note that I’ve definitely worn my Pebble every day since getting it, so it’ not like I left it laying on the bathroom counter to not count anything for a day while my Fitbit did stuff.

It’s important to note, though, that at some point I did realize there was a setting on the Misfit app to specify where you’re wearing the device. Not, however, that it became any closer to the Fitbit numbers. What’s more accurate? Well, nothing will say for sure, but a quick google lead me to Neil at Spoken Like a Geek, who noted:

I ran a small test where I recorded the step count on both devices before taking 130 steps and the recording the counts again. [… I]n this very unscientific test the Fitbit was spot on and the Pebble  [was] out by a factor of 35%.

And, note that I had no idea that Neil had run this similar comparison–his trend line is a lot smoother/has a bit more predictable of a flow than mine has. EDIT: Note that Neil was using the Fitbit Flex, thus both trackers were wrist worn. I keep my Pebble on my left wrist, and my Fitbit One on my right hip (pocket), which could account for some variance. I’ll probably run this experiment again (when I don’t have a significant gap of data), and I’d also like to add a third set of data for the steps collected directly from the iPhone (…and be very intentional about keeping my phone on me for the duration of the experiment, because today for example, I had a phone call vibe-ing away on my Pebble and I could not remember where my phone was.)

Additionally, this proves I need to move a lot more. I did try the standing desk thing the other day for a bit, but given that I was using some folding stool from IKEA with my MacBook, it was not a super ergonomic setup [which is my general experience at these things given that I am 5’2″ and thus even when I eventually attempt to build a less makeshift standing desk, the instructions for people who are 6’+ are less than helpful and I am, as we discovered above, not good at math and 5’2″. At the very least, if I’m already standing I’m just more prone to wandering a bit more or breaking out into dance on occasion–the effect on my productivity will be questionable, however.