Tag Archives: activity tracking

Here at QS Labs we’ve been curious about the differences between two of the most popular devices among self-trackers: The Nike+ FuelBand and the FitBit. I’m the latest experimenter on this topic, and since January I’ve been wearing a FuelBand on my left wrist and a FitBit (original model) in the right hand coin pocket of my jeans. The FitBit almost always counts significantly more steps than the FuelBand.

The details are interesting. When Bastian compared his FuelBand vs his Fitbit, he found a slight correlation between his activity level and the difference in the number of steps they counted. In other words, them more active he was, the more the two devices disagreed. When Ernesto did his FuelBand vs Fitbit test, his numbers closely matched. My data is more like Bastian’s, but with the effect of high activity even clearer. Look at the graph below. On the vertical axis is the difference in step count, by day. On the horizontal access is the number of daily steps Fitbit counted. The higher the number of “FitBit steps,” the more likely it is that “Fuelband steps” are much lower.

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