PSA: I thought those cheap fitness trackers were a total joke until I wore one for a month

My friend gave me a $25 no-name band from Amazon for my birthday and I just rolled my eyes. I figured it would be dead in a week or give me crazy wrong numbers. But after wearing it for 30 days straight, I have to admit it's weirdly accurate on steps and sleep compared to my phone. It even buzzed me when my heart rate spiked during a stressful work call last Tuesday. Now I'm actually looking at the data. Has anyone else had a budget gadget completely prove them wrong?

4 comments

4 Comments

jana8813mo ago

Yeah, @margaretramirez found hers still kicking too, which is wild.

margaretramirez3mo ago

My sister bought me a similar cheap tracker two years ago as a gag gift. I wore it once to be nice and forgot about it in a drawer. Last month I found it, charged it up, and it still works perfectly. The step count matches my phone exactly, and the battery lasts a full week. It's kind of annoying how this thing that cost less than a pizza is outliving my actual will to exercise.

viola_lopez303mo ago

Maybe the cheap ones just have less to break. No fancy heart rate sensors or GPS draining the battery.

martin.riley1mo ago

My sister actually got one of those $20 ones from some random brand called Fitgo or something like that, and she's had it for about 8 months now with zero issues. The battery lasts a solid 10 days which is way better than my friend's $200 Garmin that dies every 4 days. I mean, maybe it's just me but I think people sleep on these cheap trackers because they assume the price means it's junk. The only thing that's not quite right about what margaretramirez said though is that most of these cheap ones actually do have basic heart rate sensors now, they just use a simpler LED setup instead of the fancy medical-grade ones. So it's not like they have less to break, they just use cheaper parts that still work pretty well for most people.