[satishmreddy]

I agree that the technology is not perfect and everything you want it to be but for 99% of the population who get no walking at all, it is a wake up call and helps a ton. I lost 20lbs in 6 months because of wearing fitbit and jawbone.

[Terr_]

Anecdata: I've lost 60 pounds in 12 months, simply just using free apps to (A) record my weight each morning and show a moving average (B) identify what surprisingly-high-calorie foods and snacks I was consuming.

...And no, the bathroom scale is completely non-networked, my smartphone simply prompts me to tap in the reading every morning.

If your goal is to "lose weight", then forget activity-trackers, because your main tactic should be controlling the input side. It's far easier to not eat 200 calories than it is to burn those 200 calories off later at the gym. It's also cheaper than buying expensive techno-nostrums / shiny-toys.

[TillE]

I've been perfectly happy with my Fitbit Ultra for the past couple years, but I don't expect it to be anything more than a pedometer with a nice online dashboard.

It's a small motivational tool, that's all. Nobody needs it, but it's nice. I've lost 28 pounds fairly quickly, thanks to a combination of walking and calorie counting with MyFitnessPal (Fitbit's food database is inferior).

[NoPiece]

I think that is a good point. The author said he was walking/biking 10k a day, so he probably could use a whole different class for device. For the person who is struggling to get up to 10k steps a day, these devices are useful.

I do think they really need to improve durability. My wife is on her third fitbit flex in 6 months.