FitBit Fitness Tracker Comparison: Flex, One, Zip

While more phones are coming with health and fitness apps out of the box, it’s still hard to keep your phone with you at all times, particularly when you’re exercising. That’s lead to the rise of fitness accessories, which stay with you throughout the day to help you become more active and even sleep better.

FitBit produce some of the most popular accessories on the market, with the FitBit Flex, FitBit One and FitBit Zip. Each of these fitness trackers is worn all day, automatically recording your activity and then sending it to your PC or smartphone. In this article, we’ll have a look at how their form factors and capabilities differ, and which is the right one for you.

FitBit Flex

The Flex is the most recent addition to the FitBit family, and comes in a highly fashionable wristband form factor. Instead of the OLED or LCD displays of the other FitBit trackers, this one has a minimalistic LED indicator strip. Steps, distance and calories burned are all tracked, as are statistics on your sleep like hours, number of times woken and an efficiency stat. The Flex also serves as a silent alarm clock, vibrating on your wrist to awaken you.

One thing you won’t get is a floors climbed stat, which depends on an altimeter that isn’t included in the Flex. The Flex is the most waterproof of the FitBit Flexs, with resistance to sweat, rain, splashes and can even be worn in the shower. The Flex is definitely the most stylish option, so it’s a good choice for the fashion-conscious or just those that don’t want to be obviously wearing a fitness accessory.

FitBit One

The FitBit One is a more obvious option, but includes a few more fitness features – like the floors climbed tracking using an altimeter that I mentioned earlier. It also includes all of the same sleep features, including the silent vibration alarm.

The One is about the size of a USB thumb drive, and clips onto your clothing. This makes it a bit harder to wear while sleeping, but you get more placement options during the day. It also sports an OLED display, which provides more information than the Flex’s LED indicators. If you’re looking for the most feature-filled FitBit, this is probably the One.


FitBit Zip

Our last FitBit is the minute Zip, barely larger than a fifty pence piece. The Zip is cheaper than the other two FitBits, but is more limited in its tracking – you only get steps, distance and calories burned, so there’s no floor climbing, sleep tracking or silent vibration alarm here.

The Zip is a little lower maintenance though, with a replaceable watch battery instead of the rechargable batteries of the One and Flex. If you don’t care about sleep tracking or already have that base covered, then the Zip is a good low-cost option.

Conclusion

So there you have it – choose the Flex if you want the most stylish option or one that you can wear in the shower, the One for the most features, and the Zip if you just want the basics. I hope you’ve found this comparison useful!

For more information, please have a look at the product pages of each FitBit:

Feel free to ask questions or provide feedback in the comments below! Thanks for reading and have a great weekend.