FITBIT FAILURE

Do those must-have fitness trackers really work? We put five to the test – with astonishing results

THEY will be, without doubt, at the top of many Christmas lists: a fitness tracker. They look like trendy watches, but contain high-tech gadgetry that tells us how many steps we take, distance covered and calories burned, our heart rate, quality of sleep, and a host of other data recorders.

Market analyst CCS Insight estimates that by the end of the year there will be about six million of these devices in use in the UK, and that number will triple by 2020.

The idea behind them is, broadly, that by tracking our every move we can set activity goals – the Government-recommended 10,000 steps a day, for instance – and keep an accurate log of success. However, recent studies have found they make little difference to weight loss, and now doubts have been cast over what these devices, many of which cost upwards of £100, claim to do.

Experts at the University of Lancaster have discovered that many trackers are inaccurate, sometimes wildly.

Sharing their findings with The Mail on Sunday, psychologist Dr David Ellis, who has led research, warned: ‘They’re a rough guide only.’

With Dr Ellis’s help, I put this to the test: I spent a full week wearing five of the latest and bestknown trackers, ranging in price from £57 to £184, to see if they all come up with the same results.

Shockingly, NONE of them was accurate, according to my tests. Generally, the different readings between two devices on any given day was about 2,000 steps and about two miles.

And over the course of the week, this grew to a whopping 11,656 steps, and 2,339 calories – the equivalent to about a day’s calorie intake for a woman my age and size.

That’s not much good for someone using a wristband for a weightloss plan. Here, I report on exactly how each fared – and which brand was most fit for purpose…