More on pedometers! Yay! (The first post is here.)

Because I am a TREMENDOUS dork who loves data, the ability to view my data over time is very important to me.

It’s also what drove me away from the FitBit universe–the inability to view, manipulate, and download my own data in any useful manner.

FitBit Dashboard (web)

FitBit Dashboard (Android)

I’ll admit I haven’t tried in almost a year, but I was never able to get my step data downloaded from the FitBit website in any useful manner.

Withings Dashboard (web)

Withings Dashboard (Android)

Sadly, I got no useful downloaded data from the Withings website. Boo!

Omron Dashboard (web)

The Omron site gives me my data in a pdf. It’s not a cvs file I can dump straight into Excel, but it’s something I can put into Excel with relative ease.

I’ll be curious as to whether they come out with a phone app. I’m betting someone will.

Omron Health Management Software (PC install)

In addition to the many views here, I’ve been able to export the data into a cvs file that I can open in Excel. This gives me EVERYTHING. It’s pretty awesome.

But of course, if you have a web presence, then you can set up partnerships with other companies and web apps. Some of these can be incredibly useful, such as a partnership between your activity monitor and an app that lets you track what you’ve been eating. Combining the two tells you how many calories you’re burning through movement, and lets you know how many calories you can eat that day for your goal (maintain weight, lose weight, gain weight).

I really like MyFitnessPal, even though I haven’t used it for months. It is very good at making you aware how many calories are in what you’re eating, and you can also track salt and other things you might be watching for health reasons. In fact, MyFitnessPal was what convinced Michael that Fettuccine Alfredo was not the best choice at an Italian restaurant. (Oh look! You’re going to eat all your calories for the day! Too bad you already ate breakfast and lunch!) Although I don’t have high blood pressure, I found seeing the sodium content of many foods to be shocking.

And the ability to scan the bar codes of foods is extremely useful. And if you cook from scratch, you can create recipes and calculate from there, though I found it more useful to use MasterCook for the calorie calculations.

 

I’ve tried lots of other different apps, most of which–for a variety of reasons–didn’t work for me, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad. FREX, I prefer to walk indoors, so RunKeeper didn’t work for me at all, since it relies upon your phones GPS.

FitBit and Withings are partnered with lots of sites and apps. Omron almost none, although when I got the Withings Pulse, there weren’t that many apps that used the Pulse data (in fact, most of the connections are more for their blood pressure monitors and scales).

Here are a few of the more popular apps for each tracker:

FitBit
Lose It
MyFitnessPal
SparkProple
DigiFit
MS Health Vault
MapMyRun
Earndit

Withings
RunKepper
MyFitnessPal
BodyMedia
FitBit
LoseIt
HealthVault

Omron
Runkeeper
EarndIt