Tuesday, April 1, 2014

FitBit

The unexamined life is not worth living sayeth Socrates.


I received a FitBit Flex fitness tracker for my birthday, I love it. This is not an endorsement, merely my one day experience.

 Amongst its thousand features, Fitbit is a modern wristband pedometer, measuring the number of steps taken daily, which then, from your inputs, computes distance traveled, calories burned, and overall activity level.  The data is then available for display and sharing on your phone or computer.  The top photo is my display, taken yesterday, which was a fairly typical day for me.  Sadists can add friends to their fitbit circle, so they can each compare and contrast their daily grind, goading slackers into better performance, fitness and overall virtuousness. I'm not that competitive.

One of the available measurements, the sleep tracker, will keep me up nights however.  When it's bed time, you tap Fitbit, FB signals nighty night, and off to slumberland you go.  Typically, we go to bed LATE (after 2) and one of the dogs wakes me at 8.  I put my head down, and am out until morning, or so I thought.

Sunday, we were tired from travel and went to bed early (11:25). It took me 2 minutes to fall asleep (typical), but was awakened 26 times.  I had no idea.  Somehow I lost almost 2.5 hours of sleep. A 70% sleep efficiency (sleep/time horizontal) sounds shamefully poor.


Some things in life you simply do not care to know, but I want to know where my sleep went 'cause I want it back.

Toad

4 comments:

sue in mexico mo said...

My daughter has one of those things. I do not understand how it can tell if you are sleeping or awake. . .

Toad said...

I believe it's magic.

Sheila F said...

I like your watch

Toad said...

Thank you Sheila, it's an ancient Swatch