**********Still IN LOVE with this Fitbit! I have had no problem with it becoming loose or falling off, the charge lasts for daaayyyysss! I am moving more than ever! Down 5 pounds toward my goal weight!!!!! Get moving! : )

1 WEEK TODAY!!!! I am in LOVE with this Fitbit. I had wondered why I was gaining weight. . .easy answer. . .I eat more than I move! Now, this may seem a no brainer. . .but with an office job, I did not realize how much I was not moving and what poor choices of food I was choosing to eat quickly. This fitbit is a motivator for me. . .constant reminder to get up and move. . .to make smarter choices with my food. I like that it encourages me to compete with me for my physical well being. And, I can now connect to my friends on FB who are also Fitbit addicts. . .I have nothing negative to say about this.
The band is comfortable. . .when you put it on listen for the clicks and it is secure. . .my band has not fallen loose much less fallen off. . .secure all day.
I love Fitbit!

*********Weekend update: I found I do not have to set my flex for when I am about to sleep, it monitors it on its own. ' I was pleasantly surprised about how much I walked just during everyday cleaning, but was surprised that "active minutes" never registered anything. But, today after going outside to walk and pick up downed limbs around my land I was surprised when I checked my app and already had 27 active minutes, so it definitely picks up when your walking includes more effort.
I know you are supposed to be able to shower with it on, but for now I am afraid to lol. I have took it on and off with no assistance and have had NO problems with it falling off and it continues to get more comfortable.
I am purposefully drinking more water so I can log it and eating less so I don't have to log it '. Also, it makes me want to keep moving so I can beat my day before. However so far can still not connect to fb to challenge my friends, this is apparently an issue for many right now.

Will update again soon!
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I received my Fitbit flex yesterday. I chose the slate color thinking it would blend in nicely with the outfits I choose for work. I also chose the flex because of the price, until I see what I do with it and how useful I find it. I may choose to stick with the flex or upgrade depending on my experience. The packaging was great. It comes with two bands, a small and a large. The actual "brain" is in the large but slips easily into the small. I watched one of many YouTube videos to have a heads up on how to begin. I immediately put the "brain" part into the charger, included, and plugged it in with the dock from my iPhone. It reached 60% within minutes and that is all you need to begin. I downloaded the Fitbit app on my IPhone 6s and it literally walked me through step by step on how to get it set up and going. Setup was a breeze. I quickly put it on my arm, with my daughters help. The band was a little hard to get on by myself, but I did snap it and unsnap it several times before I put it in to loosen it up. Also the clasp was on the large band but it switched right over to the small easily. I walked around the house doing regular chores, checked my app and was pleased to see it was indeed counting my steps and calories burned.
I decided to play with it more and went to the calories part. How easily it was to add in my food intake for the day, and it recognized each food I put in, I did not even need instructions to do this, just minutes to sit down and play with it. I was not happy to see how many calories I had actually consumed while hurriedly eating at work '. I do think this is going to make me more aware and hopefully for that I will make better choices, if I can commit to being faithful to this, we will see.
I did wear it to bed and whenever I woke up I was aware that it was on my arm. I may loosen it or just see if over time I don't notice it at night, it is very comfortable when I am up and moving. I did forget to let it know I was going to bed so it did not monitor my sleep, this morning it did say I got 8.5 hours asleep, but I am not sure where that info came from. But, I did go to bed close to 10pm and was up a few minutes after 6:00 am since it is Saturday, so I'm not sure yet how the sleep part works, gonna figure that out today.
I am going to consume more water just so I can add it in to my log '. And, already this morning after about an hour of housework I am surprised how many steps I have taken.
So far I am excited, pleased and ready to see what I can do with Fitbit as my motivator. I will update again in a week.

Slate colored Flex arrived last Saturday, May 25. Black Flex is still on back order. My references to Apple products are because that is what I use. No endorsement implied, nor any criticism of other platforms.

1. As with Apple products (Fitbit is not one), set up is almost seamless. You must establish an account at fitbit.com, make sure the Flex is at least 60% charged and then you are ready to run. Charging was rather quick up to the last 20%, then things slow down to minimize damage to the battery. Charging is done with a special connector that is provided with the unit.

And here lies the biggest problem:
There is no way to charge other than to connect the Flex to a computer. This is a major drawback; who wants to carry the computer around when traveling? I'm sure that Fitbit or someone will come out with a wall charger
and/or car charger. I did read on a blog or somewhere that one can use either the iPad or iPhone wall charger. I have not yet been able to verify that to my satisfaction.

2. Very comfortable to wear; most of the time I don't realize I have it on. It is a bit difficult to put on, but that has improved with time. I don't take it off except to shower, so re-attaching is really no big deal. Since it is advertised as water-resistant, I did wear it in the shower once. The water has not affected the performance nor appearance. It is difficult to dry the wrist under the Flex and I had to take it off after all; so, no more shower.

I have been using it 24 hours a day since May 25th and it is down to half charge. The official claim is four to five days on a charge.

3. Very little info displayed on the unit. Five lights, each representing 20% of one's goal in steps is all that you see. Solid light means that you have achieved that goal segment and blinking means that you are working on that segment. Not really a big deal for me since the Flex automagically Bluetooths with the iPhone and also connects to the computer through a supplied dongle inserted into a USB port. Data is displayed on the computer at the fitbit.com on the Dashboard and on a free app on the iPhone. The iPhone app can run in the background. There is much more detail on the Dashboard than I had imagined. No iPad app yet.

Since 99% of the world carries a smart phone 99% of the time, this means that any info is almost immediately transmitted to the phone and then available for viewing. When one is within 15-20 feet of the computer, data transmission occurs. Data transmission to the computer is not immediate, but the data that has been transferred to the iPhone app also appears on the fitbit.com Dashboard. I'm not sure the computer USB dongle is even necessary.

4. The sleep monitor provides linear and pie chart graphs of sleep/awake activity and indicates Sleep Efficiency as a percentage. Mine is averaging 94%. It also shows sleep time, awake time, restlessness, time to fall asleep and actual sleep time.

5. There are logs to record activities (elliptical, weight training, etc.) that are not easily measured by the device. Also, a food log, a personal journal, a weight log, and food, heart rate and BP logs. There is an option to upgrade ($49.99/year) for more extensive peer ranking, deeper analyses and more tracking.

6. Overall accuracy seems to be as good as any other activity measuring device.

7. Bottom line: ease of use, wearing comfort and information provided makes it well worth it for me. Well, if any device to basically measure steps is worth a hundred bucks, this one is and provides motivation.

I purchased this item to use as a supplemental tool to help me understand my body's daily processes in order to overall facilitate my weight loss journey. While I've only had my fitbit for four days or so, I have found that this has greatly facilitated my ability to A) understand better what I am taking in and out of my body in terms of calories, B) be more motivated to keep active and eat right, and C) know when or if I may need to push myself a bit extra. If anything changes as time progresses, I will update this rating.

Accuracy: I walk around a ~2 mile lake about 2-3 times a week. The other day, as I walked, I looked at the fitbit app on my phone to see it track my steps live. For every step I took, it counted exactly one step, no matter the pace I was going at or the size of the step. When in the car, I also noticed that it would hardly ever add any steps, and if it did it would only add about 10 or so.

Accountability: The fitbit and fitbit app work well with other apps like MyFitnessPal, Endomondo, or MapMyFitness. For instance, it will add in your steps and estimated calorie burn to the MyFitnessPal diary. It also let's you know an estimation of how many calories you've burned and consumed (which also syncs with MyFitnessPal) and gives you a calorie burn goal, which at least for me lets me know if I need to push a little extra. In addition to that, other things like the step goal also just generally motivate me to do more.

Activity (+ sleep): As I mentioned, the fitbit motivates me to do more. As I've also mentioned, it works with apps like MyFitnessPal to give me a deeper understanding of what I've done throughout the day. It also lets me know if I sleep sound or if it is sporadic (even though it really just validated what I already knew - I'm a mostly sound sleeper with few movements in my sleep, as I generally awake in the same position I fell asleep in). Last night I actually did wake up in the middle of the night for a moment, and the fitbit did track that as time awake, which was pretty cool. I also like the vibrations I get telling me to wake up or telling me that I've reached my daily activity goal.

So far I would completely recommend this product. Originally, I wanted something that would track my heart rate and considered the Charge HR, but I did not want to pay the price and I did not want something with letters/numbers/images on the screen itself as I didn't want to catch myself getting distracted by it or to draw too much attention to my wrist since I wear it all the time, so the Flex was perfect so far for me. I also think it's more cost effective considering the amount of extra features for the Charge HR.

A tip: this ships in a large and a small. I use the large and it fits but can at times feel somewhat snug. I emailed Fitbit with my Amazon invoice attached and they have shipped a complementary XL band of the same color, which I will use if I find the large to be too uncomfortable as time progresses or to possibly use on my ankle while on a treadmill.

First of all, I am not am expert in fitness by ANY means and have only used the kind of tracker that you have to wear the monitor around your torso (hated, hated, hated that). I bought the Fitbit Flex after considerable research, and was attracted to the wireless feature, the slim profile, and the fact that it tracks sleep (more on that in a bit). I am NOT an athlete... I am a non-athletic middle aged woman trying to lose weight and get motivated by tracking my activity and pushing myself by setting goals and working out. A major pre-emptive strike before the holidays and a vacation in January that will involve the dreaded bathing suit in public scenario.

First, set up. It is not entirely intuitive and the packaging does not come with a lot of instruction so once you get it go right in the website www.fitbit.com, pick Flex and spend a good amount if time reading through everything. This is not one of those "I don't want to read the instructions, I will just wing it" things. Get yourself set up with an account (it's free). Put the Fitbit on your non dominant wrist and presto that sucker starts tracking right away. Start moving and once you check back onto your dashboard on the computer you will get what it is tracking and how. It's amazing. Steps taken, number of active minutes, calories out (and calories in if you track your food), sleep patterns, etc. all displayed in a very easy to understand visual dashboard. I love it. (And I admit it is can be a bit obsessive, checking back all the time, but it totally motivates me to take those extra steps or do 30 mins more on the treadmill so I can up my stats... I am competing with myself and that works for me.) It does not track your heart rate for a specific activity so if you want that, this Fitbit won't give it. What it does instead, is track overall activity against the goals you set.

The wrist band itself is very comfortable and light weight. It is waterproof and I don't take it off ever, except to charge it (your dashboard even tells you when it is time to charge - I found the charge lasts almost 5 days, just as advertised). This is an important feature (the comfort), because I cannot wear any jewelry to bed usually, it just bugs me. The fitnbit did not bother me at all. The charging took me a bit to master - you take the little tracker gizmo out of the wrist band and insert it into a cradle. The cradle has a USB attachment which I assumed I could plug into the USB wall charger base that I use for my I Pad and I Phone. Wrong. It doesn't charge with those for some reason. Plug the the charging cradle right into the USB port on your computer or laptop and it charges fine in about three hours.

I downloaded the Fitbit app on both my iPhone and IPad and the dashboards look a bit different on each device but it all works and you figure out which device to go to depending on how much info you want to see. The phone app is cool for a quick check but I usually look at it on the computer for detailed stats.

The sleep monitoring is eye opening. I have complained often of not being a great sleeper (that whole slightly over weight middle aged woman hormone thing). The Fitbit tracks when you go to bed, how long it takes you to fall asleep, how many hours you sleep, how often you wake up, and the number of times you are restless and gives you a percentage of sleep effiency. Turns out I am sleeping better than I thought I was, and after a while you see patterns you can assess against times, activity, diet, etc., to improve the quality of your sleep.

So, all in all, I am a big fan. Been wearing a couple of months and the weight is slowly coming off and my activity level has significantly increased. I highly recommend this unit.

SUMMARY: This device will not do anything for you, but it will help you make good decisions about what you need to do yourself. Fitness is hard work. If I had to sum up what this device is doing for me, it is this. It is keeping me utterly honest about everything. I cannot lie to myself about how many calories I'm burning. It won't let me. Just knowing there is a record motivates me to make sure it is a good one. It's the same effect one gets if they know they are being graded.

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THE LONG VERSION

I have been using the fitbit flex for five days now and I have fewer pounds and great fitting pants already, so it would be hard to regret my purchase.

I went ahead and set my fitbit up to integrate with MyFitnessPal as soon as I set it up, so I have no idea how it works without it. Setting it up was a breeze.
Go here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/apps/show/fitbit and follow the instructions.

Once it is set up it gives you a warning that you should only enter your food on MFP to avoid double entries. I have entered everything I eat on MFP, and the info magically finds it's way to my fitbit dashboard, and there have been no problems whatsoever.

Entering exercise is a little more complicated. Once you've done the integration, your MFP exercise entries will require one extra step--the start time of your exercise. My entries consist mostly of running and swimming. Technically, I don't need to enter the runs, since the pedometer takes care of them just fine, but when I do enter a run, the two apps manage it well. MFP gives the start time and duration of the run to fitbit, and fitbit takes that info and does some calculations that take the pedometer data into account, and comes up with a number of calories burned. I have run into one snag...if I edit the start time of my entry in MFP after I've already logged it, it causes the exercise to log twice on fitbit and I have to go into fitbit and manually remove the double entry. Sometimes I'm lazy and I don't enter the runs in MFP and I just let fitbit use the pedometer data exclusively....I've not taken a close enough look at the difference to comment on it, but it seems to work well either way as far as calorie counting. I just prefer knowing the speed and duration of specific intervals and that data is lost if I don't enter it into MFP.

I take the flex off when I swim laps, since I have a watch that counts my laps and distances for me and wearing both would be cumbersome. I enter my swims manually into MFP, and fitbit automatically calculates it all. I've had no problems.

You'll have a new thing in your MFP display too. Your exercise log will have a "fitbit calorie adjustment" entry.

For whatever reason, fitbit lets me eat just a little less than fitness pal does, so the math is obviously a little different on the two programs.

If you are tall and have abnormally long legs like me, you may have to adjust fitbit's default stride settings. Their website can tell you how.

The biggest lifestyle change for me has been brought about by the in-your-face awareness of just how sedentary sitting at a computer is. On days when I work at my desk, 6PM rolls around and I've only got maybe 500 steps logged. I'll hit the gym to do my 3 mile jog, and still be no where near the 10 thousand step goal that is the default setting for the fitbit, so I end up walking on the treadmill until I get there. I find myself going on long walks after my swim too. Maybe I'm crazy, but I can't stand to go to bed without meeting my step goals first, even if I've logged a long swim, but whatever the reasons, it is working, and fast. I am losing weight again after stalling out for quite a while.

I mentioned only having 500 steps after a day at my desk. Yesterday I had my first day away from my desk...shopping, a little yardwork, housework, just getting all the little things that need done around the house...at 5pm I had logged 8000 steps and was almost to my goal. I mention this because I think this is what makes the fitbit worthwhile. It quantifies how sedentary your life is on a given day and then tells you exactly what you need to do to make up for it.

And I know, if you are a desk worker like me, that 10,000 steps is going to seem a bit ridiculous after a day at the office, but trust me, if you can make yourself make up for it, you will be blown away by the results.

I hesitate to put the numbers down for my weight loss over the last 5 days, because I have frankly lost weight faster than I should and I don't want to invite trolls or create unrealistic expectations...everyone is different. I am eating more than 2000 calories a day (within the recommendations of the app set at medium plan intensity), I'm not starving myself, and yes, my legs were pretty tired the first few days, but I promise, I feel great. I'll be at my goal of 145 in a couple of weeks at this rate. The fitbit didn't lose that weight for me...I worked my butt off all by myself, but fitbit helped me figure out what I needed to be doing.

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I know this review is getting long, but I wanted to mention a couple of other things.

I LOVE the sleep monitoring. I have random bouts of insomnia, and I sometimes wake up repeatedly all night, and this thing has done a brilliant job of measuring how much time I've actually spent sleeping vs. how much time I've been in bed. And that number of hours of actual sleep correlates almost perfectly to how I feel, mentally, through the day. The default sensitivity is perfect for me...though I have seen it isn't so much for other people. It is easy to turn it on for naps too. Just tap it five times when you lay down, and again when you get up. You can fix it manually in the website if you forget...it will still have the movement data regardless of whether you tap it or not, it just needs to know when you were sleeping to fix it all.

It accidentally goes into sleep mode here and there...once when I was using a hammer drill, once when I was using a hammer, and once when I was shaking a bottle of cat antibiotics to mix it, but when that happens, you know because it vibrates, and if you tap it five times right away to bring it out of sleep mode, it won't mess up your data.