Fitness Bands: How Accurate Are They?

They’re pretty good when it comes to measuring calories burned, but with strength training, fitness bands need to do some work. That’s the verdict from researchers at Iowa State University, who tested four consumer fitness trackers – Fitbit Flex, Nike+ FuelBand SE, Jawbone UP 24 and Misfit Shine – to see how well they measured sedentary, aerobic and resistance activity. Two research monitors – the BodyMedia Core and Actigraph GT3X+ – were also included in the study. An Iowa State news release reports that the top performer, with an error rate of 15.3, was the BodyMedia Core.  The Misfit Shine was the least accurate with a 30.4 percent error rate. See how their performance stacked up below.