Alta HR Fitness Tracker with Heart Rate, 7 Day Battery Life, Compatible with Smartphones, Tablets, Computers

I’ve read several reviews and would like to offer my experience with the Alta HR regarding several attributes. Overall, I love this fitness tracker. It is small, sleek, and simple enough to track exactly the features that I want and nothing more for a reasonable price. I am currently on my second Alta HR — I lost the first one and couldn’t get by without it. Device and battery life: I’ve had my current Alta HR for 1 year and 4 months and it is still rocking and rolling. I charge it once/week on Sunday nights and do not have to charge it again throughout the week, even with actively logging several tracked runs and workouts. The great battery life, especially for a continuous heart monitoring device, is one of my favorite features. Design and screen: What drew me to the Alta HR in the first place is the sleek and small design. The screen is just big enough to see the time, heart rate, etc and can easily be worn with any outfit (see also: cheap and colorful replacement bands for ease of matching). It’s a simple feature, but I love that when you turn your wrist upward the screen auto lights up to the home screen. You can customize this home screen— I have mine set to time and heart rate so all I have to do during a workout to see my HR is turn my wrist up. As others have said, the tapping can sometimes be finicky (~20% of the time the first tap attempt doesn’t register), but it’s really not that troublesome. Again, customizing the home screen to the features that are most important to you can resolve most of this frustration. Sleep tracking: I’ve found the sleep tracking to be accurate for the most part. I naturally have a high resting heart rate and it’s likely that Fitbit is underestimating the amount of deep sleep that I get (10% on avg). However, it does a good job of differentiating between sleep and awake and total hours slept. I like that the auto-light up feature of the screen is disabled during sleep. The device and band are very comfortable and I don’t notice them during sleep. Heart rate tracking: I’ve found the heart rate monitor to be VERY accurate. I was not expecting this level of accuracy and have been very impressed. I do not have a strap monitor to compare with, but I have manually monitored my heart rate (neck pulse and a timer) at different intensity levels and found that my Alta HR was always within +\-3 bpm. As others have said, you do need to follow the directions of the device to get accurate heart rates during workout. The device is EXTREMELY accurate when following the directions. If you are going to workout (or do any activity that causes substantial wrist turbulence), you need to move the device 1-2 fingers above the wrist and tighten it an extra loop. This allows the device to maintain a constant and reliable read during motion. The app: The fitbit app is not unique to this device, but I LOVE it. I love that it syncs with both the device and other apps. I can use MyFitnessPal for my food and it auto-imports and uses that information to calculate remaining calories, including ones that you burned through activity and basal caloric burn (if you set a weight goal, the app will show a dial that uses this information and tells you if you are over, under, or on target for the day and by how many calories). It also easily allows me to track water intake. It obviously also has step goals and hourly step goals, as well as active minute goals. All of these goals can be customized, and move reminders for the device can be customized by in the app. The app also uses resting HR and GPS tracked run information to estimate your VO2 max. The device and app also will auto-detect several activities (walking, running, “outdoor sport” like tennis) with 10+ minutes of an elevated heart rate and steps. I really enjoy this feature because I feel it gives me a more accurate read of calorie burn than just entering a “tennis doubles for 20 minutes” activity in MyFitnessPal. Step tracking: Accurate as far as I can tell. Some have complained about not having accurate step counting while pushing a stroller etc— you can still get your steps counted (but not heart rate) by strapping this to your belt loop. I frequently visit manufacturing environments where I cannot have anything in my wrist and strapping the device to my belt loop always yields an expected number of steps. Other features: I like that the devices notifies you about texts and phone calls and scrolls the person and a message preview (can adjust in settings) if you prefer. I did not want my phone on my wrist as a distraction all the time (@apple watch) and the Alta HR level of notifications is perfect. The device is also water resistant: I’ve accidentally taken it in the hot tub for a few minutes multiple times and it’s not been affected except for a temporary cloud over the screen once that went away after a couple days. I’d hesitate to purposely swim with it though.

I had a Charge HR for about a year. Happily switched to the Alta HR when it came out. My wrist is 6.5” and I got a large. I wear it on the second smallest hole (with the Charge HR I’d worn it on the third smallest). I like the large because it can fit around my ankle if I want, and the extra strap fits across most of my under-wrist which I think looks good. STEPS: it does this just as well as the Charge HR HEART RATE: Does this just as well as the Charge HR. I run a few days a week and it gets the same readings. STAIRS: Doesn’t have this function, but I found it flaky in Charge HR and always got more stairs than I’d actually climbed for the day, so I don’t miss it. BATTERY: I had it set with “All-Day Sync” on and "Always Connected" off and the battery has lasted about 8 days. A little after the 6 day mark I started getting low battery warnings (I guess they start happening at 25%). I started getting nervous it would finally give out at the 8 day mark so I put it on the charger. I tried it with “Always Connected” on next and it lasted almost the same. I got the low battery warning earlier on the 6th day. By the 7th day I decided it was close enough and started charging again, so I'm not sure exactly how long it will take, but at least a week. ALARM: I like this better than Charge HR. The alarm goes and buzzes about four times. If you don’t do anything it stops and snoozes and goes again 9 minutes later. You have to tap it twice (or more, I usually bang on it a few times) to turn it off. Otherwise it just keeps automatically snoozing. I like that if I’ve decided I want to sleep a little longer I don’t have to do anything. SLEEP TRACKING: when set on “normal” was about the same as Charge HR. I tried it on “sensitive” for a few nights and I got big wide bars of “restless” and the tracker only counted the non-restless times as sleep, so even though I was sleeping for 6 hours, it only counted 2 hours as sleeping. I thought that was weird so I’ve had it set to “normal” since. Maybe this reading would be useful to someone, but I found it confusing. Five days after getting my Alta HR it started tracking “sleep stages”. This is cool, I like getting to see what stages I got at night. If you click on the chart it walks you through what the different stages are and what percentage of your sleep they made up. HOURLY ACTIVITY: It warns you ten minutes before the next hour if you haven’t had your 250 steps yet. I like this, I don’t always care to accomplish this throughout the day, but on the days that I do I used to get frustrated if I lost track of time at work and missed an hour since there’s no way to go back and get steps in so you just ruined getting 100%. I’m glad Alta reminds me. Sometimes instead of just walking around I stand up and shadow box - the punching counts as steps and my arms and torso get a workout and I get the elevated heart rate and I can get to 250 quicker. EXERCISE TRACKING: It can tell when I’m running, although like Charge HR it won’t know distances, just steps, heart rate, and calories. It doesn’t have the side button to start an exercise timer, but I never used that in the Charge so I don’t miss it. I have two other apps I use to track my runs, so I don’t care that much about how detailed the Fitbit tracks them. Although I did recently discover the fitbit phone app can track my runs if I start it at the beginning of the run (on the exercise screen click the stopwatch and go to the tracking tab: you can select the activity then click the play button. If it’s a run it uses the phone’s GPS to map the run). CALL/TEXT ALERT: I like getting the little buzz to let me know to check my phone. It displays a little of the text message, but not much. Which is fine, it’s usually enough to give me an idea of whether it’s something important or not.

I've been using my alta HR for about 4 months now. I was very happy with my original alta but upgraded to the HR when it came out. While the alta HR is a really great item, it definitely isn't perfect and I found the lack of clear information about it's actually features to be lacking. Here are some of the pros/cons that I think people might want to know before buying: PROS -Sleep tracker is neat but I pretty much stopped checking it after a while. It tends to show you as getting less sleep than you actually do and that can lead to anxiety for some people. Now I charge it at night. -Wrist band now has a buckle which is way more secure than other trackers. No more worrying about it popping off your wrist! -The HR monitor is pretty great for a wrist device. I use a chest HR monitor during my workouts and the 2 readings are usually pretty similar. The alta needs to be tight on your wrist though! -For some reason they removed the date display from the watch. I really like wearing a wristwatch and the original alta also displayed the date, which was helpful. -You can choose what info you want to display on the watch itself as well as the app. -I really like the app. I usually keep it open while I'm on the elliptical so I can watch my heart rate in real time. CONS -There is no feature that allows you to start a workout. If you do an activity continuously for 10-15 mins it will give you a summary afterward of calories burned, and heat rate. You cannot use it to track steps/distance for a specific activity however...it only gives a daily total. (It's pretty smart though, knows when I've been biking). -After days of continuous wear (I took it off to shower and to charge/clean it). I developed an itchy rash under the charging area. I take it off at night now and that seems to help -The battery doesn't last a super long time. I was charging it everyday while I was in the shower, but it always seemed to be running low. Again, I charge it at night now. -If the alta is not tight against your skin, you may get wildly inaccurate readings. -If you want an accurate resting HR reading, you MUST sleep with the watch tightly clasped. -Perhaps to be expected but the bands get quite dirty and I had a hard time cleaning them. I mostly stick with the black one since it hides dirt the best. -As with the original alta, it does not count flights of stairs climbed; only steps, distance and heart rate. -Reading the watch can be annoying. It is supposed to display the time when you lift your arm to your face, but it doesn't always do that. Then I find myself tapping it like a madman in frustration. Once it's on, its easy to cycle through features however. Overall, I'm happy with it. There are a few flaws with the actual design of the watch, but you cannot get a more accurate, continual HR watch for a better price.

Ok so I promised myself I would test out the Fitbit against the several negative comments and come back and leave a review. All but ONE of the negative comments prove true. Let me start with the negative comments that proved untrue and why: Myth 1: this Fitbit doesn’t record accurate heart data, especially when working out. TRUTH: Yes it does record extremely accurately, including during workouts but you have to read the instructions!! When you workout the instructions say to tighten the strap one hole tighter than you usually wear it. Then you move the Fitbit 1-2 finger widths up from where your wrist meets your hand. After doing this I checked the Fitbit heart rate against my polar heart monitor every 5 minutes during a 45 min kickboxing workout. It was EXACTLY in tune with the polar heart rate monitor, always right on or within 5 BPM. The people who say otherwise are not following instructions or giving it a chance to figure out the best wrist placement. Myth 2: The light against your skin keeps you up at night/you can see the light as you try to sleep. TRUTH: No, you cannot see the blinking light that is against your skin. If you can then your band is way too lose. I wear it every night and never see the light blinking. I don’t even remember I’m wearing it! Myth 3: it scratches easily. TRUTH: I’ve banged mine up pretty bad and to my surprise not a scratch in sight! Okay now for the negative comment that I discovered was true: It does not track steps when you are pushing a grocery cart or stroller. Sadly, this is true. Very frustrating when you have a child and you push them around the zoo all day in a stroller to later discover your steps barely moved. I solve this by letting my husband push the cart/stroller when possible. :) But this is the biggest negative for me about this Fitbit. I just learn to let the number on the screen go on those days when I have no one to push the cart and know that day I had a lot more steps than recorded. Things I love: 1. The constant HR monitoring where you can see your heart health over time improve or get worse (in the Fitbit app) 2. The sleep monitoring - this has been so eye opening! I can’t wait to check the app in the morning to see how much deep sleep I had the night before. I now know based on my results how I’m probably going to feel that day. 3. Getting texts and calls!! It buzzes when you get a text or call and will scroll the message across the screen or show you who is calling. LOVE this feature. 4. Stays charged for a long time. 5. LOVE that it shows you total calorie burn for the day. Like the calories your body burns just by sleeping or sitting to workouts. This was the biggest reason I got this Fitbit (besides the constant HR monitoring) so I could make sure I was truly burning the calories I thought I was burning to aid in weight loss. That helped me to I know exactly how many calories to cut to lose weight. Things I wish I could change/do but in no way a deal breaker: 1. Rearrange which stat I see first when I tap my watch. 2. Be able to set it so that I can constantly see my HR when I’m working out. It gets old tapping it several times while I’m working out to find my HR. 3. I don’t trust the calorie burn calculator. It seems really low. After a kickboxing workout where my polar monitor says I burned 300 calories, the Fitbit only recorded 130 calories. I’ll keep looking into this and see if I can get something figured out. Thankfully you can add your workout in MyFitnessPal and it will sync up to the Fitbit app, including the calories you burned. 4. Would be cool to have an option to add optional stats when you click through on your wrist, such as the weather. I recommend this Fitbit if you are looking to track constant HR, sleep, total calorie burn, and get alerted to texts and calls. I have learned so much about myself and my health.

I had seen a coworker's Alta a while back and debated getting one but was disappointed that it didn't do HR. I didn't like the bulkiness of the Fitbits which did measure heart rate. So I started doing research -- trying to decide what features I did and didn't need. I have been using my phone to track my steps and whatnot to this point. I stopped by the fitbit website to see if they had new offerings and there it was. Exactly what I wanted! I ordered 2 (a small and a large) for my sister and myself from Amazon (2 day shipping!) I was on the cusp of small/large and I can tell you that both fit, but as the website recommends, size up if you're unsure. I've attached photos with the small and large slightly up my wrist. I love the size, the band, and the display. I appreciate the sleep tracker, the compatibility with MyFitnessPal, the silent alarms, and reminders. While it can receive text messages, it will only display short messages and truncate longer ones. The text displayed is small. If you get 2 or more messages from a person in short succession it will display the number of messages instead of the actual messages. However, I understand that I ordered a fitness tracker, not a smartwatch and so I am pleased it has text reading abilities in the first place. It does not track flights of stairs, which is okay by me. My phone didn't track them either. I have been comparing the steps tracked with my other step tracking apps and it seems relatively accurate. I'm sure that there are more accurate HR trackers out there, but the convenience of having these things together in one place is what sold me. Random side story: My sister stole my large fitbit the other day while I was doing dishes and threw it on her ankle to see if it would track. Not only did it track, but the HR was consistent with her small fitbit on her wrist. Some people have thought the calories are wildly off. I think they don't understand how Fitbit does calories. In many tracking systems, you will be shown how many calories you burned for exercise. So if you've done nothing and see some level of calories burned, you aren't sure why it's saying that. You do burn calories even when inactive. The overall calories for the day aren't that useful for me because I'm used to the system where you only get calories shown for specific exercise sessions but I've found when it tracks a workout session, those calories are pretty accurate. I love the social aspect of it, and I like that you can challenge your friends for a specific day/week/weekend of steps and meeting your goals. I like the app that goes along with the fitbit. Pros: ~Design! (I can't express how happy I am with this.) ~Tracks HR ~Auto tracks exercise ~Battery Life (I get around a week and it charges fairly quickly) ~Friend challenges and social community Cons: ~Not waterproof ~Cost (maybe prohibitive, but that is the market of fitness trackers.) ~Text messages system (but again, fitness tracker, not smart watch) Honestly, of the negative reviews I've read about this particular item, most of the people who are unhappy didn't do enough research first. You should judge an item by what it advertises it does. So far this has done everything it's said it would for me. I couldn't be happier. I think if you've done your research and this item has the features you have been looking for, you'll be super excited with it, like me. *Edit 6/5* I've had the FitBit Alta HR for a couple months now. I am still just as happy as when I got it. I've lost about 20 lbs since Christmas. It's slow going but the FitBit community has been great. I posted a picture for my first 5k and 90 some odd strangers cheered me on. Reading the discussion area is always positive and motivating. My only disappointment at this point is the lack of waterproofing because I am swimming more often these days. I'm slowly upping my goals and plan to work even harder all summer.

I purchased the Fitbit Alta HR to replace a Fitbit Flex 2 I had purchased a year before. That Fitbit Flex 2 was to replace a Fitbit Flex I had the year before that. See a pattern? I've had several Fitbit devices over the years, including Flex, Flex 2, and now Alta HR. I purchased the Alta HR because I wanted to track my sleep better. While it does track your sleep better, the Fitbit Alta HR stopped working after a year and a couple months. I had to buy replacement bands TWICE for the same Fitbit Alta HR. Expect the Fitbit app that the device runs on to drain the battery of whatever phone or tablet you install it on. Logging out of the Fitbit App used to help... but it doesn't help so much since they updated the app to remove the sync settings for the user. The Fitbit app needs location turned on to sync correctly... and your phone will warn you of the app draining your battery quickly. With my experience using almost exclusively Fitbit devices and singing their praises for years, I'm now leaving the "Fitbit Family". This will be my 5th device with them and I'm sick of dumping money to get another one every year and a half or so. It's always the same. The Fitbit device dies just after warranty... you contact Fitbit customer support... they offer a 25% coupon for purchase of a new device... and that has to be used ONLY at their website with a link Fitbit will supply. This last time my Fitbit Alta HR display stopped working... The device wouldn't sync either. Having had the device just over a year I called Fitbit Customer Support. After troubleshooting with Fitbit customer support for a couple days of back and forth.. the device synced up again but still had no display. That's when they gave me a link to THEIR website so I can buy another one at a 25% discount. Having bought several Fitibit devices over the years, I can confidently say that if you buy a Fitbit device, you will be in a position to buy another device just after your factory warranty runs out. That's been my experience and continues to be so with this Fitbit Alta HR.If you do decide to buy a Fitbit device, be sure to buy an additional extended warranty along with it. You will need it. If I'm going to buy a device every year and a half, I will make a $30 purchase for a device that gives me the same data (and more) for a fraction of the price. Fitibit Alta HR and comparable Fitbit devices (Inspire HR or Versa) run $100 or more. If I have to buy another device in a year... I'm spending $30... not $100 (with coupon its $75). I am convinced Fitbit is now relying on their name for sales. They're certainly not getting the sales from reliable devices and happy returning customers. I know several people that feel the way I do now... and I've since learned that most people who buy fitness trackers have had a Fitbit at some time or another and have moved on. It just took me more time because I believed the hype coming from Fitbit instead of trusting my own experience. If you're familiar with the Fitbit app, you'll see they're moving to a subscription "premium" purchase model with the app. The trails they used to have and many challenges they used to have are now gone. It's not like it used to be. This Fitbit Alta worked well for a little over a year. I had to replace the band 7 months in... and then again just after a year... then my Fitbit Alta HR died. I'm done making mistakes by purchasing Fitbit devices.

First I want to say that I have not had my Fitbit Alta HR for that long but I did want to post an honest review of my initial impressions of this product. I originally had a Fitbit Flex but wanted to upgrade to something with a heart rate monitor to track my resting heart rate and my heart rate during cardio to ensure I was reaching my target zones 1. Appearance - I bought the Gunmetal Special Edition tracker as I liked the way the black on black looked. It appears very stylish and looks higher quality than my Fitbit Flex that I had prior to this one 2. Display - I like the options for the display as I have the convenience of a watch and my heart rate at first glance. I can also see my battery level, steps taken and distance by tapping on the display. I will say though that the display took a little getting used to. You are supposed to tap the screen twice to get the initial display and then tap it again to scroll to the other screens. I am so used to swiping on a touch screen to progress to the next page that I had to stop and remember that the Fitbit did not work that way. Also sometimes you can tap it to wake it up and nothing happens. It seems like you have to tap it just right to get it to wake up 3. Step tracker - Just as accurate as the Fitbit Flex I had 4. Heart rate monitor - This is where things get a little tricky. My resting heart rate seems to be pretty accurate (I compared it to manually calculating my heart rate as I did not have another device to compare it to). However, I've found it is not very accurate when doing cardio, depending on what type of workout you do. I did a lot of research before buying this product as this was my main reason for upgrading. Everything I read stated that Fitbit claims it has accuracy within 6 bpm. However other reviews stated that the more complex the workout (where your arm does more inconsistent moving) would throw it off a lot. I've tested this on three different machines at the gym and compared them to the machines heart rate monitors. I know that the heart rate monitors that are built into the machines at the gym can be inaccurate but it was the best thing I had to compare it to. On the step machine, it is off by A LOT. My heart rate on the machine shows an average of 157 bpm but the Fitbit will only show on average of 86 bpm and sometimes it wouldn't even register. That's a huge difference. I've also tried wearing it on different wrists and on different positions on my wrist to improve the accuracy but nothing seems to help. The instructions state that you are to wear it about two to three fingers width from your wrist bone while working out to get the most accurate results. Tried that too but it did nothing while on the stair machine. I will say however that when I compare it to the rowing machine and treadmill, the Fitbit is only about 3 bpm different from what the machine says. Just be aware that depending on the type of workout you do will affect its accuracy. I'm also not thrilled where it has to sit on my arm/wrist to get an accurate reading as it's not a natural place where you would wear a watch/tracker but I'm starting to get used to it 5. Charging cable - I'm not thrilled about this design. The best way to describe the charging cable is that it is a butterfly clip that attaches to the back of your device but you have to line up two metal pins exactly or else it will not connect right. Feels very clumsy and cheaply made 6. Band - The band seems to be higher quality than the standard one that comes with the Fitbit Flex. The one on my Flex had to be replaced every couple of months as it would rip from having to take out the sensor to charge it. I don't think I will have the same problem here but only time will tell. The clasp is also higher quality on this one 7. Heart rate zones - I really do like this feature. I have my Fitbit linked to MyFitness Pal and it accurately shows me what portion of my workouts are cardio vs. fat burn. As long as you are accurate when entering your start time and duration in MyFitness Pal, I feel like this will be accurate for most workouts. However, due to the Fitbit Alta HR not accurately tracking my heart rate during my workout on the stairs, I don't have that data for those workouts which is disappointing to me 8. Sleep cycles - One great upgrade is how they track your sleep cycles. My Fitbit Flex tracked how many hours slept, restless minutes and times awake. With the Fitbit Alta HR it does that plus tracks your deep sleep and REM sleep which was huge for me. My Fitbit Flex was showing on most nights that I got enough sleep. However I would still feel tired most days when waking up. With the Fitbit Alta HR, I found out that even-though I was getting 8 hours of sleep a night only 12% of my sleep was a deep sleep and 3% was REM sleep. Everything else was light sleep. According to my doctor and the research I did, you should have about 25% deep sleep and 20% REM sleep per night. No wonder why I was so tired all the time. I am not sure how to fix this quite yet but I think the data will be helpful when talking to my doctor about ways to fix it 9. Alerts and notifications - I like the feature of getting my call and text notifications on the screen. It is also great with text messages that you can select the option to see who the text is from and at least the first part of the text message. It helps me when doing cardio because I can see if it is something that can wait to respond to or if I need to stop and address it right away. Also if I have my Do Not Disturb on, it won't alert me. However I have found that this feature does not always work correctly. Sometimes it just vibrates but gives me no indication if it is a text or call and if it is a text, who it is from. I really wish this could be more consistent. Also, if you are on your phone doing something else (like reading an e-mail), it won't give you a notification. This is something I wish it would do as it would prevent me from having to stop what I am doing to toggle to my text messages but I guess that is just laziness on my part 10. Silent Alarms - I still can't get these to work correctly. I have set three so far to test it but none have gone off. When I double check the app I find that the alarm had been set but it is always showing it will go off the next day even when I know for a fact that I set it for that same day. Not a huge deal but if you use this feature I recommend you set a back up alarm I do wish that this was water proof but its not a deal breaker for me Based on all of these items, I am not sure if this is worth the price tag but it does have some features that I love. Just keep in mind that this is not always accurate

I enjoy my Alta but I do have a couple dislikes. The battery does not last a week. I have to charge every 3-4 days. While this doesn’t bother me, I was expecting it to last longer. The light is ridiculously bright at night and for whatever reason that is the only time it comes on when I move my wrist. It doesn’t want to work during the day when I need it to but come 2 am and I’m rolling over it’s like a flashlight. I also have to tap it ridiculously hard when I do want to check something. The sleep tracking works great for the most part and I love seeing my patterns and shifts throughout my monthly cycle. Occasionally it doesn’t work and there’s no better explanation than ‘oops sleep tracking was unavailable’. I am a female so I have monthly menstrual cycles. I can keep track of my symptoms and I enjoy that. There are two issues I have with this function. One: the symptoms are lacking. There are a wide variety of symptoms missing. Two: when you log something on the calendar block it always has the same black dot on the calendar and then the symptoms below. For a quick glance it would be really nice if the icons were seen on the calendar and not just a black dot. That way you can look back and immediately identify what you have as a common symptom three days before instead of having to check every single month three days before. When you look at the calendar it wouldn’t be a slew of black dots either. You’d be able to immediately tell instead of having to push on every single day to get specifics. I really like the slim band. I do not like guaky watches. I would recommend this Fitbit as I really do enjoy mine. One of my favorite things about this Fitbit is the silent alarm. It wakes me up and also has the options to do silent reminders. I absolutely love that. The Fitbit app that accompanies the Fitbit is easy to understand, navigate, and utilize. I have no complaints other than the monthly cycle tracking. As far as accuracy, my periods are extremely regular so the app is right every month when I am going to start. For someone with irregular periods I’m not sure how accurate it would be. I love my Fitbit and I would buy it again. I would recommend it as it is a very good tool. If you do not want a ‘smart’ watch this is perfect. I think the smart watches are a bit much myself which is why I went with this product. I have had mine for four months now and I absolutely recommend it because sometimes I even use it as a flashlight at 2 am. :)