Fitness trackers for older people (70+yo)?

August 16, 2016 12:24 PM

I'm just curious if anyone has experience with giving a fitness tracker to their parents. A brief search says seniors are not the target market for the popular fitness trackers, but I'm just wondering if anyone here has actual experience with this. I suspect all the popular fitness trackers are horrible for people who can't see small fonts or don't want to charge them everyday, but maybe someone in the hivemind has figured out a solution?
posted by mhh5 to Health & Fitness (13 answers total)

What's the use case you're after (just tracking steps? something else?) and what's the general tech-savviness of the parents involved?
posted by brainmouse at 12:39 PM on August 16, 2016

The Fitbit One's fonts are reasonably sized, and only needs to be charged about every two weeks. It doesn't require syncing with a smartphone or computer, and that could be a technical challenge for some folks. No experience giving one to a senior.
posted by cnc at 12:42 PM on August 16, 2016

I don't really understand why a basic FitBit wouldn't work out for seniors. It's a bracelet you wear on your wrist (I think even more basic models clip to clothing?), and the cheaper models don't have any kind of digital display and don't need to be charged daily. The only part I think might be complicated would be that you see your actual data on a smartphone app, and some seniors continue to use flip phones. But you can 100% use the FitBit in a day to day sense without bothering with the app.

If you're looking for something that just tracks steps and doesn't connect to a smartphone app, what about just getting a basic pedometer?
posted by Sara C. at 12:44 PM on August 16, 2016

Not sure precisely what data you're looking for, but my stepdad was right around 70 when he got his first Fitbit. (He's had a few since then because he tended to leave them clipped to his laundry and wash them, before the wrist models came out.) He's pretty tech-savvy so the smartphone and weekly-ish charging and such were no problem.

Other than the accidental-laundering issue, the primary problem encountered was that he got obsessed with the calorie tracker and started hanging out in the kitchen while my mom cooked, trying to get her to measure everything so he could calculate exact calorie counts. It drove her bonkers and I don't actually know how they worked it out. I think she might have just banished him from the kitchen so he had to make peace with inexact calorie intake data.
posted by Stacey at 1:05 PM on August 16, 2016

No experience with older folks wearing one, but to address your charging/reading concerns: if syncing to some sort of smartphone/iPad with bluetooth is an option, a tracker in the Withings Activite line might fit your needs. There is no small text reading involved (there's a small dial that shows their daily step progress instead) and no regular charging (just a watch battery you replace every ~6 months). All the other information is available in the app. Plus the regular watch styling might be more attractive to those who are used to wearing a watch anyways.
posted by R a c h e l at 1:08 PM on August 16, 2016

Correction on my above post - the Fitbit One DOES require synching. Sorry about that mistake!
posted by cnc at 2:51 PM on August 16, 2016

The use case would be to track physical activity for a person who has zero technical inclinations and limited eyesight. Ideally, I'd like something more than just a pedometer, so something that could track heartrate and be more specific about the physical activity. Do these trackers only monitor steps or measure wrist swings to correlate with steps?

Also, it might be good if this device could wirelessly pair with MY phone and/or upload data to a cloud service directly on semi-weekly basis... (but if it needs to sync daily, that might be annoying.)
posted by mhh5 at 4:34 PM on August 16, 2016

Please remember with whatever tracker you go with that it will not really take into account age and any health conditions some goals may be unrealistic or outright dangerous.
posted by AlexiaSky at 4:35 PM on August 16, 2016

Yeah, you want a basic Fitbit without the digital readouts the newer/fancier models have, synched to an app on your phone. The wearer will get a sequence of lights that show their progress throughout the day, and a short vibration pattern when they meet their step goal.

Fitbit can also track heart rate, sleep patterns, and a few other interesting forms of physical data.

IIRC these lil guys need to charge once a week or so and virtually never need to be re-synched to your device.
posted by Sara C. at 6:35 PM on August 16, 2016

There are lots of complaints about syncing issues with the Fitbit from technologically disinclined people of all ages... 2nd that if the aim is to gamify activity, a pedometer might be a better option. With or without a heart rate monitor like a Polar, maybe. (I know a senior who got really into Wii Fit, there's that too [still, maybe?].)
posted by cotton dress sock at 6:54 PM on August 16, 2016

Is th information for you or your parent? I set up my fitbit, using IFTTT, to automatically upload all the data to a Google Sheets spreadsheet in my GDrive. As long as the device was within range of my pc that had a dongle, it uploaded the data to the Fitbit servers and thus to my phone app and the aforementioned spreadsheet.
posted by AugustWest at 6:58 PM on August 16, 2016

The Garmin Vivofit has large numbers and runs off a watch battery for one year. I believe it can also be used in conjunction with a heart rate monitor/chest strap.Not sure about the syncing though.
posted by NikitaNikita at 7:35 PM on August 16, 2016

I love that probably apocryphal story of the man and his wife who started a Fitbit challenge with his parents. At first he and his wife were leading, but after about a week his parents surged ahead. They said they were really getting into it! But then the son dropped in on his parents unexpectedly and noticed that their two dogs were wearing the parents' Fitbits on their collars.
posted by Short Attention Sp at 5:42 AM on August 17, 2016