3074: Are Fitness Trackers and Sleep Tracking Devices Accurate and Worth the Cost

Optimal Finance Daily - Financial Independence and Money Advice

Optimal Living Daily LLC

Investing, Business, Education, Self-improvement

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 March 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 3074: Fitness trackers can be a great short-term motivator for increasing daily movement, but their accuracy varies depending on the activity. While they reliably estimate step count and heart rate, they tend to miscalculate calories burned, sleep duration, and travel distances. To maintain motivation beyond the initial excitement, incorporating challenges, friendly competitions, or group tracking can help sustain engagement. Quotes to ponder: "Most fitness trackers are pretty good about estimating the number of steps you take each day, but when it comes to estimating the number of calories burned, they tend to underestimate." "It turns out that fitness trackers do keep folks motivated but in the short term." "If purchasing a fitness tracker helps someone go from exercising sporadically to becoming more committed and consistent, even in the short term, then by all means, it’s worth it." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by The Economist. The world is complex, but understanding it doesn't have to be.
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0:26.7	Search the economist and make sense of the world around you. This is Optimal Finance Daily.
0:33.3	Our fitness trackers, accurate and worth it by Dr. Neal of oldiepodcast.com.
0:39.9	And I'm your host and personal finance enthusiast, Diana Merriam.
0:44.5	Welcome back to our Sunday bonus episode,
0:47.5	where I like to share an article with you from a different podcast in our network,
0:51.6	and usually overlapping with finance or money in some way.
0:56.2	Today's episode comes from Dr. Neal over on Optimal Health Daily, and he's going to answer a
1:02.4	listener question. By the way, if you have a question related to health, nutrition, diet,
1:07.7	or fitness, you can send one in to health at olddpodcast.com.
1:13.2	And with that, let's hear Dr. Neal's opinion on paying for fitness trackers as we optimize
1:18.7	your life.
1:23.7	Hi, my name is Kelsey, and I am curious about fitness trackers, like a Fitbit or a Garmin.
1:32.1	I'm wondering if there's any evidence that there are positive effects of owning one of these.
1:39.3	I've been thinking about buying one and wanted to see if it actually helped motivate people to include more
1:46.9	activity in their day or not. Thanks so much. Thank you for your question, Kelsey. Just the other day,
1:55.0	in fact, one of my friends who happens to be really into fitness came up to me. Well, more like ran up to me because they were so
2:02.1	excited. She wanted to show me her new smartwatch. She was showing me how it tracks nearly every
	...

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