Fitbit Ultra review

This is where Fitbit’s biggest failing becomes obvious. Most calorie logging sites rely on user-added data about food to a greater or lesser extent. However, because Fitbit has only recently launched in the UK, none of the foods in its database are relevant to this country. It doesn’t know what fish fingers are, is clueless about Creme Eggs and wouldn’t know a Yorkshire pudding if you threw one at it. You can add nutritional information manually, but this rapidly becomes tiresome when you have to do it for every single thing you eat. It also compares very poorly to rival logging sites such as MyFitnessPal, which contains a wealth of accurate data about British foodstuffs. There isn’t even a quick-entry option so you can simply log how many calories you’ve eaten.

The Fitbit website also lacks the supportive, diverse and very active communities that other tracking sites benefit from. There are a few quiet message boards and a number of public groups, but these are again oriented towards US users. There’s no search function, either, so the only way to find out which of 1,050 groups suits you is to scroll through them, twelve at a time.

The product’s box and website also promise integration with other services. While some are almost entirely oriented towards Americans, there’s also support for Nike+ tracking devices, Foursquare, and the Endomondo GPS app for mobile phones and Garmin hardware. Other integration apps are still in development, including one that will allow the Fitbit to work with MyFitnessPal. We only hope that – when and if this is released – it’ll provide access to MyFitnessPal’s more UK-friendly food database.

The Fitbit Ultra hardware is great – it clips on unobtrusively, lasts days without charging and displays useful data about how you’re progressing. The website is clearly-designed, but its calorie tracking is rendered almost useless by the absence of UK products. If this weren’t the case, we’d be happy to recommend Fitbit to anyone who wanted to watch their calories and get a bit more active. Right now, though, it’s not worth its £80. If you want to improve your fitness, you’re better off with a pedometer or a budget Heart Rate Monitor, such as Polar’s FT7, and a free calorie and exercise tracking service.