Striiv bills itself as a smart pedometer, similar to a smart phone because it can do a lot more than just track your steps, and it provides a much better looking user interface than your run-of-the-mill pedometer. It says that it can make your workouts more fun, and help motivate you to take those 10,000 steps per day that many health practitioners recommend. But can this little device actually make exercising more enjoyable?
Overview
Perhaps you’ve heard of The Step Diet, or just know that 10,000 steps a day will work wonders on your fitness levels. The interesting thing is that these steps don’t have to be jogging, or even taking a walk for walking’s sake. You can count every step you take in one day as one of the steps. Since it would be rather unreasonable for you to count the steps and keep track of everything on your own, the use of a pedometer is highly recommended. However, most low-cost pedometers are pretty basic and just show you a running tally of the steps you’ve taken, until you reset it.
The Claim
Striiv claims that it has a high resolution screen so that it is easier to see and to use. They say that not only can you view your steps, but you can also track how many stairs you’ve gone up, how many calories you burn, and what that translates to as a distance, or how many minutes you’ve logged throughout the day. They also say that they make exercising more fun by including games, involving your friends, and making it all social so that you stay engaged and stay committed to it.
They also say that they will donate to charity for you just by you getting more active. You can choose to provide clean water to impoverished areas, help the fight against AIDS, and other worthy causes. This puts a philanthropic incentive behind you just doing more during your day. This can be the drive that you may have needed in order to get you going. If you don’t feel like doing it for yourself, you’ll at least feel like doing it for someone in need.
The Hype
A product this cute and feature packed is going to generate a lot of hype, especially since it is turning an activity that most of us don’t enjoy into something that we might actually want to do. For a little gadget it has a lot riding on it as far as claims go, and this makes people take a step back and wonder if it really can do all that it says. This is especially true when a company says they will donate to charity on your behalf just by you being more active, and reporting that activity.
The Cost
Striiv is $100 plus about $6 shipping, or about $9 if you want it faster. It comes with a wall charger, USB cable, and a quick release key ring so that you can always have it handy. It’s about five times more expensive than your basic pedometer, but it should provide you with a much better user experience, and far more capabilities and functionalities than just counting your steps. It’s really not fair to measure this against your average $20 pedometer.
The Commitment
Once you’ve got this in place, your major responsibility is just to start moving more. All of the cool features that it has only become cool by you producing data to measure, track, and analyze on your computer. Each day then becomes an opportunity to make it your personal best, either climbing more stairs, donating more to charity, or taking more steps than you did the previous day. So while you may be committing to getting more activity into your life, it’s a commitment you can definitely live with.
Evaluation
Striiv gets pretty fantastic reviews from those that try it out. Many people say that it is not very accurate when it comes to measuring the number of steps you take, and it seems to have varying degrees of accuracy depending on how you wear it. But the major draw to this item is not really how accurate it is, but all the things that you can do with it. It’s true that the more accurate it is the better your data would be, but it gets it close enough in most instances to not be a problem.
Final Striiv Review
Striiv is getting our Thumbs Up review, as there’s not much not to like about it. It’s small, it’s high-res, it syncs to a website and shows you cool little graphs about how much progress you’re making. They’ve basically figured out a way to quantify the activities of your day, and turn it into a fitness game. This gives you some clear objectivity so you always know how you’re really doing and not leaving it a gray area based on how you feel about your progress. Plus you can donate to charity at the same time. That’s just awesome.
Our Recommendation
Definitely pick one of these up. By doing what you normally do anyway, and just doing a little more of it, you’ll be able to help out people less fortunate than yourself, and get more fit in the process. There’s really nothing else like this at this price point, and with this quality. Plus, they’re always updating the software that runs it so it keeps getting better and better as more people use it and provide feedback on how to improve it.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but for me it does help to know what I’m doing right and what that exercise is doing for me. For example, I love the new treadmills because they provide you with so much information and they keep you motivated with them, I actually do think they make you workout harder. It’s the same thing with this, if you walk a lot because you want to keep your body healthy, then it makes perfect sense to make it fun. My old pedometer with tiny readout is going in to the garbage to make room for striiv.