Fitbit® For Dummies®

To view this book's Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Fitbit For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.

Introduction

Wait a minute, I hear you thinking, does the world really need an entire book about Fitbit? First, whoa, your thinking is loud. Second, yes the world really does need a book about Fitbit. Sure, most Fitbit trackers are simple bands that you secure to your favorite wrist and start walking (or running or skipping or whatever). However, that apparent simplicity is only on the surface. Scratch that surface and you uncover an entire world of activity tracking that’s much deeper and more powerful than most folks know.

Yes, most Fitbit devices are easy to learn and use, but that up-front ease belies a complex background of features, settings, and customizations that can help you get the most out of your Fitbit. And more sophisticated devices such as the Charge 3 and the Ionic and Versa watches are brimming with buttons and options and apps that come with a learning curve.

Finally, it’s one thing to operate your Fitbit, but it’s quite another to use your Fitbit to reach a goal. Whether that goal is to get fit, lose weight, eat better, or reduce stress, your Fitbit has settings and features — many of them obscure and hard to find — that can help you get there.

About This Book

So, yep, I wrote a book about Fitbit. Welcome, friend, to Fitbit For Dummies, which takes you on a complete tour of the Fitbit ecosystem, from the Fitbit trackers to the Fitbit app to the social features of Fitbit.com. In the end, you’ll learn everything you need to know to get the most out of your Fitbit investment — and have a ton of fitness-related fun.

Fitbit For Dummies offers 14 chapters, but just because they appear sequentially, that doesn’t mean you have to read them that way. Use the table of contents or index to find the information you need — and dip into and out of the book when you have a question about Fitbit specifically or health and fitness tracking generally.

If your time is limited (or you’re just aching to get tonight’s TV-watching started), you can also ignore anything marked by the Technical Stuff icon or the information in sidebars (the gray-shaded boxes). Yes, these tidbits are fascinating (if I do say so myself), but they aren’t critical to the subject at hand, so you won’t miss anything crucial by skipping them.

Within this book, you might see some web addresses breaking across two lines of text. If you’re reading this book in print and want to visit one of these web pages, type the web address exactly as it’s noted in the text, pretending that any line breaks don’t exist. If you’re reading this as an e-book, you’ve got it easy — just tap the web address to be taken directly to the web page.

Foolish Assumptions

This book is for people who are new (or relatively new) to using a Fitbit activity tracker. Therefore, I do not assume that you’re a Fitbit expert, a Fitbit guru, or a Fitbit whiz. However, I do assume the following:

  • You know how to plug in and connect devices.
  • You have a running Wi-Fi network with an Internet connection.
  • You know the password for your Wi-Fi network.
  • You have an iOS or an Android mobile device (that is, a smartphone or tablet) or a Windows 10 PC.
  • You know how to install and operate apps on your mobile device or PC.

Icons Used in This Book

Like other books in the Dummies series, this book’s margin has icons, or little pictures, to flag things that don’t quite fit into the flow of the chapter discussion. Here are the icons that I use:

This icon marks text that contains something useful or important enough that you’d do well to store the text somewhere safe in your memory for later recall.

This icon marks text that contains some for-nerds-only technical details or explanations. Feel free to skip this information.

This icon marks shortcuts or easier ways to do things, which I hope will make your life — or, at least, the Fitbit portion of your life — more efficient.

This icon marks text that contains a friendly but unusually insistent reminder to avoid doing something. You have been warned.

Beyond the Book

In addition to what you’re reading right now, this product also comes with a free access-anywhere cheat sheet that includes important things you need to know to be healthy and fit, the most useful Fitbit account settings, and a glossary of important health and fitness tracking terms. To get this cheat sheet, go to www.dummies.com/ and type Fitbit For Dummies Cheat Sheet in the Search box.

Where to Go from Here

If you’ve had your Fitbit for a while and you’re familiar with the basics, you can probably get away with skipping the first three chapters and diving in to any part of the book that exudes usefulness or interestingness. The chapters present their Fitbit know-how in readily digestible, bite-size tidbits, so feel free to graze your way through the book.

If you and Fitbit haven’t met yet — particularly if you’re not sure what a Fitbit even does — this book has you covered. To get your relationship with Fitbit off to a fine start, I highly recommend reading the book’s first three chapters to get some of the basics down cold. From there, you can branch out anywhere you like, safe in the knowledge that you have some survival skills to fall back on!

Part 1

Introducing Fitbit

IN THIS PART …

Discover the benefits and learn the basics of health and fitness tracking.

Check out the available Fitbit devices and learn which one is right for you.

Find out how to configure your Fitbit and install and set up the Fitbit app.