Free-Living Comparison of Physical Activity and Sleep Data from Fitbit Activity Trackers Worn on the Dominant and Nondominant Wrists
Abstract
Despite proprietary algorithms to account for differences, output from activity trackers worn on different wrists may not be comparable because individuals vary in their reliance on each hand during free-living activities.Participants (n = 48) wore Fitbit Flex or Flex2 monitors on each wrist for three days. T tests, equivalence tests, and correlations were used to compare steps, Calories, distance, active minutes, and sleep duration recorded by dominant and nondominant wrist-worn monitors and effect sizes and mean absolute and percent difference were calculated.The nondominant Flex2 monitor was not equivalent to the dominant wrist-worn monitor and recorded significantly more steps/day (absolute difference = 708), miles/day (0.3), and active minutes/day (7.9) than the dominant Flex2 monitor. For all variables, nondominant and dominant output was correlated (r>0.75).Nondominant and dominant Flex2 monitors are significantly different, but there were small differences for Flex monitors. Research should investigate effects on behavior and replicate findings using other monitors.
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Five studies (50 comparisons) reported interdevice reliability for energy expenditure, with analyzed sample sizes ranging from 13 to 29.
“Five studies (50 comparisons) reported on interdevice reliability [85,113,116,117,166], with analyzed sample sizes ranging from 13 [117] to 29 [113].”
From Reliability and Validity of Commercially Available Wearable Devices for Measuring Steps, Energy Expenditure, and Heart Rate: Systematic Review (2020) · cites this paper as [113]
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- Authors
- Clevenger, K. A., Molesky, M. J., Vusich, J., & Montoye, A. H. K.
- Affiliations
- Michigan State University (US)
- Alma College (US)
- Corresponding author
- Clevenger, Kimberly A.
- Venue
- Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2019-02-12
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 194-204
- ISSN
- 1091-367X (ISSN-L)
- 1532-7841
- OpenAlex
- W2913057168
- Cited by
- 13
- References
- 30
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 4
- FWCI
- 1.20
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Physical Activity and Health
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Context-Aware Activity Recognition Systems
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Keywords
- wrist-worn accelerometers, physical activity measurement, sleep duration, step count, device comparability, free-living physical activity
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