Striiv Smart Pedometer/Tracker

About 2 months ago I finally broke down and purchased the Striiv Smart Pedometer. I had been wanting it for a year or more, but kept putting off getting it, in part due to the price. Let's face it, $80+ for a pedometer is steep for almost anyone. Add to the fact that I stay and home and have little spending money, and, well, it's something you for sure think over a while before buying. I've now had it about a month, and I think I've used it more than enough to formulate enough of an opinion on it so that I can effectively review it. First of all, what makes this pedometer better than any other out there? What makes it worth $80 and why get this over an array of cheaper models? This was something that rattled around in my head for a while along with what makes this better than the FitBit, which is a close second in terms of what is offered. This pedometer truly earns the name 'smart.' It calculates your steps, for sure, but it does so much more than that. Each day (the stats reset at midnight local times) you have the following stats tracked: Steps taken, Stairs climbed (this counts inclines as stairs as well,) Calories burned, Distance walked, and time spent exercising (this includes walking, stair climbing and running.) It saves this data on the dashboard that is accessible when you recharge the device on your computer as well as download any updates that may be available. These stats are saved in the device for up to a month in a graph form and it averages out the numbers. All this data is used to motivate you to go further than you did the previous day. So, how can charts motivate you? Well, seeing visual progress of your work while waiting for progress on your body to show helps you stick to it. It doesn't feel like you are getting nowhere when you see all that you have done, but that's not the big motivator this little machine has inside of it. The Striiv Smart Pedometer is like a personal trainer without the cost of one, and perhaps without having Jillian Michaels screaming at you. Every day there are challenges that it gives you. You can get these challenges by simply waking it up from not being used for a while. It'll often give you a challenge with triple energy points should you take it then and there. You can also get challenges from the slot machine app in it. Spin the wheels and you are offered three challenges. One easy, one medium and one hard. No worries if these aren't for you, just spin again and see what you get that time. You can complete a maximum of I believe it is 12 challenges a day (4 of each difficulty.) Each of these award energy points which go toward the My Land app as well as to the walkathon. What's the walkathon app? It's where you earn energy points to reach a goal of donating one of the following things: Water for a day for a child, Polio vaccines or preserve a parking lot size spot of the rainforest for a year. Yes, you can actually walk toward donations, which is pretty nice when you think about it. The My Land app is similar to those Facebook style games where you build and grow trees and structures in an effort to populate your little island with animals and critters. In order to build these structures you need energy, and you guessed it, the energy comes from moving and taking challenges. The graphics in the game are pretty cute and there seems to be a decent variety of animals you can attract. So far my island has butterflies (they look more like fairies, lol), 3 types of centaurs, white tiger, black panther/tiger, yellow bird, ostrich, pink lemurs, turtles, orange tigers, and there's also dragons, but they sure do make you work hard for them! If you know a friend with a Striiv, you can go head to head in race mode where it shows you and them walking on the screen in real time. Counts your steps and moves you accordingly. While I don't have anyone with a Striiv to try this with, there are computer opponents that you can race either steps or stairs with. The Penguin is the slowest, Sir Bacon, the pig is medium, and Walkatron, the robot is a speedy little guy. If you win, you get a jackpot of energy plus a bonus of energy depending on how much your lead was. If you lose, you still get energy, but less than if you had won. The Striiv is interesting in how it is able to count the steps. Like most (of not all) pedometers, it does mistake car travel as steps and stairs. You may find turning it off while driving to help keep your steps accurate. It, however, is hard to trick. I can rarely shake it in my hand with a rhythm similar to stepping and fool it into counting this as steps. I did fool it once, but only once. It also can count steps if it's in your pocket, in your hand, worn on your hip or hanging on the included keychain hookup. I've never seen a pedometer that could effectively count steps without being worn on the waistband of your pants, so this is neat. It aids you in watching how close you are in progress to completing a challenge and how close you are to your next trophy. Trophies! Who doesn't love shiny trophies for their work? I know I do! The Striiv is always awarding trophies for your hard work. Some of the trophies are based on the amount of steps you take daily (strong start, beat your average, etc.) Some are awarded for calories burned daily and weekly (burn a soda, cupcake, banquet, 10K calories burned.) Some are awarded for distance (cross the golden gate bridge, Across Rhode Island, ultramarathon,) Others are awarded for stairs and are comparable to structures we all know such as climb the Statue of Liberty, Stairway to Heaven, Mount Fuji with the highest goal of climbing Mount Everest at a whopping 38.7K steps! There are also trophies for time spent working out (250 total hrs, beat your average, 100 total hours, 500 total hours.) As well as completing all the easy, medium challenges in a day. Each trophy awards energy points, naturally. The stairs feature is handy to have, and it only counts going up stairs, not down. So, if you are like me and using the stairs in your home you have to work doubly hard over those that have a larger flight of stairs to ascend. As mentioned earlier, hills and inclines do count as stairs as well. There have been minor troubles with the Striiv during the month, though. So far the extent of my troubles is when the server is down and it cannot sync data to the dashboard/download updates. This does not affect how the Striiv functions directly, but missing updates can make the software be outdated and that can cause issues. Also, you don't get your sync prize for the day, which can be a free donation, challenges not costing energy to take, collecting all your coins in My Land with one tap or a free treasure chest for My Land. These issues seem to be semi infrequent (only had 3 days issues in the last month) but often enough to cause some mild concern. The server seems to be up within a day or two, from what I've seen so far. So, all in all, I feel that the Striiv was a good investment. Most health oriented investments are, though. I feel as though the $80 spent on it was a lot of money, but I get a lot back from it. Heck, it sure beats hiring a personal trainer, and it makes moving fun.