Gadgets: Fitbit Debuted at TC50.

This has to be one of the coolest devices I’ve ever seen and judging by the talk from TC50, I’m not the only on who sees the value in it. Fitbit is a small wearable device that tracks your fitness and sleep habits. Using an acceloremeter similar to the one in the Nintendo Wii, it can accurately give you data on steps, miles walked, calories burned, the intensity of your exercise, how well, and how long you slept. When you get within 50 feet of the provided base-station, it automatically uploads all the data to your dashboard on Fitbits website.

Twitter’s Even Williams made a point on his blog that I really agree with: “I’m a firm believer that giving people data on their behavior will change their behavior”. And that pretty much describes the whole point behind Fitbit. Studies show that we often overestimate our exercise, and underestimate the calories we take in and how sedentary we are. Imagine if you look at your dashboard and see that you did nothing most of the day, taken in 3000 calories and only burned 300. How will that effect your daily fitness decisions?

This in $99 well spent. Preoders are being taken now at Fitbit.com and are expected to start shipping around the end of December / beginning of January.