Do you get what you pay for when it comes to fitness trackers?
Letscom isn’t a household name like Fitbit is. But their fitness bands have nearly the same features at a third of the price.
Is the Letscom tracker any good? I’ll dig into the features and quality to find out.
Features
Let’s first compare the shared features of the Letscom and Fitbit trackers, with the Letscom Fitness Tracker HR and Fitbit Alta HR as examples:
- Activity tracking
- Heart rate monitoring
- Sleep tracking
- GPS
- Alarm
- Call & message display
- Move reminders
- Adjustable strap
- Water resistance
Activity Tracking
First and foremost, most people seek out a fitness band to track their steps.
Step count accuracy is very good with both the Letscom and the Fitbit.
They both track well with walking, running, biking, and more.
Keep in mind that the tracking is done by arm movement rather than leg movement. If you’re pushing a shopping cart, stroller, or wheelchair with both hands, these bands won’t track well. I recommend letting the arm with the tracker on it swing instead of using both hands, when possible.
If you’re comparing the Letscom band to the Fitbit Alta HR, neither will count flights of stairs climbed. If that’s important to you, move up to the Letscom Smart Watch or Fitbit Charge 3.
Workouts can also be tracked. With the Letscom, you’ll need to start and stop the workout tracking through the display and button.
The Fitbit allows you to do the same, and also has automatic workout detection. This feature doesn’t always pick up the workout or get the start/stop time right, though. For best accuracy you’ll want to start and stop it yourself.
Advantage: Tie
Heart Rate Monitoring
Continuous heart rate tracking is another big feature.
It’s great for finding out your resting heart rate, peak heart rate, and how intensive your workouts are.
With any fitness band, you’ll first want to make sure the band is snug on your wrist for accurate measurements.
Both the Letscom and Fitbit do well at tracking your heart rate.
With either brand, you’ll simply press the menu button to cycle over to the heart rate screen. They’ll then show your heart rate in real time.
The Fitbit adds icons to indicate different “zones” of activity level, such as cardio and peak. I don’t find this to be very useful since the actual heart rate number is being displayed. A secondary screen on the Fitbit shows your resting heart rate. Again – you can tell this by the number being recorded, so it’s not particularly helpful.
Advantage: Tie
Sleep Tracking
Tracking your sleep patterns is done by movement detection. With both brands, you’ll be able to view your stats with the app.
They work about the same, divided up into the three or four categories of Deep Sleep, Light Sleep, REM Sleep, and Awake.
One important difference between these brands: the Letscom resets its data at midnight. This means your sleep tracking won’t begin until 12AM.
Shift workers, or anyone who goes to bed well before midnight, will find the sleep tracking to be better on the Fitbit.
Advantage: Fitbit
GPS
If you exercise outdoors, GPS is great to have.
To keep the size down, the Letscom fitness tracker and Fitbit Alta HR don’t have an onboard GPS sensor, but they do connect to your phone and use its GPS.
What this does for you is records the actual route you took and your speed throughout.
Both the Letscom and Fitbit give you a nice map display of your route along with stats like total distance, time, calories, and pace.
Advantage: Tie
Call & Message Display
Seeing alerts on your wrist is great for any time your phone isn’t in your hand.
Once connected to your phone, both the Letscom and Fitbit trackers can notify you.
Calls and iMessages/Google Messages/texts display on the screen of both the Letscom and Fitbit.
You’ll also feel a vibration from the band when you get notified. It’s nearly silent, so it’s helpful anywhere you are.
The Letscom fitness tracker and Fitbit Alta HR do have small displays, so large messages will scroll by. If you need to read and respond to large messages regularly, the Letscom Smart Watch or Fitbit Charge can do so.
Letscom adds social media notifications such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Instagram. The Fitbit Alta HR is limited to calls and texts.
Advantage: Letscom
Alarm
Ever had a need for a silent alarm?
This can be helpful if you need to wake up a different time in the morning than your partner. Or, perhaps you’d like to be reminded of something while at work without disrupting others. A medication reminder is another great use.
If you sleep like the dead, the vibration may not be enough to wake you up. For the average person, though, it’s enough to do the trick.
Both the Letscom and Fitbit have effective vibration alarms and alerts, set easily through their apps.
Advantage: Tie
Move Reminders
Sometimes it’s easy to get focused on work and forget to move around.
It’s good for our health to get up and move regularly.
Letscom and Fitbit models will keep track of how long you’ve gone sine you last got up and moved around. If enabled in the app, they’ll notify you with vibration and a screen alert that you should stand up and move around.
Advantage: Tie
Adjustable Strap
The Letscom fitness tracker uses a one-size-fits-all band.
It’s sized for wrists between 5.4″ and 7.6″ around.
The Fitbit Alta HR comes in three sizes:
- Small: 5.5″-6.7″ wrist circumference.
- Large: 6.7″-8.1″ wrist circumference.
- XL: 8.1″-9.3″ wrist circumference
The Letscom will fit most people just fine.
If you have particularly big wrists, use either measuring tape or a string marked and held up against a ruler. If you have beyond 7.5″ wrists, I’d look to the Fitbit instead.
Advantage: Tie
Water Resistance
This could be a big one – depending on how much of a hassle it is for you to take your band off when water is involved.
Letscom is a better choice if water resistance matters to you.
The Fitbit Alta HR is splash proof. So, it’ll do just fine in light rain and it holds up against sweat.
However, you can’t submerge the Fitbit Alta.
The Letscom fitness tracker has an IP67 water resistance rating.
That means it can be dropped in water one meter (or about 3′) deep for half an hour.
While you probably shouldn’t swim with the Letscom, it’s fine to wear in the shower or while washing dishes.
If you do want to swim and track your swimming, go with a Fitbit Charge 3 instead.
Advantage: Letscom
Extra Features
Since these trackers have a display, they can also be used as watches. Both brands display the time and the date.
Letscom adds a couple of pretty neat features that the Fitbit Alta doesn’t have.
Find Phone: A menu button on the band will ring your phone and allow you to locate it.
Camera Remote: The band can be used as a remote shutter for your camera. This really is only useful if you have your camera propped up or on a tripod, but it can be handy for making low-light photos less blurry.
Advantage: Letscom
Battery & Charging
Charging the Letscom is more convenient. You simply detach one end of the wristband to reveal a USB connection, and plug in into your computer or charger.
The Fitbit includes a special charging cable, so you’ll need to bring it with you if you travel for a long period of time.
Charging is quick for both brands at 1-2 hours for a full charge.
Battery life is excellent, with both brands averaging about 7 days on a charge. This lives up to what’s advertised by the manufacturers.
A battery indicator can be seen on the screens of either brand.
Advantage: Letscom
Software
Many of the settings, features, and stats are unlocked with smartphone apps.
If you only wish to track steps and heartrate, you can do without the bluetooth phone connection.
Letscom uses an app called VeryFitPro for Apple or Android.
In terms of features and settings, it’s a good app. The layout, appearance, and user friendliness are pretty good, but don’t quite match Fitbit’s app. There have been more bugs reported with the VeryFitPro app as well.
The Fitbit app adds a social media aspect. You can link to your friends and keep tabs on each others’ step counts. This ca add some accountability to workout partners, making for a great motivator.
You can earn badges in the apps for completing specific goals. You can also create challenges with your friends to meet certain exercise goals.
Additionally, you can view your Fitbit data from their website on a PC or Mac. This makes it handy to view a lot of information at once.
Advantage: Fitbit
Design & Display
As cheap as the Letscom is, it doesn’t feel any cheaper than the Fitbit.
The wrist band is a flexible silicon material which is comfortable and helps it stay put for heart rate tracking.
The look of the Letscom and Fitbit Alta HR are very similar and mainly come down to which brand has a color you like better (if you go with something other than black).
Letscom and Fitbit both use OLED screens. This give you a good viewing angle and long battery life.
I’ve found the Fitbit’s display to be of better quality. It’s brighter, so it can be seen more easily in the sunlight.
The Fitbit also has a larger screen at 1.4″ compared to just under 1″ on the Letscom.
Advantage: Fitbit
Ease of Use
Letscom hasn’t put the effort that Fitbit has into perfecting their user interfaces. That’s to be expected with as big of a brand as Fitbit is.
The difference shows in the smartphone app. The wording, button size, and layouts are just a bit better overall on the Fitbit app.
If you’re tech savvy, the Letscom’s interface probably won’t bother you.
Those who are less tech savvy will appreciate the instruction manual of the Fitbit. It’s far more detailed and the pictures are very helpful for getting started.
Advantage: Fitbit
Value
No contest here – Letscom costs far less for very similar features.
Letscom doesn’t quite match up to Fitbit with its screen quality, sleep tracking, or software.
But, if those weak points don’t concern you, it’s quite a bargain.
Advantage: Letscom
Conclusion
The Fitbit Alta HR and its app are overall a better package.
The Fitbit comes in at a fair price, well below most smart watches. If you want the best in a compact fitness band, it’s my first choice.
Additionally, if sleep tracking is important to you, it doesn’t have the same limitations as the Letscom does.
However, the Letscom fitness tracker is still quite good for its price. Its features (aside from sleep tracking) work as advertised and it tracks steps and heart rate accurately.
If you’re okay with some bugs in the smartphone app, and the Fitbit costs more than you’d like to spend, the Letscom is the best low-priced fitness tracker.