Omron HJ-303 Pocket Pedometer
|
List Price: Our Price: $29.99 You Save: $15.00 (33%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Category: Health Care See more product details |
|---|
Customer Reviews of Omron HJ-303 Pocket Pedometer
Customer Review: Great product, except that it doesn't work--investigation to follow
Summary: 4 Stars
Bought one of these at REI yesterday. It's quite wee and slender and easy to fit on your belt / clipped to a pocket / in a pocket. It comes with a safety leash and clip as well as a belt clip (though the belt clip is rather shallow and will slip off a belt, hence the leash is nice).
Mechanically, it is, as advertised, very smart about identifying "walking" vs counting steps while driving or bouncing or whatever other activities you might expect a "cheap" pedometer to register improperly. It also seems quite accurate, though I haven't done any serious walking or climbing with it (see below).
After sitting about an hour working on my computer, I looked at the screen and found it said "ERR". This state proved unrecoverable until I removed the battery, which necessitated re-entering the date and time. Oddly my height and weight data persisted. The unit functioned properly for the rest of the day.
This morning I woke up to the same "ERR" state. I'm going to return the unit today and get another one. I'll update the review when I have more info but first glance might suggest a good product with QA problems in firmware. Implicit here is my assumption that REI (like Amazon) will allow the return without a lot of fuss, hence these are two of my go-to vendors.
The battery in the unit is a Panasonic. I have the experience that, for all their other virtues, Panasonic make the worst batteries available anywhere on the planet, thus I suspect some battery weirdness could be at the back of the trouble.
If other reviewers are correct and the only reset happens at midnight by the local clock, that does seem like a curious design choice.
FOLLOW UP: Returned the product without any problem to REI and got a replacement. Put a Duracell battery in it off the bat and it has worked exactly as advertised from the get-go. Note that OMRON has a new flashy model out that is similar and has some additional features for similar money, so you might want to look at their website for the latest breaking news. I'm docking them one star for being boneheads and getting chintzy with the included battery. Lawks.
Customer Review: Best one I purchased
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought two of these for my wife and I and we use them regularly. First, they are very accurate. It took a few weeks to get our step size tweaked in just right and I had to do it a bit differently than recommended. I took a known route that we walk and clocked it with the car first, then kept adjusting the step size until we both were showing the same distance after the walk and it measured correct miles. I read the reviews about the belt clip that let the item get lost and I agree. The included clip uses rubber "tabs" to hold the device in place and it could slide out if you are running and clothing pushes or rubs on it too much. There is a little tether included with a dandy little clip that I'd recommend using which keeps it from dropping out of a pocket or the clip. Definately use the tether. My wife clips the device on her waist band, I drop mine in a front pocket. Any position seems to work good. As I mentioned first, the accuracy was a pleasant surprise and since we walk the same route some times and it is easy to check accuracy. There is a "trip" function that allows you to check a trip but only in steps, which in my view is an oversight. It gives you steps, then you have to remember your stride distance, then calculate distance yourself (math 101 anyone?). When we first got the devices neither would turn on until I removed the battery, then reinstalled it. I didn't see this trick in the manual but if it isn't, it should be there. I think it is made that way to keep the battery from discharging while it is in storage before the sale, but judging from the reviews that thought the battery was dead on arrival, I wonder if it was this phenomenon rather than a dead battery. Every day at midnight the steps reset which is OK and it keeps a 7 day running total of your steps. I don't use it this way but if you're worried about weekly results then it's OK. Gotta' say, overall a nice device and I'd recommend without a doubt.Customer Review: Sweeeet! Pedometer (and it does not time out)
Summary: 5 Stars
A couple of other reviewers seem to think the pedometer times out. The screen goes into a sleep mode to save on the battery. If you hit any of the buttons, the screen comes back on and you can scroll through all the different screens to get to whatever data you want. It still collects data even when the screen is in save mode. With that said, I think this is the best pedometer I have owned. I have another Omron (HJ-150). It is a very basic model and extremely accurate. It has been a year since I bought it and it has started acting quirky. I think it just needs a new battery, but I wanted to try a thinner model, so rather than buy another battery I opted to try the HJ-303. I could not be happier.
Pros
-Thin
-Can be worn anywhere on the body, even in a pocket
-No annoying clicking sound
-Spot on when it comes to counting steps
-Shows: total steps for the day, steps you took which were moderate and the amount of time you took to walk those moderate steps, calories, time, distance walked, 7 days of step data, and has a trip mode to show you accumulated steps over a period of time.
-Easy to set up
-Screen is easy to read
-Buttons are easy to push
-It comes with a leash, so it won't get lost if it falls off
Cons
-The waistband clip is a little thicker than I would like.
-The battery seemed DOA, but when I popped it out and put it back in, the pedometer came on with no problem.
I found the Omrons to be very accurate, even when I shake one like a maraca, it does not add steps. This is not the case for three other pedometers I own, which are now collecting dust. I did happen to find mine at Academy for about $28 with tax, so I felt better about not spending $40 on a pedometer. If you are looking for more than a basic model, and want fabulous accuracy, then this is one is the pick of the litter.
Customer Review: Amazing Omron HJ-303 Exceeds Expectation
Summary: 5 Stars
My previous pedometer Accusplit Eagle 140S became very inaccurate after 3 years. The warranty was still in effect but required $12 plus my paying for shipping and insurance to their office. After considerable research, I decided to purchase the Omron HJ-303. My reluctance was that I wanted a pedometer that I could not only use on my walks but primarily around the house for routine use. I was concerned that the 4 second delay that is built into the pedometer to filter out irregular motion such as riding in a car might work against me. But I was wrong. It works just great around the house as I walk from room to room or even use the stairs. Cutting the grass which does not always result in regular steps is registered very well on this pedometer even though the instructions does warn that such irregular steps may not register. I started using the belt clip accessory that came with the pedometer only because I had grown use to using other brands of belt clip pedometers. The instructions point out that the 3-axis accelerometer sensors can work just as well when the pedometer is placed into one's pocket. I did try that and confirmed that it is just as accurate in my pocket as it is on the belt clip. That is a great feature because moving the pedometer to another pair of pants is now much easier than dealing with moving a belt clip. I would make a recommendation to purchase those transparent protectors sold at camera stores that are used to protect the camera's LCD screen. I now use that to put over the face of the pedometer so that my car keys will not scratch the pedometer's screen. It is protecting the face nicely. Overall, I can't imagine what more a person could want in a pedometer than what is available in the Omron HJ-303.Customer Review: This Should Be Called a Ten Thousand Step Device
Summary: 3 Stars
My first pedometer. Very neat, attractive little device. Meant to be with you all day. Make a great pocket watch. Things I missed in reading about it; It has 'modes' Didn't want 'modes'. This device is set up for some total fitness program or other. Oddly, no computer tie in. It's on, as in active, all the time. If you have it in your pocket, it is on. There is no off or pause, its counting steps and racking milage. My only problem is that the 'trip' meter doesn't have a seperate milage meter that zeros out for that specific function. It just counts steps. Here's an example. Should you have the device in your pocket when you leave for work, when you come home later and want to take a walk, it will tell you how many steps you take, but you will already have 'milage' that couldn't be zeroed out so you have to do the math in your head, which is no problem if you bothered to memorize the current milage before you left for the afternoon walk. You shouldn't have to do that. The 'trip' mode shares its lcd screen with a seven day counter, which makes no sense at all. The 'milage' mode splits the screen with this device pretending to know how many calories have been burned. Ha! Great little device if you want the whole 10,000 steps a day program, keep a journal, etc..maybe I will get into that, but I still think the trip section should have been 'Steps' and 'Miles' and had them dedicated together. Instead, the milage zeros itself out everynight at midnight. So I leave this on my desk and only move it when I want to take a walk. Maybe I'll use all the other stuff maybe not, but it let's me down in what I would think is its basic function. This is what I wish I had known before buying. Some one should have given it a little more thought.