Omron HJ-720ITC Pocket Pedometer with Health Management Software
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Customer Reviews of Omron HJ-720ITC Pocket Pedometer with Health Management Software
Customer Review: Missing a major feature set
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm currently in a fitness program that I hope will get me in shape to tackle the Appalachian Trail later this year. To accomplish this, I need to steadily build my distance and my cardio endurance, and I need to get my time to the point that I can reliably crank out 15 minute miles on trails in the woods. I bought the HJ-720ITC because it would track my cardio time s well as the miles and steps I walked. I also like the fact that it will interface with software on my computer so that I can watch my progress over time.
However, what Omron doesn't tell you is that there's no way to zero out the miles, steps, etc. and there's no way to measure elapsed time. This means you can't set the miles and time to zero when you get to the trail head and then find out how you're performing in actual conditions. Even my old Radio Shack pedometer that I wore out would do that. Other Omron pedometers will do this. The tech support line could offer no suggestions as to why these functions were eliminated from the HJ-720ITC, but it makes this device dramatically less useful than it could be for fitness training.
There is one potential work around that I'll try. The unit has an event marker that you can use once per hour. This feature is poorly explained in the manual, and not well understood by the tech support people, but apparently you can record an event at the beginning of a period you want to measure. You can only mark one event per hour, though, so you can't mark the end of a short hike. You also can't measure the time it took to walk unless you use your stopwatch.
Had I known that these features were missing from the Omron, I probably would have purchased a different pedometer. But now I'm stuck with this one. Hope the company can come up with a fix, but the tech support staff didn't think that was likely.
Wayne Rash
Customer Review: Before you buy...
Summary: 2 Stars
There are a few things you should know. I have been using a pedometer for about 6 months now and recently "upgraded" to the slick 720 due to a great price discount. I love the features of past day's memory, ability to download to PC, aerobic counts, etc. However, it has some major problems. Here are my complaints:
* The size. This thing is pretty huge to wear around all day and is hardly inconspicuous.
* The stupid clip is just amazing it passed through initial product development. The clip falls off VERY easily and even more often the unit falls out of the clip. It happens just about every time I squat of bend over -- which is often if you walk with the dog and you have to toss a ball or pick up after them (which is extra unpleasant to suddenly have a piece of electronics attempting to dive into the pile of poo).
* The accuracy. This is the biggest problem of all as it's the main reason I have the thing! I have a digiwalker that counts very accurately without any of the features that I have used to compare with this one. The Omron is very accurate when you are on a walk, but it has a delay before it starts counting. If you continue walking it counts all the steps during that delay, but if you stop it ignores them all. Presumably this is to avoid counting accidental bumps in someone's bag or something, but when it's on your waist and you are just milling around the house, office, running errands, or what-have-you it will undercount by 50% or more.
It's very, very frustrating. If you want to keep track of the steps only when you are going for a walk, then this unit is probably hard to beat. If you want to track your steps over a day and more or less constantly use the unit, there are more accurate, smaller units that you will be happier with (though you'll have to track, record, and reset the counter yourself).
Customer Review: Excellent motivational tool
Summary: 5 Stars
I've had this pedometer for about 1 month now and it along with healthy diet has helped my lose 18 pounds. When I first started using the pedometer, I set a goal of 10,000 steps, but soon found that a better toal would be 15,000 steps a day with a minimum of 10,000 of them being aerobic steps. The pedometer is extremely accurate in step counting and if set up properly can be a good gauge of distance too. I would highly recomment this pedometer to anyone wants to monitor their walking progress and acheive daily step goals. It takes my about 95 minutes of walking each day to walk about 11,000 aerobic steps which is a small price to pay for better health and in turn a longer life with my wife and kids.
Other reviews of this pedometer have complained about the quality of the clip, but I haven't had much problem in that regard. Especially when used in conjunction with the included laynard. I always walk with the pedometer clipped to my right side immediately below my arm and attatch the laynard to either a belt loop (if wearing jeans) or the waiste band or pocket (if wearing sweat pants). The software included allows me to track my progress very easily and allows me to view it in a lot of different ways. I love being able to see daily, weekly, monthly and yearly totals with ease, not just for total steps, but for aerobic steps, distance, calories burned, fat burned and aerobic time. I used the pedometer for the first time on Febuary 10th and when I finished the month I had walked over 246,000 steps with a distance of 104.81 miles. Not too bad for an overweight man who is going to turn 50 on March 20. I'm hoping that I will be well over 350,000 steps in March and total over 175 miles walked.
I highly recomment this pedometer to anyone who wants to start a new walking program or improve on an already exhisting one.
Customer Review: Great pedometer!
Summary: 4 Stars
This little gadget is great! I read the reviews on some of the other models including other Omrons. The unit needs tweaked before you can expect it to be reliable. What I mean is that you need to know your correct stride length. I've had to adjust mine until I got it just right. I started off a little low on the length and when I walked on the treadmill, the pedometer said I didn't go as far. So I moved it up a bit and it said I went further than the treadmill stated. Finally I think I have it pretty close. I do see what people are talking about as far as the clips. There are two clips...one to hold the unit onto your clothes and one as a safety strap that is a tighter clip. A lot of people complained the broke. I can see that happening. The clips are very fragile. I've worn mine almost every day for two week and haven't had trouble with the clips breaking. I have a bit of a roll and the unit tends to come off my pants - good thing I have the safety strap. I also had to move it from my right side to my left because I carry a 1-year old around and every time I picked him up, I used my right arm and hip. So that was a minor adjustment. Also, some people say that it resets. I have seen times where it had a # one minute and 0 the next. I think it's because I'm bending and pressing a button. Quite often I look and it's changed to the aerobic step count. It does track the total for the day and resets every night. It saves the data for 7 days, so you can review the total later. If you're going to track how many steps for a particular activity, do pay attention to the total along the way in case it does reset. I like getting the data onto my computer. I can track the days I really moved and see how it compared to my weight loss. I'd say it's worth the $$. I guess I'll just hope the clips don't break too soon.Customer Review: Never leave home without it!!!
Summary: 4 Stars
Thanks to all the reveiws I read, I purchased two of these for myself and my friend. Since the day they arrived we have not been without them. She works in a restaurant and I work, well, not in an office but I do sit all day long, usually in a car. On a good night she will walk about 9000 steps JUST AT WORK while I on the other hand am lucky to get in 2000 at work. This bit of info was very enlightening for me. It got me off my duff and into the gym more often. Now I try to get in 6000-7000 steps before work. I feel great, have not been sick once this year, and have lost 11 pounds! Granted, I have started eating healthier and excercising more but it was the pedeometer that has been my motivation. I have to get to 10,000 a day or I'm just not happy.
I have found that this device is pretty acurate. It's not 100% but it is close enough. My stride veries depending on how fast I'm going so obviously it wont be exact. I like the fact that it does actually work in my pocket, on my belt, even clipped to my shirt. The software is extremely easy to use. The only thing I wish it did was keep track of my heart rate to get an accurate "calories burned" count. It doesn't take into consideration height, age or gender, just weight. Also, there is no way to manually input data into the Health Management Software. When I play requetball with my husband the Omron says that I get like an hour of aerobic time and almost 4000 aerobic steps. When I play raquetball with my husband AND his son, I get no aerobic time eventhough I am sweating and getting a workout. Overall, I love this thing and recommend it to anyone who wants to see how lazy they really are and do something about it.
PS - It's never too early to start thinking about next years stocking stuffers!!