Trying to shed a few pounds, increase your daily physical activity, or improve your sleep takes constant vigilance, at least at first, until you develop solid habits that turn into a lifestyle. All the factors, when mixed with real life, can become cloudy and difficult to track. Fitbit Ultra ($99.95, direct) is a smart pedometer that tracks how many steps you take in a day, the flights of stairs you climb, the distance you travel, the number of calories you burn, and even how much restful sleep you get. It automates much of the hard work of keeping tabs on your health, and uploads the data to an excellent companion Web account where you can add even more statistics, like what foods you've eaten and other activities that Fitbit can't track on its own, like cycling and swimming. All these features, plus great compatibility with other apps, makes Fitbit Ultra our Editors' Choice among fitness gadgets for casual users (i.e., non athletes).

Fitbit Ultra clips onto your clothes, unlike the more popular bracelet-style fitness gadgets like the Nike+ FuelBand ($149, direct, 3.5 stars) and Jawbone UP (whose sales are temporarily suspended). But those devices aren't nearly as good as Fitbit, which delivers incredibly rich data and gives you a lot of room to add to your personal metrics information it can't measure, like food intake.

Design

Inconspicuous and sleek, the Fitbit pedometer measures a compact 2.1 inches by 0.75 inch by 0.56 inch (HWD) and weights a scant 0.4 ounce. The device itself is matte black, but is available in two accent colors: blue and plum. A single button lets you cycle through a blue LED display that shows the time, as well as activity recorded so far that day, such as miles traveled, stairs climbed, and feedback about your overall activity in the form of a flower that grows taller the more you move. The battery has remarkable staying power. I only recharged the battery every three or four days while testing, and never once did I see it dip below 25 percent.

Clip Fitbit onto a waistband, the fold of a dress, a belt loop, or hide it out of sight by attaching it to the center front of a bra, and the Fitbit securely stays in place. I wore our Fitbit review unit for more than a month, clipping it anywhere between hip and chest height, and never saw it budge.

Fitbit also comes with a USB base station, used for charging the device and wirelessly uploading data from Fitbit to your Web account whenever you are within a few feet of the base. You also get a Velcro wristband that holds the Fitbit while you're sleeping if you want to track your sleep.

Set Up

Out of the box, Fitbit is functional and ready to roll, although you have to set up your Web account and prepare the device to sync to it (which requires a small download, too), and this is where I found the device less user-friendly than it at first seems. Very little information is provided in the product packaging, and the online instructions are simple, but don't provide enough details about troubleshooting or explaining what you should see once the sync is successful. What's confusing is the pedometer will charge up, record your steps, and seem to be functioning just fine, even when it hasn't tethered to your Web account. The time will be off, and it will calculate a 24-hour day starting whenever you took it out of the box and charged it (rather than resetting at midnight), but other than that, it works.

After a few days of suspecting something was wrong (why was my data not showing up online even though the pedometer was counting my steps?), I started over again with the syncing process, and the second time, it took. The key piece of information to look for is a line that reads "Synched: date and time" in your profile. When I tried the set-up process a second time, it worked, although the small downloadable software that facilitates the initialization actually crashed at the end. It still took, but it wasn't entirely smooth.

Features

Fitbit uses both an accelerometer and an altimeter to count the number of steps you take and the stairs you climb. The online account uses that information, in conjunction with some personal data, like your height and weight, to also calculate how many calories you burn.

The altimeter works surprisingly well for a $100 device, able to account for changes in pressure that aren't caused by climbing, like car doors opening and closing. However, while testing the device, I rode my bicycle several times over a bridge that's several stories high, which did affect the reading.

Bicycling and other most activities aren't fully supported the same way running and walking are, but you can log into the website and record these activities—even noting the time and duration so that Fitbit can align them with your activity readings. Users who are looking for a device that can track walking/running and a second or third activity, like bicycling or swimming, will have a hard time finding a gadget that does it better than Fitbit. It still does require some manual input, but at least the option exists. It's missing entirely from Nike+ FuelBand.

The feature that most caught my attention, the sleep monitor, also requires you to enter time data using the online dashboard. You can tuck Fitbit into the pocket of a wristband and wear it while you sleep, and the accelerometer will watch for movement all night long. The Web application graphically shows periods when you were very still, and thus in a deep sleep and times when you moved enough to not be in a REM sleep. It also records how long it took you to fall asleep, though this data relies on you entering a precise and accurate time when you got into bed.

Fitbit Ultra can work in conjunction with a great variety of other apps, including weight-loss management tools MyFitnessPal and Lose It! (free, 3.5 stars), as well as the running app RunKeeper, and even a Wi-Fi enabled scale called Aria. The compatibility with other apps is comprehensive and adds value to an already very good device.

When Fitbit Fits

Fitbit Ultra performed well in all my testing, doing a very good job of collecting, aggregating, and displaying data across walking, running, stair-climbing, sleeping, and eating. It excels as a pedometer and general activity monitor, and is our Editors' Choice fitness gadget, but probably is too lightweight for serious athletes who might need a device with GPS. But if you're not training for a marathon and instead are looking to simply pay more attention to your overall fitness and health, the Fitbit delivers at a great price.

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