Skip the Fitbit - Use Your iPhone 5S: Tip-of-the-Day #304

Fitbit, the small, attractive device that has taken over the nation and made everyone walk more steps each day (10,000 if you can) is now even easier to get your hands on.

My colleague just turned me onto the fact that iPhone 5S has motion tracking built into its internal hardware. You can get nearly the same activity tracking using just your phone, in the same interface that you're familiar with, completely killing the need for the Fitbit wearable device ($100 savings!).

The internal hardware, known as the M7 chip, is pretty solid at tracking your motion. The iPhone 5S has been compared as a fitness tracker with that of the Fitbit Force and Jawbone Up24 and the results showed the iPhone 5S to offer very comparable performance for exercise sessions, but in order to perform at tracking day-to-day activity one needs to have the phone on them at all times. I keep my phone in my purse so that isn't always top of mind for me, but when I go on long walks I have my phone on me so that I can listen to music. If you keep your phone in your pocket, this is a no brainer for you.

How to get started? Just go to the app store on your iPhone, search for Fitbit, download it. You'll be prompted to register with a few easy pieces of information and you're off to the races!