These days, finding a good fitness tracker isn’t hard. With everything from smart rings to the best smartwatches, it’s easy to find a device with the right features and price to meet your needs. One of the best things about them is how easy they are to use, making them great for active kids who want to learn more about their health or parents who want to make it easier for their kids to use a smartwatch. The Vigor 2 from Biggerfive is the brand’s second fitness tracker specifically for kids, and you really can’t ask for more for what you get.
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Great wearable fitness device for kids
The Biggerfive Vigor 2 is a great, affordable fitness tracker that’s perfect for helping kids build and maintain an active lifestyle. It’s convenient and easy to use, and gives parents a lot of control over the bracelet and their child’s health data.
- Easy to use
- Comfortable to wear
- Long battery life
- Medals and badges can be earned.
- Show list
- Not as accurate as other devices.
- Data is not always automatically synced.
Pricing and Availability
The Vigor 2 starts at $31 for the standard size, and there’s a large option for a few dollars more. That’s not a bad price for what you get, but it can add up quickly if you have multiple kids. There are a few different color options, so your child can pick the one they like best. Both sizes are currently available on Biggerfive’s website, and I believe the standard size is the only one on Amazon for $29. I’ve also seen it on Walmart for just $26 at the time of writing.
What’s good about Biggerfive Vigor 2?
The best thing about the Vigor 2 is its simplicity. It’s simple and easy to operate with a single capacitive button at the bottom of the screen. It doesn’t try to be anything more than a basic health and fitness tracker. That’s exactly what you want in a device designed for kids. There’s not much for them to fiddle with; they’ll notice it right away.
The setup process is also very simple. Download the Biggerfive app on your favorite smartphone, and the Vigor 2 can be paired in minutes. You’ll need to create a profile for the child who will be using it, and if you get multiple bands for different kids, you can manage all the devices and profiles within the same app, which is much easier than managing multiple Apple Watches by themselves. I also really like that all the band settings are located within the app rather than the band itself, giving parents complete control over the band.
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The app also lets you manage the different sports you want to track. By default, it will track walking, running, cycling, and hiking, but you can also add things like soccer, basketball, tennis, and open workouts.
Parents have precise control over their child’s band settings and health data.
Once everything is set up in the app, your child can use the tracker to start and stop workouts and check their step count and heart rate throughout the day. At night, the sleep tracking feature shows deep sleep, light sleep, and wake-up time. I found the sleep tracking to be very accurate, which is great. There’s also a stopwatch and alarm feature for times when your child might want to use them.
Workouts can be started and stopped with a long press of the button so kids don’t need to be strapped to their phone to control their workouts. They can also check their step count and heart rate while away from their phone, which is great. Again, all health data is on your phone, so only you can access your child’s health data. It’s also great that you can just save your child’s health data locally on the phone rather than in your Biggerfive cloud account, but that option is disabled by default.
It’s also fun that Biggerfive has things like a weekly health report so your child can see their progress and medals they can earn to reward their hard work.
I was also happy with the way the band fit me. It was comfortable to wear for several days in a row and easy to attach. The tracker itself fits into the band, so it’s one complete piece, and you can purchase additional colors from Biggerfive. I couldn’t find out if it’s compatible with any other bands, but I’ve reached out to the company and will update this post if they respond.
Finally, the Vigor 2’s battery life is pretty good. The company advertises a battery life of 5-7 days, and I think that’s probably true. Of course, this will vary depending on how active your child is and how often they use the exercise tracker, but it’s definitely close. It takes about 1.5-2 hours to fully charge the device, so keep that in mind.
What’s not good about Biggerfive Vigor 2?
There’s certainly a lot to like about the Vigor 2, but some compromises have to be made to keep the price low. For starters, the screen doesn’t get very bright, making it hard to see in sunlight. The haptic feedback is also pretty poor, and the single capacitive button can be a bit finicky at times. But none of that is really surprising for a $30 kids fitness tracker.
I also found it to be less accurate than a high-end fitness tracker, specifically when compared to something like the Apple Watch. For example, I found that my distance was about half a mile less when compared directly, and at times, my step counts differed by hundreds of steps between the two devices.
Since this is a device designed for kids, I’m less inclined to be bothered by it (and less surprised, honestly). If your child is a serious athlete, you’d probably invest in a better fitness tracker like the Xiaomi Smart Band 8. For most other parents — myself included — I’ll be using this device more to help my child learn about health and fitness, so accuracy is a bit less important.
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That doesn’t mean the flaws are any less annoying. One of the biggest annoyances is that the band doesn’t seem to automatically send any data to the app. The only way I could get any data to sync was to open the app and sync it manually.
This may not be a big deal, but it’s worth noting. Also, the only way to get a map of your workouts is to start the workout from your phone instead of the band. Even when my phone was in my pocket, I didn’t get a map of the workout unless I started it from my phone itself. Weird.
As with any health data (and any data at all when it comes to your child), you always want to consider privacy. For example, the Vigor 2 offers menstrual cycle tracking, which can help teens who wear it better understand their health as they navigate new aspects of it. But that’s probably not something you want logged by a company you know nothing about. Again, you can turn off the cloud sync feature, so that’s a good thing.
It was also annoying that the device marketed and sold in the US had the metric unit settings by default. It is possible to change these settings to the US system, but you have to dig into the app settings to do so. Again, this wouldn’t be a big deal if it was intended for adults. However, a child might be confused and not know what to do.
Should you buy Biggerfive Vigor 2?
If you’re looking for a fun and inexpensive way to get your kids excited about activities while learning more about health and fitness, the Vigor 2 is easy to recommend. It gives your child easy access to essential workouts and health data while giving parents precise control and clear visibility into their health data.
It’s also a useful device to ease your child into the world of wearable, connected technology. While a device like the Apple Watch or Galaxy Wear might be too much for a younger child, a simple fitness tracker like the Vigor 2 can be a great way to teach them how to manage and use technology properly.
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The Biggerfive Vigor 2 Fitness Tracker is a great way to help young children learn more about how to stay healthy. It helps them track their activities and motivate them to achieve their health goals, while giving parents complete control over their health data.
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