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The beauty of a smart band is that it isn’t a watch and doesn’t need to act like one. That includes where you wear it: Whoop has the right idea with their bicep band and “any-wear” clothing. Since Google hasn’t released a bicep band for the Fitbit Air, some users are taking matters into their own hands—with rolls of tape.
I’ve watched this trend unfold on the Fitbit Air subreddit, as one person after another realizes they can just tape the device to their arm, or anywhere they want. I’ve actually done something like this before—years ago, I found myself trying to fit the Whoop onto my ankle, and then thought, wait a sec, can’t I just tape it to the side of my leg? (I did, and it worked.)
Why are people taping Fitbits to their arms (and what kind of tape works best)?
Taping your Fitbit Air to your arm (without the strap, of course) gets it off your wrist. It means the device is no longer in the way of wrist wraps or kettlebells, and you can wear any kind of sleeves or accessories you like without the Fitbit getting in the way or cramping your style. These are minor problems, to be sure. But sometimes, it’s nice to just forget you’re wearing something.
People are experimenting with different types of adhesives. One of the more popular is KT tape, the stuff that athletes often use to stabilize a body part that’s giving them some minor trouble. You can also use athletic or medical tape. But I don’t really trust any of those. I find that KT tape can start peeling off in just a day if you do a really sweaty workout and then take a shower. Maybe it’s not supposed to, but it can. Longer strips of tape have plenty of adhesive to keep them on, but a small piece—the size you’d need for a Fitbit—is going to have a harder time doing its job.
The best adhesive for the job is probably a CGM overpatch. CGMs, or continuous glucose monitors, are small plastic devices that are typically stuck on the back of the upper arm. A filament pierces the skin to take readings, but to keep it safely in place, the device itself has an adhesive. You can add some security by applying a large sticker called an overpatch.
These overpatches are perfect for securing a Fitbit to your arm for long-term use. A typical CGM lasts about two weeks, and the Fitbit Air’s battery lasts about a week. If you want the device to stay on through workouts and showers, an overpatch is more than qualified to do the job.
Does taping a Fitbit to your arm actually work?
While I’ve taped devices to my body before, I decided to do a proper experiment with the Fitbit Air. I applied it to the back of my arm with an overpatch (similar to this one) and went out for a run. It stuck well despite the sweat, and captured heart rate data that matched well with other devices I used for comparison.
One risk of taping a Fitbit to your body is that not all areas of the body will capture heart rate equally well. The upper arm may not have great access to blood vessels on everyone’s body (we’re all different), but, on the bright side, sticking it under a patch will keep it snug against your skin and block out ambient light. Those factors tend to improve accuracy.
Activity detection may suffer, though. The Fitbit is judging your movement based on what it expects to see your wrist doing in a workout. Your upper arm won’t show the same movements as your wrist, so auto-detection might not work properly. When I took the taped Fitbit out on the road, it didn’t auto-detect my jog. On a second run, I started the workout manually and things went better from there.
Overall, I don’t think taping your Fitbit to your arm is a bad idea. It does have some downsides, though. Auto-detection of workouts might not work as well, and heart rate accuracy will probably depend on the exact location (and how well it performs may vary from person to person).
There’s one other thing I’m dreading, and that’s what happens when I take it off. An overpatch often has adhesive so strong it’s hard to remove at the end of the two-week life of a CGM. If my Fitbit’s battery dies after just a week, I’ll have to peel off the overpatch at that point to charge it, perhaps painfully and with great difficulty. (Pro tip: Remove things like this in the shower; the warm water helps a lot.)
It would also get expensive to apply patches every week, but perhaps that’s worth it if you really don’t like a wristband or if you just want to do this for a specific occasion. About the best I can say is that it’s not a terrible idea.
