Theres an App for that- Fertility Monitoring Apps

Neyite

Following on from an interesting discussion on the chat thread, I thought it would be interesting to open up a separate thread to discuss Apps that help us track and record our progress - their ease of use, their accuracy in predictions, and so on.

I've 2 apps on the go at the moment: Ovia Fertility, and Fertility Friend.

I don't have a huge amount of data for the past year, apart from dates my cycle started, my two miscarriages, and only just started using OPK again.

Of the two, Ovia is my favourite for ease of use. The home page gives you a nice clear summary of the day:


The calendar is simple to update just by scrolling down and selecting. You can record your BBT, weight, nutrition mood, details of physical symptoms, blood pressure, activity and medications also.



My only gripe? That there is nowhere you can enter in a miscarried cycle. When I did enter the positive test, it now thinks I'm pregnant, though it doesn't seem to interfere with subsequent months fertility predictions. Other than that, its simple to use.

Accuracy in predicted v's actual data? Based on previous cycles it predicted the start of my fertile time on 27th (Wed) but I didn't actually get positive OPK's until 30th (Sat) and 1st (Sun) I did however get EWCM on 28th (Thurs) to 1st (Sun) so its pretty accurate for this cycle it seems.

I found Fertility Friend fiddly and a pain to use on the phone, and the laptop. You cant see at a glance on the calendar what is going on, unless you are familiar with the colours and what they mean. And the invite to take out the VIP membership for $45 is all over the place.

Penny Dreadful

I am the proud owner and user of no fewer than 3 fertility apps. I work on the basis that if a little is good then a lot must be great.
Granted that sometimes isn't that case:o:D

Since coming off the pill at the end of December last year I started using the Pink Pad app and added in for good measure What to Expect and the Lady Timer app!
The Pink Pad is a good app and is easy to use on a smart phone. It allows you to enter quite a few symptoms e.g. mood, physical and emotional symptoms. It also allows you to enter when you have sex (although the app refers to this as being intimate).
It is a good one and I've used it more than the others. I like that it counts your cycle days clearly. On the down side it hasn't ever gotten my ovulation period correct and I foolishly relied on it to do so.
What to Expect is very American and it doesn't sit as well with me as the others do. It does however give you an option to turn on the Due Date which is nice and its ovulation time frame has been closer to my actual one. It also gives handy little TTC tips which may be of interest.
The Lady Timer app is the third and I've recently gotten more into it than I was before. What I like about this one is that it allows you to enter the time you're ovulating which the others don't (at least as far as I can see). In terms of predicted ovulation periods it works in the same way as the Pink Pad. It does (in so far as it can be right) predict the gender of your baby by the time you fall pregnant in your cycle. As I haven't fallen pregnant let alone had a baby I can't testify to how successful this is;)

Overall the apps are fun when not taken too seriously. They are a great way of recording information about your body and your cycle which was handy the couple of times I had to visit my GP. The TTC tips are interesting and if you would like to upgrade your apps (I haven't) you can join message groups, etc. I like it here and so don't feel the need to join any more discussion groups.

Roesy

Not currently ttc, my little girl is only 4 weeks old but I have used Fertilty friend and Period Tracker in the past. I had been using Fertilty friend on the laptop and the basic app and then splashed out on the upgraded app. I found it a bit fiddly but good once I got the hang of it. I probably wouldn't have bothered with the upgrade if I hadn't been temping though. On my first successful cycle I hadn't been temping and just used the basic app. I then miscarried which the app recognised and stopped giving me pregnancy info. A month or two later I was temping, using opks and monitoring cervical mucus. Found it a great source of info then. Saying that, I changed phones and it tried to charge me the 45 dollars again. Period tracker wasn't great in my opinion. It was ok for keeping track of my period but it's predicted ovulation dates were all over the place and I found the interface annoying.

Penny Dreadful

Roesy wrote: »

Not currently ttc, my little girl is only 4 weeks old but I have used Fertilty friend and Period Tracker in the past. I had been using Fertilty friend on the laptop and the basic app and then splashed out on the upgraded app. I found it a bit fiddly but good once I got the hang of it. I probably wouldn't have bothered with the upgrade if I hadn't been temping though. On my first successful cycle I hadn't been temping and just used the basic app. I then miscarried which the app recognised and stopped giving me pregnancy info. A month or two later I was temping, using opks and monitoring cervical mucus. Found it a great source of info then. Saying that, I changed phones and it tried to charge me the 45 dollars again. Period tracker wasn't great in my opinion. It was ok for keeping track of my period but it's predicted ovulation dates were all over the place and I found the interface annoying.

$45:eek::eek: bloody hell.

Roesy

Penny Dreadful wrote: »

$45:eek::eek: bloody hell.

One year membership, think it was €39.99 in euro!!

AshAdele

I am currently using 4, I thinks thats a TTC boards record

Fertility Friends: i liked the free month with all the extras, i have now finished that and without the extras the membership gives it pretty ****! for temping its good as the charts are very clear and it will inserts cross-hairs that show when you ovulated

Ovuline: as recommended above, very easy to use, seems to be accurate. my only issue is that its difficult to compare one month with another.

OvuView: this is currently my favorite! very easy to use and it has a chart page thats lists everything in a easy to see way. the chart is continuous so you can move left or right through each cycle to see if there are patterns

Womans Log: i have been using this the past year, i always found it very useful for keeping track of my periods and found it accurate, i dont think its very good for TTC, you can't add OPK data, ovulation pains, preg tests (well not on the basic app, there is a pay $1.99 app)

Currently I'm thinking out dropping fertility friend and womans log as neither have all the functionality you need for TTC unless you pay to upgrade to the membership or pro-app.