So this is the newest uh smartwatch fitness tracker, hybrid from fitbit i’ve had fitbit fitbits before and i’ve had smart watches before, and this one is aiming to do both it’s aiming to be a smart watch and a fitness tracker all in one it’s not going to Be all things to all people it’s got some really really good stuff that i really like it’s got some really bad stuff. That fitbit should know better and then there’s some really really confusing stuff. So i wanted to talk a little bit about the fitbit sense today. If you are in the market for a fitness tracker, is this worth shelling out 329 euro for you to get just quickly before we continue? This video is sponsored by ibc vpn and i’ll talk a little bit more about them later on. So the first thing is the device itself and it is a very, very pretty device it’s, not very heavy. It looks quite nice on your wrist. In fact, the photos don’t really do it. Justice photos make it look a lot more blocky and a lot thicker than it actually is, but actually on my wrist, i quite like the form factor um compared to other smart watches that i’ve used before. First and foremost, this is a fitness tracker, so it does all the usual stuff. It does your heart rate monitor it. Does your fitness tracking and your exercise tracking, and also your sleep tracking, so in order to get a baseline for the sleep tracking, you have to wear it for three nights continuously and then it’ll give you some sort of recommendations and how well you’ve slept based on Your movement and your breathing, and whatever else it’ll, also give you your baseline heart rate and all that sort of stuff.
So this usual basic stuff that you’d expect from a fitness tracker is all there and it does this pretty well fit bits. Have a long history of doing this um, but what they have incorporated is a few extra things, so the first really good one is that they have got gps in this now it’s, not the first fitness device to have gps, but it is quite handy, and it Does mean that you can track and the distance that you’ve gone and the locations that you’ve gone to, which is pretty cool, and this is quite useful. I have noticed, though, that overall, fitness tracking the accuracy is not up to where i would have expected it to be, and this seems to be similar feedback to what other people are giving online and, in other reviews, it’s good. But i think if you are a real real fitness enthusiast or if you’re training for something professionally, this may not be giving you the level of detail and a level of accuracy in terms of the exercise tracking that you’re looking for. But for the casual enthusiast and somebody who’s just trying to make themselves more fit and healthy, it does the job it detects when i’m out running it detects when i’m out walking. Fitbit have also made this water resistant up to 50 meters, which means you can use it in the swimming pool which i’ve done and it did detect. When i was swimming and the length of time that i did and the kind of exertion that i did and recorded this automatically on the app which is cool, it’s done the same for walking and running and detected that i’m running and the distance i’ve gone and How much energy i’ve exerted, etc? So this is really good as well.
I’Ve also used it in the shower with no adverse effects. This is something i’m going to watch very closely, though, because i have had fitbits before and with a little bit of wear and usage. The water seals did come away and i did have trouble and i’ve actually had to have fitbit vans replaced in the past, because the water resistance, didn’t last and water got into the device. So i’ll keep an eye on that. It’S got a 1.6 inch amoled screen and it’s got like a metal bezel around it and there’s. A couple of reasons for this. The first one is, is that this enables it to have and be a sensor so there’s two things you can do. You can either do a very, very basic ecg test where you hit the ecg app and it asks you to put your index finger and thumb over the corners, and this will ask you to wait for 30 seconds. Keep your arms still try and relax and give you a very, very basic, ecg routine reading now this wasn’t available at launch in a lot of countries, because it was pending approval in a lot of places, but it is available now in most countries, um it’s, not 100, accurate, though and fitbit do say that this is an indicator rather than anything else. So if you see something that might be alarming or concerning, they do obviously recommend that you contact a medical professional, but it is an interesting one to try out so the other one they’ve included with this is an eda scanner, so an electrodermal activity scanner and what This enables it to do is kind of get a sense based on your temperature and the sweat on your skin.
As to how stressed you are so again, you’ll open up the app and it asks you to place your palm across it for about two minutes vibrates to let you know that it’s finished, and then it asks you to record how you’re feeling and over time then This can give you a baseline of your stress levels, uh how you’re feeling etc and can actually then, along with the app bring you through some guided meditation de stress exercises and whatever else. So they put a lot of thought into not only the fitness tracking aspect, but also the uh well being and the stress management aspects of this as well, so it is really really good from that perspective. One of the things, though, that you do have to bear in mind is that they have a fitbit premium subscription on the app which allows you to see more historical data and more trends over time. This is free for the first six months, but if you want to keep looking at that, the app itself is great for looking at things here and now. But if you want things over time, you’re gon na have to keep up with that subscription and again, a lot of people may think that this is death by subscriptions by a thousand cuts um, but it’s up to you, i’d say try it out for the first Six months and see if you really use any of those enhanced features and if you don’t then don’t keep it after the six months as a smartwatch it’s, not great it’s, not bad there’s, a few things that are simply just lacking at the moment.
I can’t seem to be able to make calls with the bluetooth functionality just yet fitbit say that this is being rolled out and that this update’s coming and no matter what i do. I can’t seem to get this to work. I do get notifications, however, for emails text messages and what other other apps i select to allow notifications on the screen. This is great it’s handy and if i’m, in meetings or calls or whatever else – and i get something important – i can see it – you do also have music control, so you can install things like deezer, spotify, pandora and control music from it, the spotify one. That was interesting. It only lets you control another device, that’s playing spotify, whereas these are when they’ve rolled it out will actually let you play music on the device itself, along with taking bluetooth calls and whatever else so i’m interested to see how those updates roll out and fitbit have Said that there’s lots more features and functionality that’s to come to this device. So that’s, really really interesting to look forward to the apps available in the app store are very basic: i’m not going to lie there’s, not a huge amount of them available for the sense. Yet i’ve installed a thing calculator for example, and one for barcodes, so the gym membership card that i have is a barcode and i’ve replicated this on the device, and i can use that to get in.
It also has fitbit pay, which essentially lets you store. Your credit card information and lets you pay using nfc and by tapping or handling holding this close once you have it set up. If you take the watch off it’ll, ask you to enter a pin number when you put it back on, so that you can protect from people doing this um and every 24 hours, or so you can have it remind you to put in the pin number again For security, a couple of things that we don’t like, as i mentioned accuracy, might be an issue that’s, not a huge concern or deal breaker for me, but the responsiveness of the device is a little bit clunky um the screen, although very very nice. You know it should respond when you raise it up to your face like this and to be honest, it doesn’t do that fast enough. So i often end up pressing the button to try and get the display to come up, which is a real annoyance and oftentimes i’ll raise it up. It hasn’t responded, so i press the button and then i’ve actually pressed it just as it’s responded and it’s gone back off again so i’m having to force myself to raise wait for a second and then the display comes on and i can flick through it bit Of a nuisance – and i would have expected the interface to be that little bit more fluid a little bit more slick, but the response time, when you click into an app, is just that little bit slow a couple of really cool things.
This does support amazon herself. The voice assistant and and google uh google, so google voice assistant, so you can set it so that when you long press the button and the button i’ll talk about in a sec – and you can have this open up your preferred voice assistant. Interestingly enough, though, fitbit is in the process of being purchased by google and it’s, my guess that, once this happens, they may remove the amazon herself functionality from the device in favor of google’s own voice assistant, so stay tuned. As i mentioned the button so it’s not exactly a physical button, it’s a little sensor and actually what you have to do is you have to get your finger to fully cover the button in order for it to depress um, and you have to get your finger Kind of under your wrist a little bit so it’s a little bit awkward and it’s taking me a little bit of time to get used to the button. But there is a vibration feedback, so you know when you’ve pressed it correctly, but it is a little bit awkward i’m wearing it on my dominant hand, so it’s actually a little bit easier when i had it. On my left hand, i found it very, very awkward to get the thumb into the right angle to press the button correctly. So this is something that i’m a little bit disappointed at and for a lot of the functionality. You need to use that overall, this isn’t a bad device.
The confusing part, though, comes with the data overload, so the device itself has a huge amount of sensors which captures an awful lot of data when you’re asleep. When you’re awake, your heart, your fitness, your exercise, your stress levels, your temperature, the sweat in your skin, everything and it records this all in the app but it’s, not very intuitive. In fact, it took me sitting down for a couple of hours to read through all the tips and supports and everything else in the app to figure out what a lot of it meant and it wasn’t tailored to me. Specifically. It was very much this is what this means, but it doesn’t tell you what it means for you. So unless you have the time to actually sit down and read through everything, there’s a little bit of a data or an information overload on the app and again for the casual user, this may not be the right thing for them and it may not be as Easy to use or is intuitive, i mean you can wear the device and just let it do its thing and ignore it and then, when you do have time to sit down, go through all the information, but really at the price point of three two: nine you Want something that’s not only gon na, be wear and forget, but also when you go into the app you get instantly an overview of what the situation is. The app is very well done, it’s nicely designed, but there’s just too much in there, and i find myself a little bit lost and in the evening, when i’m sitting down to go through it.
I i don’t really feel like i’m, getting an accurate sense of what i’m looking at. So this is a bit of a negative for fitbit and i’m, hoping that they’ll make this a little bit easier again. As i said, fitbit are going to be doing lots more updates and things for these devices, so hopefully we’ll see this being streamlined and simplified and a little bit more tailored, and it does give a little pop ups and advice from time to time. But again i feel these are quite generic and not based on the actual data that’s being recorded by me and my body battery life is pretty decent, so there’s two options with the watch. You can have always on display which shows basic clock all the time or a raise to see the display which, as i said, is not 100 all the time, but it does work or you can tap to see the display press the button to see the display Battery life with the amazon display is about two days and i am getting that so in fairness, that’s, quite accurate, um up to six days without the always on display, i charged mine. I think, after about four and a half, but having said that, i was using it quite a lot to get to know it so i’d say six days is probably quite accurate as well to charge it it’s got this nice little magnetic charging cable that you can Plug in – and it just sticks to the bottom of this – this also works with some other fitness devices.
I think the versa it works with as well and so it’s quite cool. I just leave this by my bedside locker and then charge it as needed, but this is an interesting thing that i’ve left it beside my bedside locker with the intention of charging it at night, but it recommends that you wear it during your sleep to monitor your Sleep to monitor your heart, so i think i’ll probably move this to my desk and then, when i’m sitting at my desk, plug it in there, it takes only about 40 minutes to charge, which is pretty good. Another good thing, while i mentioned sitting at desks, is that it does kind of remind you from time to time to get up and to move around and to get more steps in, and you can set yourself goals around activity around exercise and whatever else. So this video was proudly sponsored by ibc vpn, so i’ve been using ibc vpn for the last few months and i really really like using it to keep my data safe and protected while i’m online. So obviously vpn does a couple of things. First and foremost, it protects you and your data while browsing online and keeps you safe and secure by using virtual private networks from across the world. It has over a thousand servers from across the planet and you can choose any of these. Not only to keep yourself secure, but also to change your location so that you can access services or streaming platforms that may not be available in your isp or in your location.
So obviously, vpn have kindly offered a subscription deal for five years in the comments below where you can get their service for as little as 1.16 per month, and this works out as less than one euro per month. It’S about 98 – and this is amazing value and one of the cheapest you’re going to get on the market, and even with that, it is one of the most secure options that i’ve used so far. So please check out the link below and sign up, and this will keep you safe and secure when browsing online on the whole fitbit i’ve got something close to really really fantastic here. It just needs that little bit more polish, that little more refining and it’s, probably stuff that can all be updated with software updates and a little bit of tweaking in the app so i’d be interested to see. Now, if they can do this over the next few weeks and months and because if they do, this might well be the best kind of hybrid fitness and smartwatch device that’s out there folks, i hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please give it a like this lets.GRyt-XZNQFs
