Fitbit Sense Health & Fitness Smartwatch With GPS

I’ve owned one of these for a long time and love it! I’ve also gotten it for others and was a hit for those who needed a smart watch. Had to return one recently due to family not wanting it, but that’s beyond the point. Excellent software and data points. Shows you real time heart rate data and allows text and call input. Weather and other telemetry are available on the fly. Sleep pattern tracking is wonderful and you pay no extra for that feature! Comfortable to wear and sleep with on. It is waterproof and have on many occasions just left it on during a shower and was fine. It’s sleek and modern and has a good weight to it. I’d recommend this over the Apple Watch, you can change faces for free and don’t have to purchase extra apps. It just works out of the box and is a quality product. Cost a little but, but good things that last do. Comes with a charge cable, you’ll need a wall plug with USB. But the best part days without needing a charge. Great battery life. The wrist bands material is nice and doesn’t cause rashes for me either.

I upgraded to the Fitbit Sense after my Versa 2, which I loved, died. I thought that, since it was a newer product, that it would be better. It still has all the functions I liked on the Versa 2 and I do like the addition of stress monitoring and skin temperature tracking. Also, now I don’t need a special clock face to have SPO2 monitoring, which is good. But overall, I was greatly disappointed.

First, it regularly loses connection with the phone/app, even when the phone is less than five feet away. I am also seeing a lot more sync errors than I saw with the Versa 2. Sometimes, even when the watch has synced and I can see things like my sleep score in the app, it won’t show on the watch for hours.

Some of the features I was looking forward to, like snore detection and SPO2 monitoring, are a battery suck. The watch is advertised as having 6+ days of battery life, but my initial experience had me needing to charge it every day. After several attempts to find the problem through customer service, I was told to turn off the snore monitoring. This increased the life to about 5 days. It makes no sense to me that they would not make sure that the battery supports the use of a built-in function. I have also had several issues with the watch somehow, on its own, opening the exercise app and getting stuck there. The only way to get out of it has been to restart the watch.

The watch band is another problem. The design of the band for the newer smart watches is awful. As seen in pictures, instead of the end of the band being secured under a loop, this one has a tuck under design so that the end is sandwiched between the strap and your skin. This design is uncomfortable and has caused a lot of chafing on my wrist. This is something that I never experienced with the Versa 2 watch band. The only good thing I can say about this new design is that it is easier to change the band as it just clips in rather than needing to fuss and fumble with the pins on traditional watch bands.

I am mostly happy with the Sense. It does what I need it to and the issues I have faced are not enough to keep me from getting another Fitbit product in the future. I just hope the issues I am having, and those I have seen in others’ reviews, are addressed in future product designs.

Review updated after more than a month of usage:
Summary: If you have been oscillating between sense and apple watch 6 series, go for sense – battery life is what sealed the deal for me. Amazing beautiful watch – perfect companion for a journey to good health.

Pros:
1. Great battery life – I have been using this watch full blast with always on display and using the EDA sensor at least thrice a day, and installing and uninstalling so many watch faces. Third straight day, and the battery is still there.
Edit: In a month I installed so many apps and watch faces and have now stabilised with select 5. Battery performance is superb. On weekends I forget to charge and it is cool.
2. The EDA/ stress sensor: Very responsive. I checked the EDA scan feature a few times. It actually gave more EDA responses when I was a little stressed. Seems like a very handy tool for me – especially because I have had stress related issues in the past. It is a perfect companion for my daily meditation and Yoga practice too.
Edit after a month usage: EDA/ stress sensor is good but it doesnt tell you anything you dont know already.
For future edit: At times, I feel restless and anxious – and I calm myself by taking a quick walk around. Will check what the EDA scan says at that time. Will update – still havent faced the issue again.
3. Heart rate tracker – It is fitbit’s best. And fitbit is already the best out there in HR tracking. So no further comments.
Edit after a month: At times while exercising, I feel there is a lag in the heartbeat numbers. Or maybe that’s how our hearts work – they take some seconds before they can fire up. 🙂 Will keep an eye on this.
4. Notifications: Using with iPhone. Everything as expected. If it could show a preview of the image in messages, it would have been awesome! I did see this discussion happening in the fitbit developer forum – so I guess it is in the works.
Edit after a month: Still no news on image in notifications. I don’t mind this though.
5. Step tracking – Precise.
6. Sleep tracking – Sweet.
Edit after a month: One of the most used features for me – everyday sleep score tracking is really helping me with my stress management. Recently got an ‘excellent sleep’ badge tag – for the first time in my 2 years of fitbit usage (wore Inspire HR earlier – that also tracked sleep)
7. Band is too light – I have upgraded from fitbit inspire HR. Had used an after market stainless band for that – compared to that, the sense band is thin air. While sleeping, I tend to forget I am wearing the sense.
8. Special tid-bits that I loved:
a. It has a smart alarm feature – which wakes you up before your alarm if you complete a sleep cycle within half an hour of your upcoming alarm. This makes you wake up fresh af, instead of groggy – like the regular alarms do, if you are in the middle of your sleep cycle. Neat.
b. Amazing watch-faces. A lot of free options to choose from. The one which allows personal photos to be put up as a watch face is cool. I bought a chronograph one for 1 dollar. Can change accent color as per my clothing. Pretty cool. Too many amazing watch faces.
Edit after a month: Too many sweet free watch faces. Paying a dollar wasnt worth the purchase I made a month ago. 😀
c. Many knick-knack apps you can install and try on. I like the weather app and the news app. Guess more will be coming soon. Flipboard doesnt work yet – guess it will work in future.

Special trick: Made the ECG work in India by just changing the location to US in the app profile. No VPN required. Works like a charm! What an easy way to hoodwink the policy loopholes – guess it was designed that way – makes one an accomplice in cheating the policy, though. Smart.
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Cons:
1. It is not apple smart watch. I know brand ‘apple’ is a deciding factor for many. This is not apple – but the build quality looks as good. Will have to see how this thing wears down over next few months/ years.
2. Fitbit premium app : The free version of the app shows almost all the metrics (except a few detailed explanations, like the stress score details, monthly trends of sleep parameters etc.). While the sense comes with a 6 months membership of the premium part of the app, I would not really want to spend some 849 rs per month post 6 months of buying a 30k smartwatch! Fitbit guys – you need to curb your greed! Guess when google takes fitbit over, this issue will be sorted out.
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Will update the review after a month of usage – DONE. Edited above.

Love the look of the watch. It keeps tract of what it states. The only thing I don’t like is, you have to sleep 7 hours for it to record your SPO2 . That was the one thing I really wanted to track. I hardly ever sleep that long

This was given as a gift. She is very happy with the variety of options and the battery life. It is now mid April. Will not charge. Yikes.

長年blazeを使用。バッテリーの劣化も体感的にはなく、傷も殆どつかない頑丈さにそのまま使用していたが、新機種に興味が湧きApple Watchも範囲に入れ様々検討の上senseを購入。
感覚的な違いは画面が少し綺麗になったかなという点とカスタマイズしやすい点。バッテリー持ちは公式の6日はさすがに無理でエクササイズや時計表示で触っていると持って4日程度。節約の為常時表示はオフにしているがGoogleアシスタントや天気の確認で使用するので頻繁に表示している。Apple Watchにしなかったのは圧倒的にこのバッテリー持ちがfitbitは良かった為。仕事上晩の充電が出来ない環境ではApple Watchの選択肢はなかった。
iPhoneとの相性やデザイン性でApple Watchは捨て難かったがバッテリーが公式で18時間とありこれでは実用的でないと判断。
しかし性能、コスパを考えればfitbitが正解かと。
blazeに比べ操作性、レスポンスも向上しておりもっさり感もマシになっている。
画面デザインはアプリから変更でき、多彩なデザインが用意されている。
ベルトのフィット感も格段に向上しておりズレる事がなくフィットネスの時も邪魔に感じなくなった。反面密着度が高いのでかぶれ防止に汗をかいたら拭き取る必要がある程。ベルトサイズは長短2種類になり女性の腕にも問題なし。
versa3と比較しストレス管理程度の差だったが価格が変わらないのでsenseを選択。ストレス管理は正直プレミアムに入らないと余り良くわからない気がしている。
ちなみにSpotifyもプレミアム契約が必須。
睡眠データに関してはblazeと変わらず。ただ、他のスマートウォッチと比べるとfitbitは詳細が分かりやすい。fitbitアプリを毎日開き同期して記録している。
FiNCの体重計を保有しているのでFiNCアプリとも連動させ記録しているがバグなのか睡眠データは同期出来ない状況。歩数は同期出来ているので謎。
ボディカラーは質実剛健なブラックと迷ったが今回はルナホワイトを選択。サイドのゴールド色が躊躇の理由だったが現物を見るとさほど派手なゴールド感はなく腕に馴染んだので良かった。腕を見る度テンションが少し上がるのが嬉しい。
言い忘れたが血中酸素ウェルネスの表示がある。正確性は不明だが参考にはなるのではないか。
基本的な事だが、これをつけると歩こう、良い睡眠を心掛けようというモチベーションアップに繋がる。それだけでも使う価値があると感じている。
バッテリーの充電が面倒、という方にはfitbitがおすすめ。

Loved the watch – functionality and looks win. I love being able to use FitBit Pay and getting push messages, though the latter needed quite some settings adjustment on my phone, which is no fault of the watch’s. Just one thing that is my biggest regret though – I started having allergic rashes that left itchy burn marks on my wrists and arms. So I used a transparent bandage to cover the charging contact points. Tracking functions aren’t compromised, and I would only have to remove the tape for charging. Still loving the watch now, almost a month since I’ve switched from the smart watch with everlasting battery life – Amazfit Bip. Charging the FitBit Sense is almost an every other day affair. Considering the functionality, I can accept that.