You may have seen Fitbit and Apple share stories about how their smart watches save lives. After using their products, users find that their heart is irregular or eventually start to take their health anecdotes seriously. As companies continue to fill their smart watches with technology that was once dedicated to doctors’ offices, wearables are looking for their place as comprehensive health trackers. The game now is to see who can figure out what the next popular indicator is and how to interpret the data.
Fitbit has launched a new Sense smartwatch priced at $330. I hope you need a sensor to measure your body's response to pressure, as well as other information such as skin temperature and blood oxygen. The device also introduces a new buttonless design, but in other respects it is no different from the company's previous smart watches. Nevertheless, Fitbit Sense is still the company's attempt at the so-called "advanced health" device, and it is full of features that help it achieve this promise. You may feel overwhelmed in the face of all the new data, but Sense lays the foundation for making the most of all this information in the future.
One of the major changes that Fitbit has made here is the complete elimination of physical buttons. Instead, there is a groove on the left, which the company calls a button and solid-state sensor. You must completely cover this inch-wide groove with your finger to trigger the "press". You can set up long presses to trigger actions such as starting Alexa or tracking exercises, while a short click will take you to the main watch face or wake up the screen.
It took me a while to master this trick. The lack of a real button makes it difficult for me to know if I successfully triggered the sensor. There was some tactile feedback, but it became more reliable after I realized it was better to use the side of the thumb instead of the middle and apply some force to trigger the sensor.
Since Fitbit eliminated buttons, it also adjusted the navigation to make it more swipe. Now, when you swipe to the right, you will return to a page, while swiping up and down on the homepage will display your notifications and widgets, respectively. As before, swiping to the left will show the apps on the watch.
You can also customize the widget drawer to display your favorite tools. I added things like food and stagnant water, as well as weather and some fitness indicators. When I wanted to track my calorie intake, I had to scroll all the way down to the bottom of this page, which is where Fitbit places the widget by default. You can reorder these by tapping the "Manage" button at the bottom of this screen, and then long-press each widget to move it. However, in certain widgets, you still cannot reorder each field, so you cannot move the burned calories to a position beyond the distance in Core Stats.
Although the new navigation feels intuitive, it is also a bit sluggish and fussy. Not every swipe is recorded. Sometimes when I swipe to the left, the watch will think that I tapped the screen and take me to an app that I don’t want to launch. I must learn to be very careful with my gestures.
Otherwise it is a very beautiful device. I like the shiny aluminum and stainless steel housing, the new and clearer AMOLED screen is cute and bright. Compared to Fitbit's rounded squares, I still prefer a round dial, but Sense still manages to look elegant (if it's a bit like an Apple Watch, just squatting in shape). In addition, the strap weighs 45.9 grams, which is lighter than the Galaxy Watch 3, which weighs 48.2 grams without the strap. However, the smallest Apple Watch Series 6 is still the lightest, and the aluminum model weighs only 30.5 grams.
In addition to Fitbit's interface and design changes, Sense also adds functions such as electrical skin activity (EDA) sensors and skin temperature monitoring. EDA is also called galvanic skin response, it looks for skin changes that may be caused by stress. You can scan manually using the app on the watch, and then select "Quick Scan" for a two-minute session, or select "Guided Session" for more meditation.
During one of my quick scans, I sat quietly, covering the dial with my palm, making sure that my skin was in contact with the case. The watch vibrated to indicate the start of the conversation, and I closed my eyes and waited for two minutes to pass. At first, my mind was still spinning due to a nervous encounter, but after a while I managed to calm down.
When the time is up, Sense will vibrate, letting me know that I can remove my palm. I admit that in previous attempts, I lost my patience and peeked at the screen to see how long I had to sit. When I moved my hand, Sense naturally paused the session. After the scan, the watch showed that I had four "changes" or "reactions" in the first half of the scan, but none in the second half. I don't really know how good or bad this is, but it seems to be related to my experience of feeling more frustrated at the beginning of the meeting and calmer at the end. According to Fitbit, every “reaction” is a small change in the amount of sweat on my skin, although it still doesn’t help me measure my performance. In the follow-up test after exercise, I got 12 to 15 responses, so the smaller the number, the better.
Although I am troubled to see the watch agree, manual scanning does not feel like the best implementation of this tool. When I feel stressed, my first reaction is not to use the EDA app on the watch—it is to solve any problems that cause me anxiety. If you often suffer from insomnia from a million things that flash through your mind at night, a coaching course may be helpful, but a better use of EDA tools may be tracking throughout the day. Then, Sense will gently remind me to take a walk to calm down, just as it tells me to get up and move when I have been idle for too long. However, for now, the watch will only track EDA when you request it, which may be a good thing for battery life.
Fitbit uses this data to assign you a stress management score, which also takes into account your heart rate, sleep, and activity level. The results range from 0 to 100, with larger numbers indicating "less physical signs of stress". So far, even though it has been a very stressful week, I have scored 89 points, which makes me proud, but considering the level of panic I have made about various deadlines, it makes me feel inaccurate.
With Fitbit Premium, you will gain a deeper understanding of the factors that affect your score, such as your sleep patterns or physical activity. In-depth research on the app told me that my score dropped due to poor sleep for two nights, but my score improved due to a few days of exercise.
However, I only used Sense for a few days, so the situation may change. In this case, there will always be a Mindfulness tile in the Fitbit mobile app, which allows users to set goals for the number of minutes they spend on mental health each day. In addition to guided breathing lessons, this tile also offers activities such as "learning to self-compassion" and "spreading love" to help you feel better. If you have ever used any mindfulness apps such as Aura, Calm or Headspace, these guides will look familiar-they are audio files that tell you what to think about, although the Fitbit tutorial will remind you to open the EDA app on Sense program.
Fitbit has embedded blood oxygen sensors in its smartwatches for years, but only this year enabled them through a software update. Through Sense, it introduces a new SpO2 dial that can cycle between displaying your blood oxygen saturation, heart rate, floors climbed, and steps taken. If you wear a watch to sleep, the watch will measure your average SpO2 percentage per night. My results are between 95% and 97% consistent with what Samsung's Galaxy Watch 3 shows.
Blood oxygen is a good indicator of concern, but it is only really useful when detecting abnormalities that may indicate other underlying health problems. Since I did not have any violations during my review window, I cannot guarantee long-term performance, but knowing its existence can give me peace of mind.
In contrast to Apple and Samsung tracking your SpO2 when you start the tool, Fitbit only monitors your blood oxygen level when you are asleep. A company spokesperson said that this is because Sense takes five minutes to measure your SpO2, and no one wants to sit for that long. In addition, the company stated that night is the time when your body is most likely to show a difference from the baseline level, and your blood oxygen will not change much during the day.
Fitbit uses a similar concept in its new skin temperature tracking. You need to wear Sense for three nights before the watch can provide reports on your baseline temperature and changes. If you want to keep track of your skin temperature after getting a baseline reading, you must continue to wear Sense to sleep, which may be annoying for some people (including myself).
However, if you do this, Sense may help you to detect when you have a fever and detect the beginning of your menstrual cycle. After my third night, Fitbit reported no overall changes, which is not surprising, because this is the first result. (Before it provides the first report, you need data for three nights.) Although it won't let you read your actual skin temperature, Sense can tell you how it fluctuates while you sleep, and it's very It's interesting to see how I get warm when I go into deeper sleep, and then get cold again. Although the data is not immediately useful, I can see it reminding me of fever or illness.
Fortunately, you don't have to fall asleep with Sense to monitor your heart rate. Similar to other Fitbit products and Apple Watch, it will continue to monitor your pulse to warn you of any abnormalities. The device uses Fitbit's new heart rate sensor and algorithm to check whether your pulse is too high or too low based on your age and resting heart rate. Again, my heart rate does not exceed the normal range determined by Fitbit, but it can help someone detect potentially fatal conditions.
Continuous heart rate monitoring also helps Fitbit better understand your sleeping area, making it a more insightful bedtime tracker than Apple devices equipped with watchOS 7. The latter only tells you how long you slept based on your exercise, and Fitbit, for example, will use your pulse to determine if you are in REM or deep sleep. Galaxy Watch 3 can do the same. I found that it provides data similar to Sense, but the Fitbit watch is slightly more comfortable to wear on the bed.
In addition to paying close attention to your health, Sense can also help you exercise. Its built-in GPS can accurately measure your running, walking, hiking or biking without a mobile phone, and report your distance and pace when you are done. Before my first run, it took about 40 seconds for Sense to lock the signal, but the next day when I tried again in an area away from scaffolding and skyscrapers, it took only 10 seconds. This is not terrible; in fact, it is similar to the Galaxy Watch 3. Even so, Sense lags behind Apple Watch Series 5, which hardly stops to connect to GPS. (Before this review is published, I cannot test the Series 6, but as far as we know, the GPS sensor on the Apple Watch has not been updated.)
Like other Fitbit watches, Sense can track various activities such as yoga, circuit training, golf, martial arts, and tennis. It adds up the time you spend in heart rate zones such as fat burning, aerobic exercise, or peak, and then assigns points to you based on your age and resting pulse rate. Charge 4 tracker introduced these Active Zone Minutes this year. According to the guidelines of the World Health Organization and the American Heart Association, most people should strive to get 150 points per week.
Fitbit will also evaluate your cardiorespiratory health, which is an estimate of your maximum oxygen uptake during strenuous exercise or VO2Max, and will give you a score. Although these numbers are most useful to athletes, they can still give you confidence that you are not abnormal.
Sense can track so many different health indicators, which is great, but if you want to see more information or track performance over a period of time, you must use Fitbit Premium immediately. It costs $9.99 per month and has functions such as 7-day and 30-day trends of heart rate variability, SpO2, respiratory rate, skin temperature changes, and other indicators. Premium can also analyze in detail the factors that affect your stress score, as well as more in-depth details of your temperature changes throughout the night, as well as additional exercise content and guided meditation.
I don't like asking people who buy your product to pay more monthly to access their data, but at least the information that Fitbit provides for free is meaningful. I also hope that I don’t have to sleep with Sense all the time to get continuous reports on my breathing rate, heart rate variability, skin temperature and oxygen saturation.
Fitbit seems to have reconsidered its approach shortly before the release of this review, and will now allow users to access its long-term health indicators for free. Ultimately, anyway. The company issued a statement stating:
"As part of our premium membership, we first provide our premium users with a health indicator dashboard because we know that our premium users are interested in receiving more data and insights about their health and wellness. Given today’s environment, we know that advanced Health indicators are a valuable supplement that can help anyone discover important trends regarding their health and are looking for ways to roll out this feature more widely to Fitbit users with compatible (or supported) devices in the coming months."
Most other things about Sense are typical of Fitbit smartwatches: when your phone is nearby, you will receive a notification from your phone, and you can dictate a reply message (if you are using an Android device). You can also control smart home gadgets with Alexa on your wrist, or play your favorite Spotify playlist and record your calorie or water intake, just to name a few. For many of these features, I prefer Samsung’s Tizen operating system because it usually offers more choices, but Fitbit’s operating system should be sufficient to meet most people’s needs.
Fitbit does not share information about the processors in its smartwatches, but no matter what they use in Sense, they can use the upgrade. The watch needs to feel like an application like Today or Spotify is always activated. More importantly, in the first few hours I used it, Sense crashed several times. After I learned to be very cautious with the equipment, I have become accustomed to delays, but in general Samsung and Apple Watches are faster.
However, Sense did beat the main competitor in terms of battery life-it lasted about two and a half days, then reached 25% and warned me (via phone alert and email) that its battery was low. It was an always-on display, two nights of sleep tracking plus three short exercises and a 40-minute yoga class. I expect GPS will also drain the battery, and disabling the steady display should restore you for a few hours. This is better than Apple Watch Series 6 (based on our experience with Series 5, because Apple gives similar estimates for both) and Galaxy Watch 3, which may get you into the second day of enabling the always-on screen. But usually they give up after a year and a half.
It seems that all these features are not enough. Fitbit also said that more new things will appear in Sense later this year, including FDA-approved ECG tools, Google Assistant support, and Alexa and Google Assistant voice responses through the watch speaker. Sense can There are so many things to measure, it's almost overwhelming, but in most cases, I am impressed with the watch's functions.
Most health tracking features work well and provide useful insights, and while I don’t like that you need to subscribe to premium services to get some extra features, free data is at least useful. I hope Sense is faster and its operating system is more powerful. Nevertheless, it is still $330 cheaper than the new Apple Watch Series 6 and Galaxy Watch 3, while providing more health tracking features. If you don’t need these tools or don’t plan to wear a watch to sleep, the cheap Versa 2 may be sufficient, but in terms of the features it provides, Sense feels reasonably priced.
Update (September 22, 1:17 pm EST): This comment has been updated to Fitbit’s statement and changes to the method where access to health indicators is restricted to advanced users. Since this feature has not yet been rolled out to free users, the score will not be affected. The previous version of this article also stated that you cannot rearrange widgets in the drawer at the bottom of the home screen. This has been edited to clarify that you can move widgets, but not the order of items in them.
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