I've been in the Fitbit ecosystem for a while, having owned a Charge, Blaze, Aria and 3 Ionics (They kept breaking) This is a super long review to help potential buyers as much as possible as this is a costly device. If I've missed anything you want to know, please leave me a question and I'll try to answer. Skip to the bottom for the TLDR summary.
Updated review 17/01/21
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Just a quick update to my review with the new features. ECG has now been added (in the UK anyway), it's a simple 30s affair. Just place your thumb and forefinger on opposite sides of the bezel and 30s later you either get told your heart beat is fine or "inconclusive". Is it accurate? Who knows, but there are a lot of hoops Fitbit have to jump through to get approval for such a feature, so let's assume it is. If you get multiple "inconclusives" it's worth a checkup. No complaints, good feature.
Google Home has now been added to the voice assistants along with Alexa. Personally I still find them both useless as they don't work when you're not within Bluetooth range of your phone, and range does seem awful. If I walk to my kitchen (20-25ft) and leave my phone in the office it will lose connection, and only randomly reconnect when it feels like it (I assume when it next tries to sync). Even if you walk back within range and then try to use the feature IT STILL DOESN'T WORK. It tells me to use my phone and do a sync. Well, if I'm picking up my phone I may as well just use Alexa/Google on that? Again, this is just a battery saving exercise that cripples functionality.
The speaker works! Well, Google/Alexa will respond with voice anyway. But I can't help but feel saying "Set a timer for 5 minutes" and getting a voice response saying "OK" should also mean when the timer expires I get some kind of sound. But no, the watch just still vibrates instead. Come on? I know Fitbit are a small company but a device with a speaker that doesn't give an option to make a SOUND when a timer expires? Come on.
My original 3 star review stands at this point. The Sense is merely an Ionic (£140) with a bezel that can do ECG and EDA tests. Let's hope the Google acquisition which has now completed gives Fitbit the budget they need to push onwards. Is the Sense worth it? No. Can better firmware/software save it? Possibly. But I can't help but feel the next generation with Google funding will be the one worth waiting for.
If you want a tracker right now? Well I'd *love* to try the top offerings from Garmin or Huawei as they are definitely catching Fitbit but my budget doesn't allow for that. My opinion? Wait for a price drop, £300 is too much.
Original review
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Coming in at £300 RRP again, this is Fitbit's flagship model. Taking a look at the basics:
* Aesthetics - 5/5
Very impressed! Available in black/grey and a more effeminate "pale rose gold", the colour options are pretty limited. No steel grey, or shiny silver - for now anyway. Whatever colour you choose, you're stuck with as the entire watch is the same colour, so choose wisely. The watch itself has a "squircle" shape (a square-ish circle, or a circle-ish square :P) that actually looks much better than I expected. Quality wise, it all looks great. The Ionic looked a bit awkward and cheap, especially around the lip of the screen but the Sense looks well crafted and uses the good stuff like aerospace-grade aluminium and Gorilla glass. The screen also has big, smooth rounded edges making swipes super-comfy. A massive improvement, it looks simple yet elegant, good job Fitbit, best looking watch you've ever made (Check my photos)
The strap is the newer design that doesn't have a buckle and folds in and under itself for a lower profile. The whole watch and strap feel nice and light, secure and comfortable. No complaints.
* Screen - 3/5
Initially, I was very happy with the screen. At 1.58" it helps my aging eyes a little. Bright and clear and now AMOLED so it outputs super-black blacks that really help make the screen blend into the surrounding bezel - you can't see where the screen ends and the bezel begins unless you're in very bright light. Also note that AMOLED gives the option of an always-on mode. I'm especially happy about this, if only to get rid of the awkward but painstakingly long moments when someone asks "what's the time" and you do the ol' "Fitbit-wrist-flick and stare" - waiting for the watch to turn on, often in vain. Being AMOLED any part of the screen that is black is using negligible battery power, so there's the potential for some really long battery life. It's worth noting the actual screen itself (or the part you can see anyway) is also a squircle. This means clock faces with a solid background look a bit odd and show the thick bezel and also means there's no corners to put stats in. With AMOLED I'm not sure why they didn't just use a square screen and leave the corners black.
So why 6/10? Well my first Sense had a strong red tint to all colours as they got darker. This meant all gradients appeared to fade out to red. My replacement (thank you Amazon) was much better, but now has a slight red tint all over the screen, along with more black crush and some greeny yellows. I'm either desperately unlucky or the Fitbit Quality Control isn't that hot. I would feel bad abusing Amazon's goodwill any more, so I'm keeping this one. You may not be as picky as me however but bear it in mind. I was, and still am, disappointed.
* Default watch face designs and UI - 3/5
For unknown reasons, Fitbit's watch face designs are almost always awful and there's no change here. Awkward layout and often with no settings to let you choose what stats you want to see (sigh) You can thankfully download a new one from 1000s created by 3rd parties (Fitbit really should pay some of these developers and use their designs) Note Fitbit still don't have a proper store payment method (Don't they want a cut from purchases?) so it means you have to go to 3rd party pages and pay a couple of dollars to random sites, which all feels a bit nasty. It's also worth noting if you download a watch face without an always-on display, you get stuck with Fitbit's defaults which are UGLY (See photos) And to make matters worse, only "certified" developers are allowed to make a watch face with an always-on display so the choice is a bit limited for that.
The UI itself is an improvement, but it's still very basic with minimal animation and a lot of flat-shaded graphics. There's a fine line between minimalism and just looking too simple/basic, and it leans towards the simple side a bit too much. It's also a bit laggy at times. Sometimes animations just skip straight to the end, sometimes taps and swipes go awry. The compromises to save battery are starting to feel a little too much and the basic UI does take away from the premium look of the Sense somewhat.
* Features - 5/5
Firstly, let's not underestimate the importance of this one - A SPEAKER. Yes you heard correctly, it finally makes a noise! Well, it does when you initially turn it on, other than that I haven't heard a peep out of it. I'm assuming eventually there'll be an option to have audible alarms and to make the UI and the buttons beep when you press them etc. but for now, it's just *another* feature to wait for. It's the 21st century guys, c'mon.
Microphone. Currently at launch we have Alexa integration. Well, there's a certain irony in using a fitness device to do things like turn the lights on and off so you don't have to get up, but the option is nice to have. It doesn't speak back to you, you just get text on the screen however. There is mention of taking and answering calls using the speaker and microphone, but it's not here yet so don't assume it will ever arrive.
"The button". You've probably heard about this if you've read any other Sense review. There's no physical buttons any more, just a weird single indentation on the left of the Sense, just below the strip used for EDA and ECG scans. However, in use it's not as bad as it sounds. You have to actually squeeze the Fitbit harder than expected to activate it, but otherwise it's fine, with a satisfying vibration. If you have hairy arms like me though, you'll keep tugging on them as you press with your whole thumb which isn't that comfortable :)
Heartrate Sensor. It has the PurePulse2.0 sensor which is allegedly more accurate but I can't say I've noticed it responding any quicker or being any more accurate than the Ionic. If it is an improvement, it's not much and a look around at some in-depth tests show it's lagging behind the competition a bit. For resting heartrate and steady state cardio it's fine, if you do lots of HIIT you may see more issues with accuracy.
Blood Oxygen Sensor. As with the Ionic, right now this only works when you sleep - there's no spot testing. Also worth noting in the app you only get a graph showing the variance, not the actual percentage. If you can be bothered to select a certain watch face at night, and wear it for about an hour after waking, you get an actual percentage range but this is far from ideal. Let's hope Fitbit fix this to work with any watch face.
Electrodermal activity (EDA) Sensor. Put your hand over the screen and it measures your stress level over a 2 minute (or longer) period, looking essentially at how much you sweat. How accurate it is, I'm not sure, but the results definitely seem to be lower when I feel more relaxed. This goes towards a "stress management score", along with activity levels and sleep quality. Fitbit are a fan of these arbitrary numbers, but getting them higher (or lower) is almost like a game. This is a good thing as I find myself purposely taking 2 minutes out of my day to take the test which is good for mindfulness and relaxation. Also, I want to beat yesterday's score. In your face yesterday's me!
Built in GPS. Took a couple minutes to connect the first time, under 20s the second time. Solid and accurate enough for me looking at the routes plotted on Google maps that it shows in the app on my phone.
Electrocardiogram (ECG). Measure your heart's rhythm for irregularities that can lead to stroke, etc. It's been approved by the relevant bodies in the US, UK and various other countries but the app to do it isn't here yet. It should be soon (October), but until it is, it's another omission and a sign the Sense has been rushed to market.
Notifications from your phone can be shown on your watch, but the usual restrictions apply. e.g. your phone has to be nearby, and you can only reply if you use Android. It's too clunky to really bother with imo.
It also has the usual Fitbit specs (altimeter / gyroscope / etc) and now also tracks additional stats that are shown in the Fitbit app on your phone (discussed later)
* Watch Apps - 2/5
There's still a very limited selection of apps, and they're all constrained by the same simple graphics and low performance as the OS itself. I rarely find myself using any of them, bar the main ones for tracking exercise and the ones required to do EDA and ECG scans.
Spotify - still only lets you control the music, not download it to your Sense for offline playback. Note the Sense has no data connection unless it is connected to your phone. This saves battery, but it necessitates the ability to download music! What's the point of onboard GPS if you need to take your phone too for music anyway?
Deezer - who even uses this? I assume Fitbit have a deal with them but I have enough subscriptions thanks. Support what people use please Fitbit, not what you want them to use.
There's also basic apps for settings timers and alarms but they're all a bit clunky. There's also apps to help you with breathing and mindfulness but unless you're trapped somewhere you don't have your phone, they're hardly worth the effort.
* The main Fitbit App on your phone - 4/5
It doesn't change much but is solid enough. I can happily say I've had NO problem with syncing the Sense with the app. Literally every Fitbit I've ever owned has had trouble with this. For the Sense there's a new section called "Health Metrics" which includes:
Breathing rate - how many times you breathe in and out per minute as you sleep
Heart rate variability - this is a new one for me. It calculates the difference in time between your heartbeats - worth reading about
Skin temperature - you don't get a core reading (it's on your wrist remember) but you get to see the variance which may warn you of a possible rise in core temp too
Oxygen saturation - if you use the special watch face at night...
Resting heart rate - Same data as before
Statistics are great, there's nothing quite like exercising, working hard to get fitter and seeing tangible changes in your numbers. Fitbit know this and are throwing more numbers than ever at you. Don't worry too much about absolute values as this is just a watch on your wrist remember, it's hard for it to be too accurate with such a limited amount of data coming in, but working on making those values move in the right direction is the core addiction. I can honestly say seeing statistics improve in the Fitbit app (and seeing how they tank when I'm lazy and/or drink alcohol :P) is great motivation to do better each day.
* Half a star off for:
Fitbit Pay. One of the disappointments on the Ionic continues to disappoint, at least for us in the UK. Santander is still the only major bank represented, along with a "who dis?" list of others. I'm worried by the continued lack of Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC, etc. Is it a security issue? Or Fitbit laziness? Either way, the UK is still considered not cool enough to pay for stuff with a tap of the watch. Boo.
Fitbit Premium. Thanks for paying £300 for your new smartwatch, enjoy it! Oh and btw, if you want to access ALL the stats you have to pay a whopping and frankly wholly unrealistic £8.99/mo to see them. You get 6 months for free with the Sense and for now it's mainly the more advanced sleep statistics that are behind this paywall (and some coaching videos, but not many), but who knows what else may end up there - it really isn't clear in the app. This double dipping is not cool, the processing/storage required for these statistics is minimal. I really hope they remove this charge or at least massively reduce it. If you want £8.99/mo (same as Netflix) you need to provide something NEW for it every month Fitbit.
* Summary
At first I thought the Sense had been rushed out of the door somewhat to capitalise on the pandemic and peoples' interest in their health, but I think it was more to compete with the 3 new Apple watches. Let's get this clear, the Fitbit is for you if you want a 24hr health and wellness wearable. The battery lasts for 5 days, and you *should* wear it at all times to accurately and properly track your health as much as possible. Ill health doesn't wait for your battery to be charged :) The Apple watch has a 16hr battery life. It looks better, runs much faster, does sp02 spot checks and uses a proper slick OS. If you just want an exercise tracker and spot checking, it's a better choice. If you're more interested in your general wellbeing and fitness trends throughout the entire day and just want to "wear and forget" something, the Fitbit is the one. I feel like Fitbit need to stop trying to compete with Apple, they're a different market imo, and just focus on themselves. That said, I do wish Fitbit would worry a little less about battery length and more on performance. The UI struggles at times to keep up, scrolling is still a bit lumpy and I am concerned that things will only get worse as more features get enabled and more compromises are made. Google are in the process of acquiring Fitbit so we can expect some positive changes in the future, but for now the Sense has done "just enough".
* Should you buy it?
If you're looking for an upgrade from a Versa or Ionic, I'd personally wait for the ECG app to work and a more sensible use of the sp02 sensor. When they're here, it's a solid choice. If you have an older Fitbit, this is a nice piece of kit and a worthy upgrade. Consider the Versa 3 though if you aren't bothered about EDA or ECG.
TLDR:
The Sense is good, but not quite good enough right now - with the potential to be great.
A slightly-generous 3 stars.
This review will be updated as more features become available. If you found it useful, please click the "helpful" button below. I get nothing from this other than knowing writing all this waffle helped someone out :)
| Age range | Adult |
|---|---|
| Color | Carbon / Graphite Stainless Steel |
| Size | One Size |
| Style | Smartwatch |
| Compatible with | Smartphone |
| Display size | 1.58 Inches |
| Weight | 0.03 Kilograms |
| Material type | Synthetic |
| Number of items | 1 |
| Features | Sleep Monitor |
| Sport | Walking, Water Sports, Running, Swimming, Fitness |
| Included components | Device and cable |
| Batteries included? | Yes |
| Brand | Fitbit |
| Department | Unisex |
| Manufacturer | Fitbit |
| Item model number | FB512BKBK |
| Product Dimensions | 4.05 x 4.05 x 1.24 cm; 30 Grams |
| ASIN | B08DFCWVZ4 |
