![]() ![]() On top of general health and activity monitoring, the Sense can track and record 20 different exercises, including the usual walking, running, swimming and cycling, yoga, circuit training, golf, tennis and others. Tap the middle one to rotate through your choice of time, distance, pace, heart rate, calories steps, laps and active minutes. The watch has a simple but functional display showing three stats at once. It could be useful for keeping more empirical records of stress levels if you’re particularly worried. Guided mindfulness sessions use the EDA sensor too, but I didn’t feel any more relaxed than after doing some basic breathing exercises. The idea is sound but it requires you to place your palm for two minutes each time you want to record it – not something I’m going to do regularly. The other is the electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor, which detects changes in the sweat level of your palm to measure stress levels in addition to data on stress interpreted from heart rate and sleep. One of the key features is the electrocardiogram (ECG) sensor, which records the rhythm of your heartbeat and works just as well as rivals, useful for keeping an eye out for early warning signs of heart trouble. A smart alarm function wakes you up at the optimum time in your cycle, too. It also has advanced sleep monitoring, recording an overall “sleep score”, various sleep cycles, heart rate variability, skin temperature, breathing rate and blood oxygen saturation. It records your heart rate every five seconds, counts steps and active time, and has automatically adjusting high and low heart rate alerts, move reminders and daily activity goals. The Sense is packed with health and fitness features. The ECG feature works much like those of competitors – hold your fingers on the metal band around the outside of the screen for 30 seconds. The watch has Fitbit Pay for contactless payments, but the number of UK banks that support it is very slim. Deezer or Pandora in the US can download tracks and play them via Bluetooth headphones. ![]() The Spotify app is only a remote and cannot store or play music directly. Music controls do not automatically appear and are somewhat cumbersome to get to: double-press the side button and tap the music shortcut to control playback, volume and other functions. ![]() You can reply to messages with canned responses or voice dictation on Android, but not if used with an iPhone. Notifications from your phone are fairly basic, showing texts and alerts, but no images from chats, smart cameras or similar. Press and hold it to invoke Amazon’s Alexa or Google Assistant for voice queries, timers and other functions, which are responsive as long as the watch has a good connection to your phone. Press the side button once to return to the watch face, or twice to access four quick shortcuts for music, apps and other functions. Swipe down from the top for smartphone notifications, up for widgets including health stats and the weather, left for apps and right for quick settings. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardianįitbit’s software is fairly slick. There are built-in apps for timers, alarms, health monitoring and viewing your calendar, but good third-party apps are a little thin on the ground. Batteries in other smartwatches typically last for at least 500 cycles while maintaining at least 80% of their original capacity. Sustainabilityĭespite publishing a sustainability statement, Fitbit declined to answer any of the Guardian’s sustainability questions, including on the use of recycled materials, whether the watch is repairable and the costs to do so out of warranty, and battery lifespan, losing it a star. The watch connects to the Fitbit app on your Android or iPhone via Bluetooth, but also has wifi for downloading updates, apps and similar. A 26-minute run with the screen on and GPS active consumed 6% of the battery, meaning it should last the length of a marathon or so. I had to charge it before bed every other night with everything turned on, running a couple of times a week, tracking walks and my sleep. The battery can last up to six days between charges, but lasts more like two with the screen on all the time, calls and notifications turned on, and using some of the more advanced health monitoring features. The watch charges to 100% in 77 minutes or 50% in 26 minutes with a small magnetic USB-A puck that clips to the back. ![]()
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