The Last Monarch Of The Fitbit Dynasty? – The Fitbit Versa 2 Review

What would you buy if you had a whopping 2.1 billion dollars just lying around? Well, Google decided to acquire Fitbit for that exact same amount earlier this month. Employees claim Fitbit had a rough patch for the last few years, battling “management issues, ever-changing priorities and high staff turnover.” Wired UK reported that the exact plans of the tech giant are unclear at the moment, however, when Google and Fitbit announced their partnership in 2018, their joint goal was to “accelerate innovation in digital health and wearables.”

We’ll keep an eye on them for sure. But for now let’s see if the newest member of the Fitbit fitness tracker family is worth your money and time!

Source: Dylan Griffin/Fitbit

Appearance and hardware

In the box we can find the device with an S/P and an L/G band, a guide and the USB charger. The sleek, design makes the Fitbit Versa 2 fashionable, and while the Apple Watch has a similar design with its rounded corners, the Versa 2 is still unique. Ours had burgundy bands with a copper rose watch and we could wear it for almost any occasion. It’s lightweight and remarkably comfortable. We could sleep in it without any discomfort or irritation/itchiness of the skin and could wear it all day just fine.

The OLED screen is beautiful, perfectly visible and bright even on a sunny day. The bezels around the screen are a bit thick, so it’s hard to see where the display ends, which gives the smartwatch a classier look. Always-On-Display is a useful new feature making it easier to check your exercise stats or just the time at a glance. It’s not customizable at the moment.

Customizing the clock face could be a bit difficult if you choose to buy from designers other than Fitbit (through the Fitbit app). These clock faces were difficult to download and just too much of a hustle to use at the end. It’s a shame as we really liked them!

First steps

To set up -and later use- the smartwatch, you need the Fitbit app on your phone. Connecting to the app (either on Android or iPhone) takes only a few seconds and all your previous data will be available as well. Even when it comes to apps not developed by Fitbit (like calorie counting applications), communication and data transfer were fast! The Fitbit app is still the same reliable, versatile, brilliant app we have grown to love over the years. It does everything it promises and more - it presents data in an easily interpretable way.

Charging the device only takes a couple of hours and the battery life is great! We could use Versa 2 for 4-5 days in one go (even when wearing it 24/7). Finally, a wearable we don’t have to charge every other day!

Ok, but is it user friendly? You bet! The new buttons and the user interface need a bit of getting used to, but all-in-all even if you’ve never used Fitbit before, it doesn’t take long to get the hang of this gadget.

“Fitbit’s mistake was that it promised behavior change, but it behaved like a hardware company,” says an employee “We had the ability to know a lot about our users, but people don’t want to be told what they did, they want to be told what to do. It’s Fitbit’s greatest missed opportunity.” And that might be the first issue you’ll come across: Premium service. This offers personalized coaching, health tips, and nutrition plan for a monthly price. Doesn’t sound like a big issue, does it? We believe personalized coaching can be essential in healthy living - but paying for a service which should come as a basic feature in 2019? We’re not that impressed.

Promises, promises…

Fitbit promises more than 20 special features for Versa 2. While sleep and fitness tracking may not be brand new, the company has a few new tricks up in its sleeves. For example, Alexa is a built-in option now, therefore she can provide simple, short answers in text if you have the app downloaded on your phone. You can even control your smart household devices with Versa 2. Third party apps are available, but there’s no chance of synchronizing your data with Apple Health or Google Fit at the moment. Spotify may come preinstalled, but you can only transfer songs to the device over WiFi, which will take a while. Smartphone notifications are great and personalized reminders can help you stay on the right track.

We recommend Versa 2 as a fitness tracker. With 24/7 heart rate, and all day activity monitoring in addition to real time data on your stats, the new Fitbit is perfect for anyone trying to live healthier. (Although, we’re still waiting for the SpO2 monitoring to become a reality and so are we for detecting sleep apnea…) The device offers numerous exercise modes and tips and tricks on how to perfect your workout.

It’s water resistant to 50 meters, so swimming is trackable as well. Unfortunately, the smartwatch doesn’t have GPS on-board, so you need your phone for jogging. It was so motivating to see that when we exercised regularly, drank enough water and took care of our mental health, we could see our resting heart rate decrease. It’s so much easier to reach our goals if we stay motivated. And when you see your progress visually presented as a graph or infographic it just keeps you moving forward.

FINALLY! The smart sleep alarm is here

We felt the sleep scoring system and tracking was accurate. The data presented is easy to understand. And we were so glad to see that the smart sleep alarm feature is not only for the Ionic devices anymore. It’s so nice to wake up a bit more relaxed even if that means waking up 15 minutes earlier. The smart alarm is a third party app in Fitbit's app store but who cares if it works.

If we are stressed before going to bed, the Relax app helps calm our minds. It offers a guided breathing session to help unwind and connect with ourselves.

Source: fitbit.com

Our final thoughts

We loved the Versa 2! It’s a great companion in healthy living. If you want to stay motivated, monitor your progress and use a fitness tracker that looks good and is one of the best in the market, don’t hesitate.

Although it’s not so much a smart watch as a fitness tracker since you need your phone to use it, we wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone trying to live a more conscious and happy life. There is only one better device we have tested already, the Fitbit Ionic.

So yes, we do love Versa 2, but we can’t deny how Fitbit got a bit lazy over the past years- or so it seems. They introduce new features with every new device- but nothing groundbreaking. Yet they do have a quite interesting history of experiments with devices beyond smart trackers and scales. A bedside device that could detect outdoor noise and “cancel it” by emitting white noise, or playing a soothing podcast till you fall asleep? Cool! Fitbit for your ears? A hearable that could track your heart rate more effectively with the help of A.I.? Cool! Even if not much is known about Google’s plans with this company, we’re curious to see how they shake up the market and hope that someday we would be able to get our hands on an AI powered device tucked into our ears equipped with some of the best Fitbit features we all love.

Dr. Bertalan Mesko, PhD is The Medical Futurist and Director of The Medical Futurist Institute analyzing how science fiction technologies can become reality in medicine and healthcare. As a geek physician with a PhD in genomics, he is a keynote speaker and an Amazon Top 100 author.

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