Fitbit Sense 2 Review: Im Really Stressed, Apparently, And This Smartwatch Wants Me To Think About It

"Fitbit is doomed". When Google announced it would buy the company's wearables in 2019, so did critics. Some fear Fitbit will lose its identity as it inevitably gets integrated with Google's wearables in the future, while others fear it will. Google's impact on devices can be very severe. But almost two years after the acquisition closed, and with the company's new Fitbit Sense 2 device in hand, it doesn't seem like there's much to worry about. Fitbit is still surviving in the increasingly crowded wearables market, even with Google.

As we can see, Google's influence on the latest Sense has been minimized, if not drastically reduced. While the company has been busy weaving Fitbit into the fabric of the new Pixel Watch in Sense 2 (tracking Fitbit's core sensors), you still get a simple, unobtrusive Fitbit experience like no other.

Sure, the fitness tracker looks more like a Wear OS product after the UI redesign, but Fitbit Sense 2 still runs on Fitbit OS, and you can still use Fitbit Pay for NFC payments. future updates as well as Google Maps.

However, it lacks a few things and these flaws may put you off buying the device. The voice assistant is oddly stuck with Alexa, and while both are available in the native sense, there's no Google Assistant support. Also, third-party apps are completely removed from the watch, music playback cannot be controlled, and Wi-Fi is disabled.

However, it costs £30 less than the original model and is packed with essential health, sleep and stress-tracking features. This is the class representative, we know exactly when our emotions peak throughout the day because Sense 2 tells us. And unfortunately we are stressed and forced to recognize it.

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when we test

Wearables just keep getting better with every generation. You're no longer just tracking your runs or workouts. While we've tested the basics by rating its ability to track our CrossFit workouts and (very slow) jogs, battery life and endurance, the Sense 2 is a device that encourages you to be more vigilant as a true fitness tracker be. Recognize when you're feeling stressed and monitor how well you're sleeping.

While it's packed with sensors to track all sorts of things, it also offers guided meditations, mindfulness sessions, and more. We tested all of these features, especially on stressful days and days when we were feeling relaxed. But does it help us understand how our bodies work?

Fitbit Sense 2: £269.99, Fitbit.com

Battery life: up to six days with fast charging
Voice assistant: Alexa
Sensors: ECG sensor, heart rate sensor, continuous EDA sensor, SpO2 monitor, skin temperature sensor, ambient light sensor, 3-axis acceleration sensor
Functions: Built-in GPS, all-day body feedback monitoring and notification, sleep stage monitoring, guided mindfulness and breathing exercises, bluetooth calling
Pros: Excellent stress tracking, unmatched battery life, good workout range, easy to use
Cons: Cannot play music, GPS is very unreliable
Rating: 4.5 / 5

To draw

Put Sense and Sense 2 side by side and you won't be able to tell the difference. The Sense 2 is a few grams lighter and about a millimeter thinner. A millimeter shave means it's less awkward to hang on your wrist, sits more evenly against your skin, and we hardly remember wearing it because it's as light as a feather. In terms of design, the two devices are almost identical.

It still has the same compact 40mm aluminum body, the same 1.58-inch AMOLED display with a 336 x 336 resolution, and the same medium and large soft silicone straps (both included in the standard package). And they're as comfortable as ever. We were able to adjust the strap so tightly that the Fitbit was always in contact with our skin, believing that a tighter fit meant better continuous electrodermal activity (cEDA) readings (more on that in a moment.').

Although it's basically the same in terms of an attractive design, it differs with the physical buttons on the side. The original Sense had touch habits instead of physical buttons, which frustrated users. Many complain that it doesn't work when accidentally pressed or activated. Now that Fitbit has implemented physical buttons, there's no chance of that happening. Easy to hold, almost as long as a watch and not too sticky.

Like the original Fitbit Sense, the second-gen model has an always-on display, but it's not activated by default - which is good as it halves the smartwatch's battery life. When you turn your wrist toward you or press a button, the watch face appears. While this is a bit cumbersome and sometimes the screen responds a little sluggishly when you turn your wrist, it saves a lot of battery.

The user interface has also been updated. As mentioned, using it feels like we're using a Wear OS device as opposed to an operating system running Fitbit OS. It's very easy to use - switch between panels by swiping left and right, access quick settings by swiping down from the top, and view notifications by swiping up. We also love being able to quickly start with the most recently used exercise, so we don't have to scroll through the list and find the right one.

It's easy to access your latest workouts and get started quickly (Alex Lee / The Independent)

Now that Sense 2 has physical buttons, it's easier to hold down the side button and activate Alexa, quickly jump to our shortcuts, and see all of our apps in a list.

feature

The Fitbit Sense 2 is one of the smartest fitness trackers out there. Like the original Fitbit Sense, this device can track all body markers. It automatically tracks our sleep quality to let us know how long we've spent in deep and REM sleep and prompts us to wake up and walk 250 steps every hour. . as well as SpO2, ECG, heart rate and skin temperature monitoring. The skin temperature sensor isn't technically a new sensor, but now smartwatches like the Apple Watch are adding it.

Then Sense 2 uses all this information to give us a daily fitness score that tells us if our body is ready for another workout at the gym, if we need to rest or if we've been busy all day. best in person. . It also accurately records our CrossFit sessions, giving us information at a glance.

However, what continues to set the Fitbit Sense series apart from the competition is its focus on awareness. Like the first Sense, Sense 2 can track your stress level. Fitbit Sense can also track electrodermal activity, which is used to detect tiny electrical changes in the skin and let us know when we're stressed or when our emotions are at their peak. The data points include our heart rate, heart rate variability, and skin temperature.

Fitbit has taken Sense 2 a step further by adding a continuous EDA body feedback sensor, so it's now always on the lookout for signs of stress. The EDA sensor in the first Fitbit Sense was a little less useful, as you had to touch the app and keep your palm on the screen for two minutes to get a reading, which you can still do in the Sense 2. A mindfulness exercise where the smartwatch tracks your electrodermal activity while you listen. one of the Fitbit awareness sessions. But the cEDA sensor is actually more useful: always looking for signs of stress. It's been humming non stop for a week as we worry about rising mortgage rates, utility bills and the cost of living crisis.

When Fitbit Sense 2 detects an abnormal body reaction, we get a notification on our device asking us to record how we're feeling, happy, sad, stressed, or any of the other suggestions. It can't tell you what emotions you're feeling, it's just that your heart rate might be high and you're sweating a little. This requires your human input.

David Ellis, computer scientist and professor of management at the University of Bath, confirms this. "In laboratory research, EDA sensors are often used to measure arousal and stress because, as you can imagine, there's an overlap," he says. "If a person's skin reaction is increasing, it could be because they're stressed, but they could be excited about something or busy."

This isn't ideal because it assumes people know their bodies well and how they're feeling — sometimes we don't know if we're feeling calm or happy, sad or stressed. If IT Crowd 's Denholm taught us anything, it's not necessarily that you're stressed (even if your Fitbit is just asking for your body's reaction), that your stress levels might be rising.

The functional reaction of the body is also not instantaneous. There are times when we know we're stressed, but the smartwatch didn't let us know the body's reaction until half an hour had passed - it would be useful to get an alert so we can spot it in the moment. However, we found that our stress levels increased and we felt better and better after accessing one of our quick attention sessions.

But aside from minor implementation quibbles, is it correct? In such a magical way. Fitbit Sense 2 recognizes very precisely when we are stressed. If we look at historical trends in the Fitbit app, the days when Fitbit detects the most body reactions are the days when we know we're the most anxious. However, it could take a step forward.

It would make Fitbit Sense 2 more useful if the device could track the signals we send out over time and learn how we're feeling based on our body's reactions, but for now it's more of an attention exercise. . When the ceDA sensor detects that we may be feeling stressed, it prompts us to take a step back and admit that we are feeling something. But that won't tell us if we're happy or stressed - we have to decide for ourselves.

While the ceDA sensor is the obvious star of the show, Fitbit has added 20 new workout modes to the original Fitbit Sense 20, including HIIT, CrossFit, cycling, weightlifting and dance, making it more flexible than ever. It also recognizes when you're exercising, which the Pixel Watch, despite Fitbit integration, can't do. But not all is rosy, there are a few things that let us down about the new Fitbit Sense 2 - and it's not because Google wants to stamp its brand on the product, it's because it's moving away from the device.

As mentioned above, Alexa is the only voice assistant in the Fitbit Sense 2 and isn't designed to accept Google Assistant. This is of course bad for the device. Amazon's voice assistant is not very helpful. He couldn't understand or count our questions about the device. It can't start a workout, can't tell us the battery life of the device, can't start an ECG measurement, can't do anything except tell us the time or answer non-device questions.

The built-in GPS isn't very accurate either, saying we've lost the right path. Hopefully this will improve as Google Maps is integrated, but there is no timeline as to when that will happen. However, nowadays GPS is not very reliable to map your trajectory.

Watch face shows time, current heart rate, sleep data and active zone minutes (Alex Lee / The Independent)

There are also no third-party apps on the device, they've been removed entirely so we can't keep an eye on MyFitnessPal to track our meals, which is what you can do with the original fitness tracker. Wi-Fi is also disabled, so you can only update your smartwatch via Bluetooth 5 when it's connected to your phone. And finally one of the worst changes? Remove music playback: You can no longer control music or podcasts while they're playing, and you can no longer download music to your device for offline playback. This is an important feature that all smartwatches have, including the first Fitbit Sense.

This makes the smartwatch look more like a standalone stress detector than a smartwatch. But there's one more thing you don't get by choosing the Pixel Watch over the Fitbit Sense 2: great battery life.

Battery life

After reviewing smartwatches, one thing has always stopped us from sticking with them is that they need constant charging. We charge it so many times that we forget to reset the smartwatch, which then becomes unusable. We didn't have this problem with the Fitbit Sense 2, because the battery life is absolutely amazing. Depending on our activity level, you'll get up to six days of battery life, sometimes more, on a single charge with the always-on screen off.

It also charges quickly, so you can pop it into a magnetic charger and have it charged in about an hour. Being able to put the device on and not have to think about charging puts Sense 2 ahead of some Wear OS devices that can't pack the battery until the day before charging. While the Sense 2 looks more like a fitness tracker running on Fitbit OS, the Sense 2 offers a major advantage in terms of battery life.

Conclusion: Fitbit Sense 2

So the Fitbit Sense 2 is just a glorified stress tracker and should you buy a cheaper Fitbit Versa 4 or Pixel Watch or rather the old Fitbit Sense? While the Fitbit Sense 2 omits some of the things that (slightly) improve on the original Sense, including third-party apps and the Google Assistant, the original model is actually more expensive and doesn't offer a cEDA sensor or the new 20 modes. . Fitness. The original Fitbit Sense starts at £299.99, while the Sense 2 is £30 less than £269.99.

The Fitbit Versa 4 may be cheaper, but it lacks a dedicated skin temperature sensor, an EDA sensor for stress monitoring, and an ECG. The Sense 2 remains a stress and wellness device, while the Versa 4 remains a mainstream fitness device. What about the pixel clock? If you want something that works and looks more like a smartwatch with some Fitbit elements built in, this is probably a better deal, albeit more expensive. Keep in mind, however, that it doesn't last six days and doesn't automatically track your workouts like the Fitbit range does.

The Fitbit acquisition makes the Fitbit Sense 2's approach smoother, but we still appreciate the incredibly long battery life, and the stress monitoring feature helps us be more aware of how you're doing, even if it's aggressive at times. Maybe in the next iteration it will learn how we're feeling and tell us instead so we know how to deal with it.

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