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Watches and wearables · Fitbit

Fitbit Sense 2

7owners with an opinion
33%of verdicts positive
1/3positive/negative since 2024
0happy after 3+ years

Praised for reliability; criticized for software and ease of use.

What owners wrote

Neutral
I've looked at Garmin, because I have the fitbit sense 2 and was looking for something with a reasonable battery life. However, I think Garmin has made the flaw of overcomplicating their product offerings. I ended up pre-ordering a pebble because I implicitly don't like a company that tries to segment their market that hard on smart watches.
Likes it
I just got my first Garmin Watch (Venu 3) in December for Xmas. So far I'm enjoying it. I'm happy to see the company knows how to survive because my last few smart watches didn't fare so well, not exactly from market changes, but from acquisitions. I had the original Pebble and Pebble 2. Loved them. Then one day Pebble was just shut down because of an acquisition by Fibit[1]. There was a group of people that started Rebble[2] to restore web services and support the watch but I was not interested so I switched over to Fitbit. I had the Fitbit Versa 2 and Versa 3 watches and for a while they were great. Then Google bought Fitbit[3]. The impending "Killed by Google" was always in the back of mind, especially since they already sold smart watches. But I have been on Pixel phones for a while now and I thought maybe Google buying them would lead to good things. At first not much changed, but eventually I started having issues with the watch (more info about that below) and I got fed up with it and now I have a Garmin Watch. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#Closing_of_Pebb... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#Rebble [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitbit#Google's_acquisition The issues I was having with my Versa 3: Daily I would notice I had missed a sms notification and realize that my watch was disconnected from my phone. I had to go in and manually reconnect it. I also had issues using the voice command feature. I used to be able to use my G…
Doesn’t like it
Proprietary software is just one part of this issue. There seems to be a growing trend in attempting to entrap a servile subscriber base within your own walled enclosure. To be successful you need to keep your buyer unaware of the trap until they have too much invested within your walls to cut their losses emotionally. Here the poster has bought a high cost camera (even at a discount) without realising there would be an on-going recurring cost. Expensive propriety hardware, tied to propriety software, tied to an online account with telemetry, where nothing works without all the other bits is a wonderful trap. It works great for John Deer and I guess will soon be coming with your next vehicle. Personally, someone bought me a Fitbit Sense 2 watch for Christmas. It can't even be used as a watch until you have signed in with a Google account and "consent to Google using my health and wellness data". Of course you don't get to see this before you break the seal on the box. And although the watch gathers lots of your data, you can't see it until after it has been upload to Google, and some of it is only available once you have signed up for Fitbit Premium. But wait, it gets better. The time on the default watch face is tiny (for an old fart like me). I could download a larger one, if I signed up for Fitbit Premium. I could sign up to download the developer kit and write my own for free (a new watch face is a simple example). However, if I go too far and accidentally break t…
Doesn’t like it
I've a FitBit Sense 2 and as I understand it that measures variations in SpO2. I'm not convinced how accurate nor how quickly it responds, it derives an estimate rather than directly measuring. I think it's also sensitive to any movements of the watch on your wrist. I also have had a finger pulse oximeter which logs and exports to an app via USB. If I sleep with that on it seems to be very reliable at recording the levels, the data certainly looks good and feels much more reliable than the Sense.
Doesn’t like it
I had a Fitbit Sense for a couple years, before it finally died in the shower. It was just out of warranty. I bought a Fitbit Sense 2 which I thought would be an upgrade but it was amazingly a much worse device. A huge part of it was a similar notifications issue to what you describe - get a notification, raise wrist, and have to wait for a stupid animation to play before displaying the notification. There were a bunch of other problems, including some unbearably stupid ones like it would only work with Alexa and not assistant (wtf who owns fitbit?). I took it back and managed to buy another original Sense. (I posted about them on the Fitbit forum: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Sense-2/Is-Sense-2-a-downgra... which seemed to get a bit of agreement from others). My conclusion was that literally nobody working on this watch or responsible for its success actually used one.
Doesn’t like it
This is one of my least favourite things about my Fitbit Charge 2. If I want to see previous days' data, or anything more than steps walked/stairs climbed, then I have to sync my watch with the Fitbit servers. Even if my watch is connected to my phone, if my phone isn't connected to the internet, I can't get the data off of it!
Likes it
Like a lot of products, it's great if it solves a problem that you just happen to have. I currently have a Fitbit charge 2. I've used Fitbit for a few years now. For me, it offers otherwise hidden insights into my state of health. We're not all totally self-aware spiritualists who can meditate and smoothie our way to good health. Sometimes I rely on my smart watch informing my sleeping has gotten worse, or my resting heart raise has gone up, to indicate I'm going through a stressful time and need to fix it. Otherwise, it reminds me when I've been sitting still for a long time. Easy to do when you're 'in the zone'. There's some other stuff I think is specific to Fitbit. Namely, the community side of things? Where you can join a group where you all compete to have the most steps in a given period. The interface to that is great, I think.