If you’re looking for a new smartwatch, then make sure to include the new Fitbit Sense to your list, it’s the successor of the Fitbit Ionic and currently the most advanced Fitbit smartwatch focused on providing better health metrics with its upgraded heart rate tracking technology, on-wrist skin temperature and electrodermal activity (EDA) sensors that helps keeps track stress and heart health.
I’ve been a Fitbit user since the Charge 2 and I was using the Fitbit Ionic for a couple of years before I upgraded my sports watch to a different brand, but on most days, I still use my Fitbit Charge 4 to track my steps, sleep, average HR and my trusty ‘ol Fitbit Aria to track my weight since 2015. I really love how the Fitbit dashboard give me a very simplistic overall view of my fitness.
With the Fitbit Sense, I noticed 2 new indicators appeared on my dashboard, Skin Temperature and Stress Management, lets briefly go into each one of them here.
Skin Temperature
The Fitbit Sense requires me to sleep with the device for 3 consecutive nights to get a baseline of my skin temperature, as the largest organ in our body – our skin – takes a central role in regulating body heat, sudden rise or fall of our skin temperature can be an indicator that something is wrong or could be an early warning of an upcoming fever due to illness. This new sensor can also help us experiment on different sleeping temperatures or types of sheets and blankets to help us further improve the quality of our sleep, which we all know is a key factor for our overall health and fitness.
Stress Management
Another interesting icon is the new Stress Management dashboard, that gives a daily stress score between 1 – 100. Fitbit mentioned that the score is affected by our individual responsiveness, exertion balance and sleep patterns recorded by the device which includes data coming from the Heart Rate Sensor and the new electrodermal activity (EDA) sensors. The higher the number means your body is showing fewer physical signs of stress. This feature, once perfected can really help individuals to have a visible representation of their daily stress, and could be a good indicator if someone needs a break or a vacation.
Built-in GPS
If you’re a runner or simply loves outdoor adventures, then you’re going to love the new Fitbit Sense because it’s now packed with it’s own built-in GPS, I tested this out side-by-side with my Garmin Fenix 6 and they produced very identical results. Based on the technical data provided, the Fitbit sense can also run on full GPS mode fore 12 hours (an upgrade from the 6 hours of the Fitbit Ionic), it’s still far from the 25 hours of the Garmin Fenix 6, but good enough if you’re not planning to run an ultramarathon anytime soon.
Fitbit also allows uploading of GPS recorded activities to Strava which allows the user to consolidate sports related activities in the platform and join fitness segments provided by the mobile app.
New and Improved Heart Rate Tracking
The Fitbit Sense is the first Fitbit watch that can be used as an ECG with the companion app. For those who don’t know, an ECG or Electrocardiograms assess your heart for atrial fibrillation — a heart rhythm irregularity — and now Fitbit can share the results with your doctor, though this app is now only available in selected countries (Philippines is not included), this also means that the Fitbit Sense is packed with an upgraded Heart Rate Sensor, using the new PurePulse 2.0 technology.
I took the Fitbit Sense for a run and observed the Heart Rate monitor during sprints and intervals, I was actually quite surprised how this new sensor was able to keep up with the change compared to other wrist based heart rate monitors, I’m attributing this to the new improved HR sensor equipped with the sense, but just to make sure i’ll try to do more training runs with this watch soon.
Bottom Line
All-in-all this watch is definitely something to consider for your next fitness watch, packed with all the standard features you can expect from a fitness watch plus all the improvements above in an Apple like stylish design. Priced at ₱19,490, this watch is a good choice for people who lives an active lifestyle and wants to keep track of their overall well being as well.
The Fitbit Sense is now available in partner outlets nationwide and at the Fitbit Flagship store in Lazada
