Fitbit Cost three Assessment | Digital Traits
Fitbit Cost three overview: Jack of all trades
“The Fitbit Cost three packs all the essential requirements into a trendy health tracker.”
Light-weight case, trendy design
Provides smartphone notifications
Wonderful battery life
Touchscreen show
Interchangeable watch straps
Not absolutely appropriate with iOS
No built-in GPS
Touchscreen barely unresponsive
The Fitbit Cost three was launched a few 12 months in the past, and it was amongst our favourite health trackers of 2018. It retains that spot to at the present time. Yow will discover higher smartwatches, and higher wearables devoted to particular actions, however the Fitbit Cost three stays an incredible and inexpensive all-rounder.
With glorious battery life, an inexpensive $150 price ticket, and a touchscreen show, the Cost three is a health tracker you may put on all day in a gathering and within the gymnasium.
Let’s take a better have a look at precisely what the newest Fitbit health tracker has to supply.
Light-weight, glossy look
To get that sleeker, compact design, Fitbit trimmed down the aerospace-grade aluminum case of the Cost three. As we discovered with the Fitbit Versa, the corporate has carried out a very good job making a case that doesn’t look too massive on a girl’s wrist or noticeably small on a person’s. The concave again makes the entire thing look deceptively thinner than the standard good wearable.
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Whereas the bodily modifications are refined, it nonetheless makes a distinction aesthetically when on the wrist. No matter whether or not you go for a leather-based or silicone watch band, the Cost three seems spectacular for a health tracker. In fact, carrying it with formal put on is pushing the boundaries however we didn’t have a problem pairing it with an off-the-cuff outfit and even one which’s on the dressier facet — we even acquired tons of compliments on it.
Fitbit swapped out the bodily button that was initially seen on the Cost 2, for an inductive button with haptic suggestions. Except for swiping by means of the show (which we’ll get to later), the button is basically your “again” button — if you wish to go to the earlier display. It’s additionally what you press each time you wish to get again to the house display.
Alternate options
The inductive button is extraordinarily responsive, though it’d take you some time to turn into accustomed and use it fairly than robotically utilizing the touchscreen. We like the truth that as a result of it isn’t a bodily button that stands out, it permits the Cost three to have a streamlined design. We want all health trackers and smartwatches would undertake this “buttonless” design. It’s also possible to alter how delicate you need the button to be, in addition to the depth of the vibrations.
Carrying it all through the day or throughout a exercise, we love how light-weight the Cost three is. Fitbit says the Cost three is 20 % lighter than the Cost 2, and it’s snug sufficient to work out with and to maintain on for lengthy intervals of time. However solely after discovering the bands that we thought labored greatest with the gadget.
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From silicone to material to leather-based by Horween, there’s a band appropriate for on a regular basis put on. However we expect the traditional silicone band is uncomfortable, and too stiff to mould to our wrist in a method that appears like a pure match. As an alternative, we opted for the Horween leather-based band which match completely from the beginning. As normal with leather-based, it additionally turns into extra worn down as you put on it — permitting for it to actually seize the form of your wrist. For understanding, we did just like the silicone breathable band (that’s punctured with air holes) which was additionally handy sufficient to put on within the bathe.
We’re particularly glad to seek out how straightforward the bands are to swap out. The easy press of a button appears like a cake stroll compared to the Fitbit Versa which requires you to fiddle with fast launch pins.
No extra faucets, however the touchscreen is unresponsive at instances
Navigating by means of the menus with the Cost 2 means urgent the facet button to cycle by means of the totally different modes, after which tapping on the show to decide on the mode you need, which is a tedious course of, even after you get used to it. Cost three navigation is way sooner since you merely swipe the show to the specified perform, whereas the inductive button serves because the again and residential button.
With a faucet on the display, press of the inductive button, or flick of the wrist, you’ll awaken the Cost three. Sadly, we discovered the touchscreen was a bit unresponsive; typically we’d should faucet on it a number of instances to convey the show to life, which will be very irritating.
The touchscreen was a bit unresponsive when making an attempt to wake it.
On the house display, you’re greeted with metrics just like the time, step depend, or resting coronary heart price, relying on which clock face you select through the Fitbit app. A swipe up brings you to your private dashboard — which is the place you may see all of your well being stats together with energy burned, feminine well being monitoring, lively minutes, and extra. You may customise the knowledge you wish to see through the Fitbit app. As an illustration, we weren’t as fascinated by seeing our lively minutes all through the day as we have been the opposite metrics, so we eliminated it from our private dashboard.
Fitbit’s different smartwatches offer you an outline of the final seven days, however the Cost three solely offers you someday’s value of knowledge. It doesn’t embody stats in your final exercise both, you’ll should consult with your Fitbit app for that. Having been accustomed to seeing all of our metrics all through the week on the Versa, we weren’t certain how we’d really feel not accessing as a lot knowledge — however we truly most well-liked it. We will solely depend a handful of instances the place we wished to cross reference our steps between just a few days however pulling out the app wasn’t a problem since we all the time have our cellphone on us anyway.
Swiping to the left on the show brings you to modes like train, loosen up, timer, alarm, climate, and settings. To view all notifications, swipe down on the show. Fitbit says the Cost three has 40 % extra lively show than its predecessor, which permits for extra content material to suit on the display. Fairly than just one mode showing on the display, you’ll now see two at a time, which retains you from having to swipe by means of as a lot to get to a selected merchandise.
For probably the most half, the Fitbit Cost three OLED show works easily, and content material regarded vibrant on the display even with grayscale. Whereas there was no lag when swiping by means of the totally different modes, we did run into the occasional lag when swiping by means of notifications or our private dashboard. It’s not an enormous subject but it surely’s positively noticeable.
Primary health monitoring
Apart from monitoring and measuring coronary heart price, the Cost three consists of an SP02 sensor that measures blood oxygen (it’s a know-how that’s additionally discovered within the Versa and Ionic). With the SPO2 sensor, the Cost three also can monitor sleep patterns. Then there’s Fitbit’s Sleep Rating program, which is designed that will help you sleep higher and is obtainable to homeowners of any Fitbit gadget with PurePulse HR monitoring. The beta program will open subsequent month.
Because it’s so light-weight, we didn’t thoughts sleeping with the Cost three on however we do advocate turning off notifications and ‘Display screen Wake’ by holding down the inductive button. That method, it gained’t wake you up all through the night time. When you sync the Cost three to the Fitbit within the morning, you’ll be capable to see an in-depth evaluation exhibiting time spent in gentle, deep, and REM sleep, together with how lengthy we have been awake for — all of which we discovered to be correct. We’re additionally completely satisfied to see you could now examine your private dashboard to see how lengthy you slept the night time earlier than, after you sync to your smartphone.
Because it’s so light-weight, we don’t thoughts sleeping with it on at night time.
As with the Flex 2, the Cost three is water-proof all the way down to roughly 164 toes (50 meters). With a brand new swim mode, you may monitor laps and distances within the water; the information is synced with the Fitbit app.
With a brand new aim monitoring characteristic, you may set particular objectives forward of your exercises. For instance, we set a aim of two miles for our run, so the Cost three indicated how for much longer we had left to go. As soon as we reached our aim, the Cost three vibrated — however we did discover ourselves glancing at it, in any case. You may examine tempo and distance in real-time by swiping by means of the show when on Train mode.
It’s also possible to set objectives for metrics like energy or time for over 15 several types of workout routines. It’s not a lot totally different than setting alerts for particular mile markers throughout runs — for example, we set our Fitbit to alert us for each half mile we coated. All through the day, you’ll additionally get reminder alerts to maneuver should you haven’t reached 250 steps inside the hour.
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Sadly, the Cost three doesn’t embody built-in GPS, so that you’ll have to pair it together with your smartphone throughout these runs (GPS is used for location info, which is important to trace distance). Fitbit mentioned incorporating GPS would have left no wiggle room for a bigger battery and extra sensors.
There’s no help for music connectivity both, so we have been compelled to convey alongside our smartphone. Fitbit hopes so as to add music controls for third-party music apps through software program updates, which might not less than make it simpler to alter up tunes without having to take out your cellphone. Regardless, we’re disillusioned to see that in a health tracker that may already do that a lot, we have now to depend on our telephones to play music.
The built-in coronary heart price sensor produced related beats per minute as after we manually tracked our coronary heart price — for probably the most half. After considered one of our runs, we calculated our heart-rate at 124 BPM whereas the Cost three measured it at 139 BPM. One other day that week, we calculated it at 108 BPM whereas the Fitbit measure our heart-rate at 121 BPM. Throughout the day, it’s extra correct although — particularly in relation to resting coronary heart price which we discovered to be spot on with what our WearOS smartwatches have calculated. After our most up-to-date exercise, it was probably the most correct it’s been — we calculated 160 BPM whereas the FItbit was at 167 BPM.
Runners will recognize the brand new auto-stop characteristic — each time you wait at a visitors gentle throughout a run, the Cost three robotically pauses train mode till you begin working once more. However that gained’t be out till later this Fall. There’s additionally a wise monitor characteristic that is ready to acknowledge actions after a selected period of time that you simply’re capable of set by means of the app.
Helpful smartwatch options
The flexibility to obtain smartphone notifications and settle for and reject calls with the Cost three isn’t new — homeowners of the Cost 2 are already in a position see name, textual content, and calendar alerts when actively paired to a cellphone. However the Cost three additionally helps you to reply to textual content messages with Android telephones and examine app notifications, relying on the apps put in in your smartphone.
With Fast Replies, you may ship as much as 5 customized or pre-populated replies which are 60 characters or much less. Apple iPhone homeowners can solely view incoming textual content messages. Since we used an iPhone, we have been solely capable of view our notifications.
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We additionally discovered that we needed to manually go into the Fitbit app and toggle on the apps we wished to obtain notifications for. You’ll be capable to select which of them you wish to activate after receiving notifications to your cellphone as soon as the Fitbit is linked. For now, there aren’t any model apps obtainable. The Versa and Ionic smartwatches embody apps like Starbucks, Large Lights, and Strava. However Fitibit mentioned it’s working to convey further capabilities to the gadget sooner or later, through firmware and third-party app updates.
Fitbit did embody what it claims are its “most requested apps” — alarm, timer, and climate. Alarms are set by means of the Fitbit app and sync to the health tracker for you. As for climate, you’re capable of see about three or 4 totally different days at a time relying in your location. The corporate can be engaged on constructing in a brand new calendar app and the flexibility to see the Fitbit leaderboard proper in your wrist.
Fitbit additionally affords the Particular Version Fitbit Cost three. With an NFC chip inbuilt, it can provide the flexibility to make contactless funds utilizing Fitbit Pay.
Spectacular battery life
In contrast to the Apple Watch and Google’s Put on OS smartwatches, we significantly love that the Cost three doesn’t die by the top of the day. We have been capable of obtain all notifications, monitor our exercises and sleep, and the watch nonetheless managed to final roughly seven days.
We have been capable of obtain all notifications, monitor our exercises and sleep, and the watch nonetheless managed to final roughly seven days.
Packing a tiny, 71mAh battery, Fitbit mentioned the watch ought to final seven days — and we expect that’s correct. We did use it loads, testing each single characteristic, which is probably going why it almost ran out of juice simply earlier than the seventh day. However on the similar time, it helps that there aren’t many energy intensive options — like there are on the Versa. We merely used our Cost three to trace our out of doors runs and our step depend all through an extended, walk-intensive weekend in Chicago.
For the reason that Cost three tracks your fundamental health metrics, (you don’t have the flexibility to obtain third-party apps) the principle energy consumption must be from smartphone notifications. Even on the finish of a piece day when our gadget was at 77 %, it solely dropped to 75 % after monitoring a run.
Guarantee info
The Fitbit Cost three will value you $150 for the black silicone sports activities band with a graphite aluminum case, or blue grey band with a rose gold aluminum case. The Fitbit Cost three Particular Version with Fitbit Pay is priced at $170 for the frost white silicone band with a graphite case, or lavender Horween woven watch band with a rose gold case. The Particular Version additionally comes with an additional black band within the field.
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For the reason that watch bands are interchangeable, you may as well buy further ones. For $30, there are the traditional bands in black and blue grey. For a similar worth you may as well buy the silicone sport bands in black, berry, navy, and scarlet. Woven bands can be found in charcoal and periwinkle, for $35, whereas the Horween leather-based bands in midnight blue and plum are $50.
Fitbit affords a 45-day a reimbursement assure and a one-year restricted guarantee, which covers producer defects.
The Fitbit Cost three is a snug and glossy health tracker, that additionally brings smartwatch notifications to your wrist and packs a battery that retains the gadget going for nearly per week. Its coronary heart price and in-depth health monitoring capabilities make it definitely worth the $150.
Is there a greater various?
Sure — however it’s a must to spend considerably extra.
For those who’re searching for a extra feature-packed Fitbit, then there’s the Fitbit Versa — the corporate’s newest smartwatch. For less than $50 greater than the Cost three, the Versa has a 1.34-inch LCD show, interchangeable watch straps, and tons of health options, all packed into a lovely design
For Apple customers searching for an iOS appropriate gadget, the Apple Watch Sequence 5 is your greatest guess. Whereas it’s double the worth, you gained’t have the identical limitations that you’d with Fitbit in relation to interacting with notifications.
For extra choices try our picks for the most effective health trackers.
How lengthy will it final?
The Cost three feels sturdy and it’s waterproof, so we expect it ought to final two years or extra. Despite the fact that the battery already lasts per week, it’s vital to contemplate that it’s going to deplete over time. We additionally hope Fitbit continues to launch updates and follows by means of with bringing further capabilities to maintain up with competitors.
Do you have to purchase it?
Sure. For those who’re looking for a trendy however fundamental health tracker that can be able to bringing you the entire alerts you want, the Cost three is a good selection.
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