I’ve had my Fitbit Versa Special Edition version since the end of July. It’s been just over 4 months and I wanted to update my initial review. When the Apple Watch Series 4 was released this September, I researched and debated getting it but ultimately decided to stick with the Fitbit. Here’s my updated Fitbit Versa review and the reasons why I didn’t switch to Apple Watch Series 4:
Fitbit Versa Special Edition
I bought my Versa as a replacement to the Fitbit Alta HR which broke while I was on vacation. Such a disappointment. The straps of every single Fitbit I’ve ever had have broken and the straps weren’t replaceable on the older models so I literally couldn’t use the Fitbit anymore. I am annoyed with the quality/durability of Fitbit products, but the Fitbit Versa seemed different. The Versa’s straps are interchangeable and it has more of a smart watch look and feel.
The Fitbit Versa is a smart fitness tracker. It looks more like an Apple Watch, has apps, and receives notifications in addition to all the traditional Fitbit fitness tracking. I bought the Special Edition version which also allows me to add my bank information and make payments directly from my Versa.
Things I love about Fitbit Versa – after 4 months
The Fitbit Versa does everything I want in a fitness tracker — it counts my steps, records my workouts, lets me compete against friends, and monitors my heart rate. It’s super lightweight and comfortable on my wrist, and the battery lasts at least 4 days between charges.
My heart rate is on the higher side — my resting heart rate is ~70 bpm — but when I’m working out, it can go up to 199 bpm. I’ve been really into monitoring my heart rate and working to condition my heart by targeting certain heart rate zones in my workouts.
I wear a chest heart rate monitor while I workout and my Fitbit readings are almost identical so I feel confident in its accuracy. With Fitbit, I can review my workout stats and see how long I spent in each of the different heart rate zones. I love how it isolates that heart rate information from each workout and interprets it for me.
Fitbit is also really great at sleep tracking and helping me to understand the stages of my sleep. This is important to me to better understand my sleep cycles and correlate it to how I feel the next day.
The Fitbit app is really easy to use and I love the look of the interface. I can rearrange the widgets and see all of my stats at a glance. The Fitbit app is a huge reason that I came back to Fitbit after switching to the Garmin Vivosmart HR for a while.
Things I don’t like about the Fitbit Versa
Overall, I really like the Versa, but there are a few things that I wish were different. The new Fitbit straps I bought for my birthday, stretched out so far and ripped. I am constantly disappointed with the Fitbit straps. Recently I bought a velcro strap, similar to the Apple Sport Loop, and I love it so far. Straps are difficult to attach with the Versa which is a little frustrating.
You can receive notifications on the Fitbit Versa which is so great, but you can’t reply to text messages, and I can’t view images from my Nest Hello. It’s not a huge deal, but it’s annoying sometimes. On one hand, I like not being so connected to everything but on the other hand, it’s not much help to see a notification and then have to get my phone to respond/view the full notification.
There are a few watch faces to choose from which is great, but there are only a few created by Fitbit and the rest are third-party. Some of the third-party faces cost money and most aren’t very cute looking; so not the best to choose from.
Apple Watch Series 4
I’ve been vaguely interested in the Apple Watch since it was released, but it never had really good or convincing reviews so I passed. With the Series 4, reviews are a lot better and the consensus seems that it’s worth it to buy/upgrade this version. I like to really research before I make a purchase, so I spent a lot of time seeing if the Apple Watch would be right for me.
The Infographic watch face initially caught my eye; it just looks so cool having all of that information all on one screen. It looks super high tech and I liked all of the colors. I get that that’s a basic reason, but you have to like what you wear if it’s going to work for you. You can set up eight different complications (widgets) on the screen to show whatever you want.
Once the Apple Watch was on my radar, I wanted to see what the fitness tracking was like. Primarily, the Apple Watch is a smart watch but it also has pretty strong fitness tracking features. I was interested in a new fitness tracker to kind of “refresh” my motivation to workout and be more active. The Apple Watch has its own system for fitness through the Activity App — you have to close the three activity rings: Move, Exercise, and Stand. Even though I wasn’t used to this system, I thought I could get used to it. Plus, you can earn different achievements and badges for closing the rings which I was really excited about.
I liked the emphasis on heart rate monitoring with the new ECG feature, and the ability to alert you of a high or low heart rate. The Apple Watch Sport Loop looked really cool to me too as a comfortable exercise strap which is important, especially during exercise, to get an accurate heart rate.
You can reply to text messages directly from the Apple Watch and even take calls. There are a ton of apps to download — it’s basically a mini iPhone on your wrist. I wanted to get the gold aluminum 40mm with the pink sand sport loop in the regular GPS kind (not LTE/Cellular).
Why I didn’t upgrade to the Apple Watch Series 4
With so many features I was excited about, I was really leaning towards buying the Apple Watch. Not everything about the watch was perfect though and I ultimately decided that this series 4 version of the Apple Watch wasn’t for me.
The battery life on the Apple Watch is not very good. They say you can get up to 18 hours on a charge, but that goes down if you have music, lots of notifications, do a workout, etc. That’s a big difference from the 4-day battery life with my Versa, and I feel like I would be annoyed having to charge my watch everyday like my phone.
There is no native app for sleep tracking on the Apple Watch. I love my sleep data from my Fitbit and I would expect the same major features from the more expensive Apple Watch, but you need to buy a third-party app if you want to get sleep tracking. But if you’re charging your Apple Watch nightly, you probably won’t be tracking your sleep.
I had high hopes for the heart monitoring, but I read that that Apple Watch only reads your heart rate every ~10 minutes, or whenever you initiate it. I want to know what my heart rate is now, not what it was 10 minutes ago; and I don’t want to have to press a button to get a reading, I want it displayed right on the screen. So, that was a little bit of a let down. The ECG feature does seem cool, but in all the time it was delayed in being released, I had already decided against the Apple Watch.
Also, within a workout, the heart rate data seems incomplete or just difficult for me to read on the Apple Watch. And it doesn’t even show you the heart rate zone information. This seemed like a step back for me since I relay on that information a lot. In fact, the workout information also appears not to show a step count — you’d need to get a separate app for that. I get that Apple tracks Move/Exercise, but I’m so used to Steps with Fitbit.
While there are a ton of great features, ultimately I decided that I already have a great, perfectly-working device (Fitbit Versa) and the pros to the Apple Watch didn’t outweigh the cons right now. In the future, I hope that Apple fixes some of these issues — maybe with the next release — and I will definitely consider buying it.
I hope this review update and my thoughts on the Apple Watch Series 4 are helpful to you in your decision for a smart watch/ fitness tracker.
