Fitbit Versa 2 Health & Fitness Smartwatch : Love it, but has some short comings

I’ve received my versa 2 bordeaux this evening. I’ve never had a fitbit before and was a bit scared as to size and if i’d like it. As soon as we unboxed it, the colour – bordeaux and copper gold – is stunning and the fitbit is very sleek. It’s a good looking watchas i said, this is my first fitbit and while i’m not a total nanna, i’m not particularly tech savvy so my partner helped me customise the watch face (there’s a range of options on the website) and get familiar with how it works. I have an iphone 6 so have set up my text and whatsapp notifications to come through to the fitbit. You can’t reply to the messages but you can read them in full which is handy. I complained at first as there was no instruction manual to speak of in the box but it’s all on the app/fitbit so we just followed that. I had installed and set up the fitbit app earlier in the week as i knew i was going to order the versa 2 once it was released and it was basically just a case of going on the app and searching for the fitbit via bluetooth. It took about 30 seconds and then we just customised it to my preferences. Aaaand that’s as far as i’ve got.

I have used fitbits for many years – all the way back to the days of the first fitbit flex. I have upgraded over the years to the charge, the charge hr, charge 2, and now the versa i and finally the ii. Looksfitbit versa 2 is significantly better looking than the fitbit versa 1. The screen has less bezel, and doesn’t have that ugly fitbit logo at the bottom. Even if the screen size isn’t a massive increase, it feels as if it is because of the rounded glass. This gives it a much more premium feel. The screen is also now a amoled display which means it will provide an ample amount of brightness and great sharp colours in the great outdoors (compared to the led model of versa 1). Buttonsif you were a fan of the three button system the old versa has, then look away. Now you have to rely more on the swipes and taps on the bigger screen to navigate. I rather like this more polished look as it becomes sleeker in my view but not everyone may have this opinion.

There are some great features that work really well but also some really annoying software issues that really shouldn’t be there in a mature product. Things i like:- the heart rate monitor is really accurate, i’ve checked the readings whilst exercising on a xtrainer wearing a chest strap. – the step count seems to work ok, i like that i still count steps if i forget my phone when out for a walk. – some of the motivational aspects of the app are very good (when they work) and do help, even if i ignore them now and again. – the sleep monitoring is really interesting and actually seems to work- the battery life is good and as advertised, i’ve now switched off the “always on” setting as it’s not really needed, now i get 4 to 5 days between charges. – the app syncs reliably with my withings app for weight readings and myfitnesspal for food/calories. What i don’t like:- the auto detect exercise type feature doesn’t work reliably, if at all. – gps syncing with phone sometimes doesn’t work or drops out during a walk or cycle ride- cycling does not update active minutes – well it does for a few seconds, then when the app updates the route data the app clears the minutes. It’s really odd as walking, workout and elliptical exercise types work just fine. – if you use a more reliable cycling/walking app such as mapmyride and sync it, the data appears in the exercise list along with the heart rate data but this isn’t used to update active minutes or calculate calories burned nor does it update the “days of exercise”.

Upgraded from son’s old blaze (he went apple) always been a fan of the sleep tracking on fitbit, which is the same as the old blaze, due to the fact it uses the same app on your smart phone. The exception is battery life it’s simply excellent, without using the always on face, i’m getting about 5 days of charge, compared to blaze which needed charging every morning whilst showering. (my sons apple watch s3 is on charge every night. . Hah) haven’t checked out all the apps yet, but really loving the sleeker design, the fact i can wear in the pool or shower, don’t need to remember press the ‘water proofing’ button as you do on apple s3 watch, just wear it like it’s a watch.The mobile app is clear, there aren’t as many apps as on a apple to download- but that means it’s simple to use, easy to get the hang of, and quite frankly extremely good value at its price point. If you’re not a die hard apple fan and value the pennies in your pocket, the versa 2 is your perfect fitness tracker.

When i was trying to decide what fitbit to get i found myself torn between the versa 2 and the versa 3, and i’m sure many others are to, so here’s my breakdown on why i got a versa 2 and not a versa 3, and what i think of the versa 2 now i’ve had it a few days. The main difference with the versa 3 is that it has built in gps, google assist, a built in speaker and a faster charging option. All things i could easily live without when the versa 2 was only priced £129. 99 (during a black friday sale) while the versa 3 was £199. The versa 2 may not have gps built in but if you have your phone on you (which i always do) it uses the gps from that anyway so having it built in isn’t necessary. There may not be any google assistant but alexa is built in, and as someone with an echo in every room already this is a much more practical voice assistant for me anyway. The versa 2 still records all the same fitness stats (24/7 heart rate, daily steps, all your workouts, calories burned, water intake, food intake, menstrual cycles etc) and the mobile app is the same for both watches. I’ve found all the data it’s recorded to be accurate and both the app and the watch itself presents the data in an easy to follow way and it’s quite simple to access it all. It also tracks your sleep automatically and though you need to pay for fitbit premium for some data (more detailed heart rate and how often you move in your sleep) all the main important information is recorded accurately and is easily viewed. One of my concerns before getting the watch was not liking the way the clock was set out. I’m not a fan of the hours being piled above the minuets. Thankfully there’s are loads of free (and even more that you can pay for) clock faces to choose from and personalise. You can add your own pictures from your camera roll, change colour schemes or pick a clock face that needs no adjustments but suits you fine (some of the ones i like are pictured here). The smart watch part of the versa is also great.

My watch arrived a few days ago. I am nearly 71 but found it easy to set up. Loads of helpful information on the internet if you get stuck. I just googled what i was looking for. I downloaded a watch face that suits me and i can see at a glance the updates on my activity. Pairing my earphones took a bit of figuring out but i had too many bluetooth apps open. Switched the phone one off and it found the earphones right away. It’s fairly slow downloading music to the watch but doing a bit very so often slow time works for me. The heart monitor is reassuring at my age and setting realistic goals for steps and stair climbs a day is working well.

As a gym person i quite like it. It’s not as smart as apple watch but it’s smart enough to help you deal with few things while on the go. Great synch with fitness pal, no problem with iphone synch so far. Battery is a winner i got it yesterday afternoon with 60% battery with a set up, full use of the features as i was playing around it has 55% today.I can’t be more happy great sleep tracking, water intake, women health if you have a revolut card great synch with contactless paymentsevents from apple calendar pop up on the screen too. Sleek look and very very soft strap-super comfy even when sleepingso far so good.

Took the plunge and bought this watch for christmas – love it finally a watch i can read my messages on without my glasses – it’s constantly monitoring my heart interesting to see what makes it go up and down. Great for tracking your steps and rewards you with a firework display when you hit you target for the day. You can ask alexa questions set reminders all good fun. It will tell you how much sleep your getting and what type you can subscribe to learn more but it’s something you have to pay for. You can change the look of your watch face by downloading new designs there’s lots of free one’s. It an do so much more track who’s posting on facebook etc. Just download an app to your phone and connect to your watch to set it up doesn’t take long – it come with a full strap and one extra side of the strap which is longer in case you have a wider wrist. To charge it up it comes with a square usb docking station that springs open to fit you watch mine didn’t come with a plug but fortunately had a few to hand – you have to charge it for about 12 hours before use which is a pain but worth it my battery has been lasting anything from 7 to 9 days. Great watch looks as good as any apple. Like having big ben on your wrist looks smart does so much more.

Sleek looking piece of tech but connectivity improvements drastically needed!
Love it, but has some short comings
Fitbit Versa 2 Bordeaux

Fitbit Versa 2 Health & Fitness Smartwatch with Voice Control, Sleep Score & Music, One Size, Se Smoke Woven

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Use built-in Amazon Alexa to get quick news, info and weather, set bedtime reminders and alarms, control your smart home devices and more—just by speaking to your smartwatch
See the quality of each night’s sleep by measuring heart rate, time asleep, time awake, time in deep and REM sleep and restlessness
Use 24/7 heart rate tracking to better track calorie burn, optimise effort during workouts, see your resting heart rate trends and cardio fitness level in the Fitbit app
Control your Spotify app and add Deezer playlists—plus store and play 300+ songs on your wrist. Subscriptions required
Get notifications for calls, texts, calendar events and apps like Gmail and Facebook—plus send quick replies right from your wrist. Works when your phone is nearby; quick replies on Android only
See real-time exercise stats and check the time with just a glance—even when your hands are full. Turn the mode off to be more discreet. Always-on display requires more frequent charging
A day lasts 24 hours. Versa 2 gives you much more than that. With 4+ day battery life, Fitbit Versa 2 tracks your morning, night & everything in between without needing to stop for a charge. Varies with use & other factors
3-month free trial of Fitbit premium, which turns the stats on your wrist into personalised health and fitness guidance just for you (terms and restrictions apply)
Compatibility: Compatible with iOS 12.2 or higher & Android OS 7.0 or higher

Pre-ordered this and delivery was on time. In the box you get the watch, charger, and some straps. There’s also an instruction pamphlet, but it’s pretty basic. To get started properly you need to download the fitbit app, after which the app will take you through the installation process. Be warned that there will most likely be a firmware update to go through first, so you need to have the fitbit on charge. So the charging cable is a custom usb cable purely for the fitbit. An industry standard cable would have been better – just one less cable to manage. I suggest buying a custom clock face (you can do this via the app. The custom clock faces provide a lot more info).

I got this for my birthday and i have been using about a month now. This is my first fitbit so i can’t really compare to the other models but as an individual product it is great. I bought it to encourage me to walk more and have been using it for my couch 2 5k runs, i find it seems fairly accurate and the automatic workout sensor is very cool although it did get it wrong one time and thought i was on the eliptical when i was actually running lol. But every other time it has been correct in sensing whether i am running or walking. The sleep function is very cool and seems to be accurate, i find it interesting to check each morningthe app is great although at times i can have trouble syncing it to my watch, it always resolves after i turn off bluetooth and reconnect but can get a bit annoying. The app is great though, you can find more in depth information about your sleep cycles, your steps, distance you’ve walked, your workouts and more, you can track your period and symptoms and it will predict when you are next due on, you can also track your birth conrol pills etc. I you wish you can track your calories and the food you’ve eaten or the water you have dank. There is a community section and you can add your friends to motivate and support each other which is very nice. There are many apps to choose from, there are apps for kegel exercises, for meditation/mindfulness, for toothbrushing etc. There is a premium function but i have not bought it, through this you have access to workouts etc but for me personally i wasn’t willing to pay for it from the reviews i read it seemed overpriced.

I upgraded my fitbit hr to this version. Easy to install and a lot more advanced than my last one. More features and clear screen.

Please ensure that you have an up-to-date operating system on your phone or else you won’t be able to install the versa 2. Also a reasonably up to date phone i. After two weeks use there are still some connectivity issues (bluetooth mainly) compared with fitbit’s other trackers. It needs a software update as a matter of urgency.

Update: 16 august 2020not a happy bunny as the watch has burnt my wrist and has left it sore and itchy (see photos) so will be returning it back to amazon. I have used silicone straps before and have never had any kind of reaction like this and so i have knocked a star off for this reason. I bought the special edition version earlier in the year but i sent it back to amazon because of the connectivity problems with my android phone. I decided this time to buy the standard edition as as far as i can see there is no real difference between this and the other version apart from the woven wristband and a second silicone band that is included with the se. I’m pleased to say that i am yet to have any trouble at all with the same issue. The watch stays connected and syncs without any problems. The watch is comfortable to wear and performs well during sleeping and exercising. I admit i only walk for exercise but it’s giving me a fairly accurate picture of how i am doing. It’s not perfect by any means but for me it does the job.

As a long time user of the fitbit flex, i am very happy with this. Not sure if i can connect it to my samsung s9+ for call and text notifications but that is still to be discovered.

It is the best fitness track smartwatch you can get. (accurate steps, sleep tracking, heartbeat etc. ) i had to cancel my order with fitbit as i pre-ordered it and people who ordered in the launch day were receiving it first. That is the only downside: terrible customer service from fitbit, it was worth paying more in amazon. I was really excited about the smart awake but it isn’t working yet, when i turned the alarm it only rang in the normal hour. Still a really good smartwatch, worth itupdated after a week i noticed fitbit is over counting my steps by thousands. If i cycle using the auto track exercise or even if i start it myself it will add like 3. 000 steps when i actually just walked from my house to bike shed and bike shed to my desk. Fitbit knows the problem as it is posted in their forum community but will only tell you to reset the device and mark the topic as solved.

I have had a few fitbits before but changed to a samsung tracker for better integration with my phone. One thing i noticed very quickly, though, was that it wasn’t tracking steps very accurately. This tracks every single step i take. If i walk 100 steps it counts 100 steps, whether i’m holding a bag (or motorbike helmet) or have my hands in my pockets. These were two things that seem to confuse the samsung watch. The only bad point is that fitbit seems to give me a few hundred extra steps a day when i ride the motorbike. The heart rate always seems a little high too, otherwise the watch is accurate. The app sometimes seems to struggle to sync with the watch, occasionally causing problems with passing notifications from the phone to the watch. The app needs a general update and ‘sort out’ overall in my opinion.

I got this fitbit back in january so had for 10 months now and i couldn’t go back. It motivates me to get moving and is really easy to use. The sleep tracking is really interesting and there’s a lot of choice when it comes to logging workouts. The app itself is also really useful with so much info and things to log and track. There are only two downsides: one is when you get sweaty (which is a lot when working out) the heart rate doesn’t record properly so your calories aren’t correct which is a major downside. The other is the lack of gps – for instance if you want to track a run or cylcle you have to have your phone near by and often when i do this is doesn’t record half if it because the gps drops out so much. Now the versa 3 has come out that isn’t an issue as the new one has gps on the device. If that’s important for you then i would definitely recommend getting the newer versa 3.

My relationship with fb has been turbulent at minimum. The previous versa all at once stopped tracking hourly activity. Stopped sleep monitoring and over counted my heart rate. I was locked into it for 3 days in an attempt to sort it out. I couldn’t and support mearkt reoeted everything i’d done i’ve been a user for many years and thought i understood the dark arts of getting thing working after it stopped functioning for no apparent reason i fave up. The new versa 2 is beautiful to look at i bought covers which i highly recommend for active users you’ll hate it when the clock face gets scratched and it will. The watch has alexa built in unsure really if this is a personal benefit as i have alexa units in every room in my home let’s see if it work in the street. It is cool commanding your watch to dim your lights and put your tv on but i must mute the existing device for the pleasure. Of course the app is the same and sadly fitbit pay is as it was useless in the uk so forget using your amex hsbc bankers or lloyd’s cards for a start, stick with your phone if you like this kind of thing. The watch has 1 instead of 3 buttons which is moderately easier.

This is almost a great watch but there are too many annoying issues for it to merit this status. The good features are the style and appearance of the watch. It looks great and the screen is excellent. There are quite large bezels but these don’t seem that noticeable, especially if using a watch face with a black background. The exercise and activity tracking are on the whole excellent, though as with all fitbits the step tracking is way too optimistic. By contrast the floors climbed tracking is spot on and the sleep tracking is pretty nifty too. Connected gps works surprisingly well. I’ve previously found this feature next to useless in other activity trackers. It is occasionally inaccurate in terms of distance measured, but that could be the phone i suppose. Battery life is generally ok.