Blaze: Why I'm getting it and what I "expect" (long)

[AriesG]

I've been a faithful Fitbit user for three years.  Every update and every style I've given them a go.  Right now I have a Surge HR and I love it.  It takes a beating and its been uber reliable.  So why would I upgrade to the Blaze?  I'm not expecting functionality to rival the Apple Watch but I do expect that what features the Blaze offers is done well.  Honestly, if I wanted something like the AW I would purchase it.  At some point I may because I'm just that type of person.

Am I disappointed its not more water resistant?  Of course.  It would be great if it was waterproof but its not and that's okay.  Am I bummed that it doesn't have GPS.  Not really, I spend most of my time at the gym so I would prefer to have more features that take that in to account.  I love that it auto detects my activity - essentially I like being able to just get going on things and not fiddle with stuff.

I make the Fitbit work around me and not the other way around.  There are plenty of apps that recognize the Fitbit - that's pretty awesome!  I want to be able to benefit from future updates that may unlock new capabilities and with that I expect that the Blaze may be something I'll use for a long time. 

What I don't want is for Fitbit to disregard their past achievements, take too many steps backwards and not listen to the community on making a fitness tracker that does its job *well*.  I also don't care for the kitchen sink approach.  It doesn't need to be all things to all people.  Just recognize that those who have remained faithful want it to be something for *us*.

[EmersonFitbit]

@AriesG Thanks for your post! I'm confident that you'll love Blaze (and later on, Alta?). 

I like to think of Blaze as taking most of my favorite features from the Fitbit ecosystem- steps, distance, floors, HR, interchangeable bands etc., while also bringing new features into play (color LCD screen, smarter alerts). At it's core, it's a fitness tracker, just smarter than we've done in the past. 

I think that it'll take a bit for you to discover the neat features that aren't immediately noticeable; I'm still switching between clock faces because a few of them react differently than others and I just haven't decided which one my favorite is. 

I'm hoping you visit this thread again after you've had the device for some time to let us know how you like it!

[bbarrera]

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@AriesG wrote:

What I don't want is for Fitbit to disregard their past achievements, take too many steps backwards and not listen to the community on making a fitness tracker that does its job *well*.  I also don't care for the kitchen sink approach.  It doesn't need to be all things to all people.  Just recognize that those who have remained faithful want it to be something for *us*.

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Also a faithful Fitbit user, but I'm also aware that improving fitness is really about strength training and vigorous cardio.

Despite its antiquated idea that "fitness" is 10,000 steps (http://blog.cardiogr.am/2016/02/12/do-you-really-need-10000-steps-a-day-2/), I'm still using Fitbit for the occasional step competition, and yes, every couple of months its fun to see how many steps above 100,000 I can get in a workweek hustle.

From where I sit, Fitbit isn't building enough on past achievements. It hasn't gotten the memo that 10,000 steps isn't fitness. I shuffled around the office yesterday and got 8000 steps, did that have any measureable impact on my fitness? I don't think so. Does Fitbit help me track weight lifting? No. When schedule or weather prohibits cycling outside, does it auto-detect spinning? No. Have they fixed calorie estimates when manually entering spinning (I reported over 2 years ago)? No. Did they add a new manual spin activity, that allows me to enter distance? Yes. Does it actually give me less than half the calories as the old manual spin activity, even though the new spin knows how hard I went? Yes. Is that unbelieveable? Yes, its actually 10-25% of the actual calories I burned.

Do I want Fitbit to deliver on *their* promise of "the ultimate fitness super watch" (Surge) and "its smartest fitness tracker yet" (Blaze)?

Yes!!!

And frankly, all the 'smartest tracker yet' feature additions in the Blaze are sending it hurdling towards the kitchen sink approach. Why hasn't Fitbit built on PurePulse all-day tracking? I get far more info about heart rate from two iPhone/AppleWatch apps than I get from Surge. On my iPhone I can easily see monthly trends at a glance, and limit the trend analysis to just waking/RHR, or workout, or min/max, or during the day.

While some may find my prodding and poking to be negative, I'm hoping Fitbit builds on its strengths (PurePulse), aligns definition of "fitness" with the CDC (strength training and vigorous cardio), and fixes the industrial design and build quality issues of Flex/Force/Surge.

[SunsetRunner]

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@bbarrera wrote:

While some may find my prodding and poking to be negative

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Whatever gave you that idea? 😛

[Julia_G]

@bbarrera , poke and prod away!  Companies need their (friendly) critics even more than their cheer leaders, otherwise they simply rest on their laurels.

[SunsetRunner]

Yes that is true @Julia_G, though from all the doom and gloom it's as if I have an Abacus strapped to my wrist. There's gotta be some positives, surely!

[EmersonFitbit]

@bbarrera What I like about your approach to posting in the forums is that you may be a bit critical at times, but it's done so in a way that is contructive and realistic. Thanks for being around!