Fitbit Versa reviews and questions

[hugh7656]

Apparently Fitbit doesn't have support in the US.  Amazon Versa has way too many bad review in June 2018.  Also there are comments about the poor customer support.  Please reassure us Fitbit is an ok company to purchase a product from.  I purchased a Versa then read the reviews and cancelled the order.  I had a Charge 2 that worked well.  The Versa definitely does not perform well from the reviews.

Moderator Edit: Updated Subject For Clarity.

[Wicoca]

HI,

Frankly, I am unimpressed with the Versa.  When I first got it, there was an apparently known syncing issue that was posted on the fitbit site (and app I believe) which took a few days to fix. It did seem to make a difference so I thought, ok, good start.  Well, then I got a burn on my wrist due to the HR monitor light apparently.  All the help I can find is in forums where several people complained about burns with various Fitbit products and offered various solutions like wearing the watch more loosely. Fitbit never really addressed the issue and put it down to skin sensitivity, from what I read.  Now, I am not sure what is going on but my sleep is not recording right and I am not getting any heart rate in my run results.  The answer I got from a forum moderator was to read a whole bunch of help articles.  I personally find that the watch never worked 100%.  It does really cool things when it works, but it's anybody's guess when it will or not.  It is a nice watch, I like the look of it but in terms of what is promised when you buy it, very little is actually kept and solutions are never actually offered.

I haven't had another activity tracker/smart watch before, so I am not sure how others work but this is mostly a disappointment to me.

[PJCNM]

I have had my Versa for about four months. It has always worked smoothly, always synced with my Pixel 2XL phone, seems to keep accurate stats as I compare them to other tools I use to measure HR, steps, sleep, etc.  So, all good here although I realize that others are not always so fortunate and mine could go south, too. Hope not. I like it. 

[hugh7656]

Thanks for your post. Your response is encouraging.

[MrMold666]

I'm on Versa #2. First one got a splash of water on it and stopped working. This second one only has a 2 day battery, but the notifications and the core functions seem to be working correctly. Since I keep seeing horrible customer service posts, I just decided that if a crap battery life is the only thing wrong with this, then so be it. Maybe Fitbit only cares about it's share holders and not it's customers? Who can say. They don't respond to any questions.

[Kathleenld]

I have my versa for a few months and it's working great.  I'm very happy with it.

[David_J]

Partly because a person who has problems is more likely to write a review, I suspect.

FWIW, I've had mine for around a month and I'm very pleased with it. I came from a Charge 2 and, as a fitness tracker, the Versa is at least as good, probably better. As a smart watch, it does what I want it to do without too much fuss or complication.

It syncs fine with my Galaxy S9+, I get the alerts I want and I am getting 6 days battery life from it - that's with auto-wake off, light on auto, all day sync and many alerts. By the end of the 6th day, I usually have about 10-15% battery.

It's light, comfortable, easy to read in sunlight and waterproof - I find it hard not to like it.

[meresydotes]

@hugh7656 First, I love my Versa. But it is buggy and support is terrible. I don't have the syncing problems a lot of people have, but I've had mine crash in the Exercise app and the Customized Stats in the Exercise app don't save. Even worse, it wakes me up a lot at night restarting itself (it vibrates when it comes back up) and with phantom vibrations. And support is terrible and doesn't know how the products work and their only solution to any problem is a replacement and, if they decide they want your "old" one back, that whole process will take an entire month. So, I'm kind of an idiot for loving my Versa, but I do anyway.

[mikecyprus]

I have mine for 1 week. Everything works fine. HR accurancy seems good. No problem with skin sensitivity infact i like the bands, normal and woven. Sleep tracking every night. I put in into water (shower - normal temperature) just for testing waterproof. My problem is that it sync's too often and it sucks my phone battery. hahah honestly... So i have to keep bluetooth off so it won;t sync all day. Still didnt had chance to try the connected gps but at gym works nice and it can auto detect treadmill and elliptical.

I don;t know why it has to many bad reviews. Maybe some units are disfunctional or people dont have compatible phone or just not much patient or experience with tech. Maybe some other are disapointed if they buy it for a "smartwatch" which definitely isnt; Versa its just a tracker with some smartwatch features.

[Jayelo]

I was one who anticipated for the Versa to come out. I’ve always used the flex and flex2 so getting the Versa was so exciting to me. When I got my first one everything was perfect. I had no problems and I was really happy with it. Then about a months time, it just suddenly died on me. Called support, they made me do all these test and videos and emails. Total headache. The time to get back another one would have taken months so back to Best Buy. Got a second one and that one was perfect too. All was good at about a months time. My phone had an update to 8.0 then all of a sudden my Versa will not receive call notifications. Called support, they couldn’t figure it out. So they told me to just wait until a software update can fix the problem. I asked them when and of course they didn’t know. So, I am not gonna keep a $200 device to just wait and see if the issue can fix. I returned it for another device. Customer service doesn’t seem to be familiar with the Fitbit products nor do they offer any real solutions to the many problems that come with their devices. Moderators also seem to just use cut and paste responses and don’t really know or pay much attention to what people are actually writing in their post. I will definitely miss my Versa. It definitely tracks sleep and steps during exercises better than the other brands out there. But I’m currently loving what I am using now. 

[hugh7656]

That is great thanks

[aux]

What's too many bad reviews? I'm seeing 4* ratings (more than half rate it 5*) and #1 Best Selller in the Smartwatch category on Amazon, and good ratings on other webshops as well.

So what are you talking about?

[ArdV]

I have the versa for almost a week now. Since the 22th of june there are syncingproblems with MFP. MFP does not react any more. Fitbit neither. 

When I am lucky there is twice a day a synchronisation between those two plaforms. Annoying!!

The versa works reasenably well. But I do have a lot of syncing errors between the watch and the fitbit app. And the watch often loses connection with my phone. 

I used to have a garmin vivosmart: never a problem with bluetooth or syncing. 

So the versa is a bit of a dissapointment till now

[Patrick]

I had a sync problem. Just about every day. Then one day I decided to try to sync using the iPhone instead of the iPad and it has worked every time since. About a month now. I really had not opened the iPhone's app much prior to that.

The only thing that I find irritating is that mine sometimes does not register flights. One day I walked up 6 stories in a Manhattan building and it didn't register.

But aside from missing a flight of stairs here and there it is fine.

Moderator Edit: Format

[hugh7656]

Thanks for your input.  I guess when I buy a product I read all the 1 and 2 reviews 1st to see if there is a common denominator.  2 things or 3 things stood out,  in accurate readings and most important to me is customer support. It also appears the screen was made out of new product that scratches easier than expected.  So I called customer support and discovered they didn't have any support in USA.  The time it took many folks to get a result was time consuming on the user's part and it taking days to prove there is an issue.  The 1st thing I noticed was there were too many current issues in June 2018.  I figured I would wait a month or two to see if the bad complaints went down. I'm hoping the issues will decrease.  I want the Versa.  1652 reviews and 15% were 1 star and 8% were 2 stars.  That is saying 23% of the purchases were unsatisfied customers.  

[Happygrrl]

My experience with Versa is mixed. 

On the the positive side, I will say that when it works I really like it. Versa is attractive, the display is easy to read even in sunlight, it accurately counts steps and is comfortable to wear. 

The problem I have is that I am yet to keep notifications working consistently. Like I said when it works—it is great, when it doesn’t—it is frustrating. As a long time fitbit user I expect good things from fitbit and hope that the Versa will eventually live up to fitbit’s high standards. 

[SunsetRunner]

Because the Versa is a terrible tracker.  Sleep tracking does not work properly, customer support is worse than some cable companies, and other flaws too numerous to list.  I for one will never give Fitbit another dime of my business after purchasing the special edition Versa and having numerous problems only to find out this company doesn't give a darn about its customer.  I had hoped for better.  Wife just bought a Garmin and loves it.  I should have done the same.  Shame on me for trusting that a company would fix the issues and not returning the product while I still could.  

[Eriklb]

unreliable notifications. Sometimes they work sometimes they don't but it's not consistent . Step count is very inaccurate. Up to 25 to 30% off the tune up too many steps

[ATXDAD]

I'm not sure where the ball was dropped but clearly, the designers can't be actual customers. If you decide to protect your Versa and purchase a case (example image), you CAN NOT charge your versa without having to remove it everytime you need to charge it! WTF... the charger provided is too tight and doesn't allow the watch to lay flat on the charger so everytime you have to remove the case, thus allowing the ability to tear, accidentally push buttons and settings on accident, etc. 

While this did not apply to prior Fitbit products I've owned (Fitbit Blaze) and was able to pop it in and out of different watch bands, Versa designers decided this wasn't of value.

Other issues, switching bands is a pain and not easy, the pins are small and if you don't have long nails this becomes more than a challenge. Support actually was good b/c they needed to ship me a new charger (the one I got during purchased stopped working) but I'm not sure I'll be a customer in the future... will most likely go to Apple Watch or something else. 

I was a fan and advocate, now I just wear the **ahem** thing.

[Wicoca]

You don't actually need to have all day sync on if it drains your battery.  It is something you can check or uncheck in your settings.