Hi everyone,
So for years I’ve avoided the wearables craze which in itself is quite unusual for me as I’m usually all over tech! I’m an Apple guy and have avoided the Apple Watch ever since day one. I’ve really just never been able to justify its existence? I mean, it’s not really a proper phone, nor a tablet, a computer or even a proper fitness tracker.. It’s really just a little bit of each of those things combined into a watch to which cannot even compare to say my iPhone itself. The pathetic battery life was really the final nail in the coffin for me, you mean to tell me that it can’t track sleep because the battery would be basically flat come the next morning so you couldn’t then wear it right through the day to work etc? Pffffffft. Sort it out Apple.
Enter Fitbit! Now obviously I’ve known about Fitbit for many years, but when they first came to market, like the Apple Watch I couldn’t really justify it for me personally, I mean it’s a fitness tracker but it’s not a phone, computer etc (funny enough missing a lot of Apples features) and not being a self confessed fitness fanatic I had no need for a fitness tracker right? Well years later, here we are. I’ve spent the most part of the last year focusing more on my fitness and health (now at the age of 32) and have been using various phone apps to help to assist me such as My Fitness Pal & Runkeeper which I have found extremely helpful in achieving my goals.
Last week the itch started.. I started looking up fitness trackers and what they have to offer and how they could best assist me. Straight away Apple Watch was off the table, evidently not much has changed with them over the years regarding battery life and fitness/health assistance. Still no sleep tracker? Bye Apple. So after plenty of research all roads lead to Fitbit! Not only was I impressed by Fitbits many features keeping in mind that my reasoning for wanting a wearable was mainly for fitness, but the prices were good and the reviews basically excellent! But which one to get!? I decided to play it conservative, I noticed that Target was selling Charge 3 for $149 AUD (RRP $179) I had also read many times that although not the newest Fitbit, still one of the best there is and basically right up there still with features! Looking at the stats it did everything I wanted it to do (I’m not fussed about inbuilt GPS as my phone is always with me). It’s fitness tracker options were great, battery life amazing, had top of the range sleep tracking and it even had some cool phone compatibility with notifications, text responses etc as an added bonus for me! I was sold and ready to purchase!
But there was one thing I also had on my mind, the Versa 2! What a beautiful looking Fitbit! (Is it an Apple Watch?) my eyes were immediately drawn to the special edition rose gold/blue strap combo. $328 at Harvey Norman (RRP $379) but was it worth the extra? It was more than double the Charge 3. I kept researching and kept coming to the same conclusion, you couldn’t really go wrong with either? The Versa 2 had a few more extra features like Alexa, I do have Alexa products dotted around my home. It also looked like a proper smart watch. But the charge 3 was cheaper and also did a lot of what the Versa 2 could do besides a few extra perks.
I decided to do the mature thing and go for the cheaper option as this was my first fitness tracker, I needed to be sure I would actually enjoy it before committing to a larger price. I thought I’d see how I go with the charge 3 so I went and bought the rose gold/grey band version. The beautiful Versa 2 was right there next to it but I grabbed the charge 3.
I was so happy with my purchase, it was so easy to set up, the Fitbit app easy to use and I enjoyed seeing the stats and data almost instantly upon first straping it to my wrist. What an awesome device!! I was also impressed with my fitness too according to the stats. For me I enjoy the heart rate monitor and the sleep tracking which were both showing good results!
Ok so the screen is a bit old school and basic but that’s ok. It all works great! The only thing I was annoyed about which I didn’t realise prior to purchase was the lack of IPhone compatibly regarding text responses etc but that is Apple being Apple (Enough said) and not Fitbit:
After day two with my Charge 3 I was so happy with finally being apart of the fitness tracker gang that I decided that I would go buy the Versa 2! I mean, I’m totally onboard the Fitbit bandwagon now so why not get the best of the best.
I’ll just eBay the Charge 3.
This is where the fun kinda stopped.. Firstly I was so excited to get Versa 2 as naturally I expected it to be even better than the Charge 3. Ok it does look better but once I put it on, I think I actually preferred the charge 3 slimmer look but all good, I’ll get used to it. The screen is colourful but still very basic really, it’s really just a better version of the charge 3 screen (which isn’t hard) But other than that I dunno, maybe I expected a better layout or cooler menu or something? Changing the watch faces is cool and a bit of fun but a lot of them are rubbish looking. Alexa is so so.. It would be cool if she could talk. Still can’t respond to texts/notifications etc (thanks again Apple). Anyway, how’s its tracking abilities compared to the charge 3? To be honest with you, I was a little shocked. My heart rate seemed to be 30bpm higher on average compared to literally the 2 days before using the Charge 3 which gave me a resting average of 56bpm? I sussed here on these forums and around the net and found similar complaints of the accuracy of the HR monitor in Versa 2. All of a sudden I was no longer as fit as I thought I was, in fact maybe I should see a doctor? 120bpm just standing up and walking to the fridge? No way! My sleep quality also significantly dropped night one with Versa 2. To top things off, the raise to wake function is pathetic compared to Charge 3 and the touch screen isn’t sensitive enough. You can tap it and it won’t wake sometimes until after a few taps. I also noticed a large lag between the HR on the watch face and on the app on my phone they were always showing different HR and would take a few seconds to catch up to each other. The HR would also still show even after the watch was taken off my wrist!! Where as the charge 3 would instantly recognise no HR and go blank, I was also annoyed at the so called on screen workouts available on the Versa 2 are only available for premium customers? Please... I’ve just spent over $300, I’m premium enough due to that alone. But the worst issue was actually the fact that the Versa 2 was somehow causing issues with the Wifi on my phone and around the house!!!!!?!? My phone randomly went ‘slow’ the minute I connected the Versa 2, social media was taking ages to load, google searches taking ages and even face time quality interference. I also noticed our sonos music system around the house was badly affected with odd things happening like music volume lagging when changed, our Apple TV random buffering when streaming programs all of which just started the minute I connected my Versa 2 to my network. As you can imagine I was beyond annoyed!!! And was searching the net for similar issues and not really finding much.. What on earth was going on? How could this watch that I thought would be amazing be so horrific!? I mean the watch itself was pretty bad re accuracies etc but to also affect my wifi network? Nope, I wasn’t having a bar of it. So after 2 days I decided enough is enough, I couldn’t find any fixes online because no one seemed to have the extent of issues I was having. I was ready to take the Versa 2 back and just stick with my charge 3.
I reconnected my charge 3 so see if that had any issues and nope it was perfectly fine, my heart rates were normal and the wifi around the house was back to perfect. I even tested the Versa 2 against my charge 3 to see the HR and the difference was significant.
I decided tonight to reset the Versa 2 and give it one more go before taking it back. I reset it and re connected it along with another automatic update. Once all that was done the watch face I was using wasnt showing stat data, no steps or HR etc it was all at zero which was weird because it was synced to my phone which was showing the data in the app, why wasn’t it showing on the watch face? I kept playing around with it and couldn’t fix it so I deleted the watch face and went back to one of Fitbits offical watch faces... Ok, I think I found the problem. Straight away on Fitbits offical watch face the data was there, the heart rate was ‘normal’ and there was no wifi issues on my phone!? I took the watch off and the HR straight away cut out as it should. I put both watches on my wrist and both only showed a 1-3bpm difference! Yaaaaaaay I think I fixed the problem!
I dunno if it was the resetting, the update (only 2 days after its first update during initial set up) or if it was changing away from the 3rd party watch face that fixed the issues? But one of those or all of them fixed it. The watch seems normal now thank gosh. I will see how it goes but so far so good. So strange how something can be so crazy out of the box and then go to being normal. Lucky, because I was ready to pack it up and take it back.
I won’t be selling my Charge 3 though anytime soon. That’s my decent back up!
So just note that if your Versa 2 is doing weird things maybe try what I did before throwing it away or back to the store.
I’ll keep you all posted but for now, I’m somewhat happy with my Versa 2 rather than being totally disappointed. It still needs to earn my trust though and at this stage I would still say go for a Charge 3 over Versa 2 but as I said, time will tell.
