Is Sense 2 a downgrade from original Sense?

[trawg]

My original Sense died a couple of months ago (would not turn on) & I returned it for a refund under warranty. I wanted to buy another one to replace it but they are hard to find (if not impossible?) & finally Sense 2 dropped in price enough for me to give it a go.

I had a bunch of issues getting it working, including connecting to my phone & then getting my credit cards working. I'm happy to chalk these up to what seems to be a constant problem with quality control with Fitbit devices (based on what I read on these forums!) so took it back & have been refunded for this with a view to getting a new unit & trying again.

But I'm trying to decide if I'm simply an idiot for going back and buying yet another Fitbit (this will be our household's fifth - four of the previous five having died under warranty) so I'm hoping some current Sense 2 users can clear up some stuff that turned me off in my brief Sense 2 experience:

- there is no way to run the Google Assistant?! This wasn't clear on the in-store marketing materials - I had no idea it was Alexa only & simply wouldn't have bothered. I found some older threads here with feedback from support saying it's not coming but hoping I've just missed one where they've said "actually of course we'll put it on there, it would be crazy not to!"

- if you do give up and try to use Alexa, there appears to be no easy way to sync the Alexa Calendar you're forced to use with a Google Calendar?

- the above makes me wonder if the rest of the Google ecosystem will be painful to try to get working (e.g. I have a Google Home device), as well as smart home stuff.

- the notifications from apps are just insanely annoying - for example, if you get a Whatsapp notification, there is a splash screen which is just the Whatsapp logo which persists for a second, then it vanishes, then there's a pause and then finally your notification comes up. This is ludicrously slower than the original Sense, which simply showed you the notification. Surely there's a way to disable that splash screen with the logo and just show the notification?!

- I couldn't find a way to set up shortcuts to all the apps - not sure if I just couldn't find it, but has that gone? All I could find was swiping right had different screens for all the various apps (Weather, Today, etc)?

- what features are there that make it stand out from the original Sense? e.g. I know it has the real time stress monitoring (this was something I was keen to try & liked the brief experience I had with it). Aside from some other minor UI changes I didn't really notice anything else very positive.

Would really appreciate any community feedback on this. I loved my Sense (and my Ionic before that, before it was recalled) but this brief experience with the Sense 2 has really put me off it. Thanks!

[Mcav75]

It has features that the original sense doesn't have, but at the expense of several features that the sense has.

I'd recommend moving away from Fitbit as it is clear that they platform is no longer being supported in any meaningful way. 

[Guy_]

Hi @trawg - if you had an Ionic and a Sense you'll miss the features those watches had, especially Google Assistant in your case on a Sense 2.

If you enjoyed the long battery life may be have a look at Garmin, the Venu 2 plus is a more complete watch with longer battery life as well.

[trawg]

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@Guy_ wrote:

Hi @trawg - if you had an Ionic and a Sense you'll miss the features those watches had, especially Google Assistant in your case on a Sense 2.

If you enjoyed the long battery life may be have a look at Garmin, the Venu 2 plus is a more complete watch with longer battery life as well.

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Thanks - I actually spent a bit of time looking at the Venu 2 Plus yesterday and it looks pretty nice. It has the Voice Assistant features I want as well as all the  heart stuff (I literally have The Quantified Scientist review of it open on my machine here about 1/4 of the way through!)

Unfortunately the ECG application is not yet available here in Australia - I assume it's still going through the approval process. I'm pretty keen on this as a feature, but could live without it for a bit if it's coming, although not clear if/when it will be available. I'd also like to check out the interface a bit before I buy but none of my local retailers seem to have an actual working one I can see, which is frustrating, so might have to resort to finding videos. 

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@Mcav75 wrote:

It has features that the original sense doesn't have, but at the expense of several features that the sense has.

I'd recommend moving away from Fitbit as it is clear that they platform is no longer being supported in any meaningful way. 

Thanks. It's simply astonishing to me that they would go backwards like this, especially with something like the voice assistant feature, which they're now outsourcing to a competitor?!

It is thoroughly disappointing but sadly not surprising for Google-related products, especially on the hardware side (and I say this as someone that has owned Android phones since the Nexus One). I am strongly leaning now to jumping ship to Apple and the Apple Watch for the first time ever.

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[Guy_]

@trawg  - thanks, the Venu 2 Plus ECG is probably only available in America, but it has on the spot (and optional all day) SpO2, fall detection, full music, dark mode app, etc. And works.

Coming from a Fitbit, navigation is a little different but with a 10 day battery life against 1 day for Apple it is food for thought.

[Trude74]

I also miss several functions from my old sense. I bought a sense 2 when the glas broke in my old one. Now this is 6 months ago, I still regret that I bought it, costed extra and it feels like a downgrade. 

[Krocket]

I’m thinking the same thing.  Fitbit is squandering their first-mover advantage by selling defective products and not supporting them.  I’m definitely not going to buy another one.

[Krocket]

Really?  10 day battery life?  I need to just charge mine every day unless I want to leave it on the charger when I go out or sleep. Even then it is Ethan’s 3-5 days before being discharged.

[Ixchel_b3]

I miss my Ionic! It was and still is the best Fitbit I have ever had. I blame google for Fitbit’s demise. Not sure if that is realist.

[Pat360]

Loved my original Sense, have the new one for 4 days and hate it.

[N8teGee]

I think most would consider it a downgrade as it seems to have lost some popular features. I guess you just need to decide if the added features (I think it's cEDA, Google maps & Wallet) outweigh the lost ones. 

[Trude74]

My next watch won't be a fitbit. Spo2 works only sometimes. Snoore score dissapeared. Support is not possible to reach after I turned to Google. And I bought the device directly from fitbit do cannot complain in a store. I have bought a premium membership and many premium benefits aren't there. Sadly a watch costs a lot of money so am not able to buy a new one every month either

[trawg]

Was talking to someone about this & how the  Sense 2 is such a weird departure for a device made by [a company owned by] Google, and they pointed out the possibility that maybe the Amazon Alexa thing was part of a deal made by Fitbit before the Google acquisition - so it was something they were committed to contractually & couldn't back out from the deal.

This would explain at least that angle. I can also imagine that they'd be less inclined to make the device very polished as a result - "hey, it's Alexa's fault it sucks!" - but that would be unbelievably short sighted.

But if the first bit was true, surely Google could eat whatever penalty clause in the service of making a device that actually aligns with the rest of their strategy? It just seems so short sighted. But maybe the majority of Sense 2 owners out there aren't as fussy about this stuff and are happy with the rest of the features of the device. I guess if you don't care about voice control via Google and you don't use notifications much the rest of the features are more than adequate.

[obermd]

I just replaced my Fitbit Sense, which I cracked on the bottom of a pool, with a Sense 2.  The lack of displaying distance while swimming is making me seriously think about returning the Sense 2 to Amazon as not fit for advertised purpose.

[obermd]

Update:  My Sense 2 went back to Amazon today.  Since the Aria 2 scale is also a downgrade from the Aria (I thought my Aria was failing but it started working again) I'm going to be looking elsewhere now.  Fitbit has squandered their lead, which is probably why Google was able to buy them for cheap.

[Trude74]

Not at all happy with it but after I crossed to Google it was not possible to reach support so actually stuck with it and not able to change back to the old Sense that was a much better watch