Likes and Dislikes

[rbittman]

I like some things about the Sense a lot:

1. The look. It’s smaller, lighter, and the screen is bright and attractive. The tiles work for me. 

2.the somewhat faster UI is great

3. The physical button. I like it a lot. 
4. battery life. 6 days!

Dislikes:

1. HR tracking is not improved over other fitbits. Very disappointing 

2. GPS shows too many drop off places. Not accurate. 
3. I’m hesitant about sleep accuracy now. For some reason this watch indicates virtually no deep sleep for me. That can’t be right. What changed?

Those are my main beefs. The following bother other people more than me:

1. No snore report. I don’t snore so I always turned this off as it drained the battery 

2. no on board music. I carry my phone everywhere, so it doesn’t matter

3. no third party apps. I don’t care,  though many do

4. released without Google maps.  Honestly, this feature seems silly to me due to the screen size. But maybe it’s cool?

5. no Google Assistant. Not a concern since I like Alexa just fine. 

What did I miss? Fitbit staff, are you listening?

[rbittman]

@t.parkerThat probably makes sense for you. I am an iphone user, so if I dumped this watch, I'd likely go to Apple watch. I really am trying to avoid that option, as the cost and battery life of that device are concerns (also the fact that it is too complicated). Although the cEDA on the Sense 2 is an annoyance, I still like the look, feel, weight, UI improvements, and some of the extra health features of the Sense 2 versus my old Versa 3. I didn't have ECG nor any EDA at all on that watch and the UI was painfully laggy. I'm going to keep the Sense 2. Good luck with your new choice!

[Killroy-TM]

Sort of in the same boat but I am in the Android world with a Samsung Galaxy S21 phone and their inter operation is decent and no complaints at this point. My only complaint at this time is the notifications I get from SMS, eMail and WhatsApp. The watch vibrates but nothing but a black screen until I wake the watch up by either button press, tapping or gesture. For crying out loud it is a notification, yes I want to see it, so show it to me instead of me having to make a deliberate attempt to wake up the screen. Hopefully this requested feature will appear in the future at some time.

[t.parker]

@rbittman I followed your advice and used the Always-On mode during my run yesterday and today. Yesterday it was fine but today I must add another dislike: the always-on screen is invisible (not hardly visible but just invisible) in the bright sunlight. Still, it's possible to fade in the screen to regular colors but then I go back to square one.

[rbittman]

Well, **ahem** it. I’m sorry that’s not a solution. Is Always On dimmed by the watch to a level below that of the brightest setting? Is this a way they prevent excessive battery drain?

[t.parker]

@rbittman I think so. The screen is dimmed and colors are darker (that's how AMOLED displays use less power) so it's dark grey on black. It is alright during cloudy day like it was yesterday in my town but today it was bright and sunny (unusual in the UK during autumn) and I couldn't see anything. This is how extreme power saving works on the mobile phones, too. Lots of black color, minimum of detail and using only darker tones. In that case I can't blame Fitbit as this is the only way to consume less power but some customization could be helpful so the user could adjust the display to the outside conditions.

[Killroy-TM]

Did my first bike exercise today and was surprised about the results. I first started to ride with riding with no exercise selected and it actually detected it as a bike ride. Then I stopped and started the bike profile from the exercise app and road in the subdivision about 4 miles and I was pleased that it showed up in the today page as bike exercise with all kind of data details. The GPS seemed fine except at 1 spot and I can see why it would work because the watch is always turned up facing the sky it will have connection, however the one time it was incorrect was when I had gotten of the bike and started the bike exercise profile.

All in all I am pleased in addition I am not sure to what degree dislikes are caused by being in the iOS world rather then in the Android world.

[t.parker]

@Killroy-TM I am an Android user. Most of times GPS works for me but there are some times when it works worse or it takes longer to connect. In general, it's nothing very serious comparing to other complaints (like the GPS doesn't connect at all which some users seem to experience). My complaint about bike exercise would be horribly inacurate HR (this is exactly what I experienced on original Sense).

[rbittman]

I am an iPhone user. Though I had trouble with establishing a GPS connection the very first time, once I held it up correctly (parallel to my body) it connected right away and then easily thereafter. It has never lost connection for me and the route looks very good on the map. 

I agree that fitbit has work to do regarding heart rate. I bought a Polar H10 and my Fitbit isn’t very close to the results on that. 

[rbittman]

I had a chat with a fitbit rep about the unreliability of the HR tracking. They pushed it one level up and I received an email, below (in part). I am doing all those things, including use of the original fitbit band (which I actually like). I could try wearing it higher on my wrist I suppose. I might add that I’ve used third party bands in the past and HR tracking seemed to be the same as it ever was. I think the problem lies in the amount of sampling, not these other things. 

Here’s the message:

”As advised by our higher support team about this case, we'd like to let you know that heart-rate tracking can be affected by several factors including air temperature and device location on your wrist. Additionally, third party bands, while compatible in fit and its attachment with your Sense 2, are not yet tested to work the same in some functions like sleep or heart rate tracking as with the band that came with your watch.

Also, as with all heart-rate tracking technology, accuracy is affected by personal physiology, device location on your arm, and type of movement. With this said, we can follow these tips to make it more accurate:

• Wear your Fitbit device on top of your wrist, and make sure the back of the device is in contact with your skin.
• When you’re not exercising, wear your device a finger’s width above your wrist bone.
• During exercise, wear your device a bit tighter and higher for an improved fit. The band should be snug but not constricting (a tight band restricts blood flow, potentially affecting the heart-rate signal). Many exercises such as bike riding or weight lifting cause you to bend your wrist frequently, which could interfere with the heart-rate signal if the watch is lower on your wrist.”

[t.parker]

@rbittman this is the response Fitbit has been feeding users since I can remember. Simply, if HR doesn't work then it's not the watch but you and Fitbit users must be exceptionally dumb not knowing how to wear a simple watch. Funny, those issues disappear when moving for example to Apple Watch. I also compared the Charge 2 with an original Sense and results shown Charge 2 was way more correct but this post have been deleted. If you find anywhere an old Charge 2 you will find out C2 was actually not too easy to wear correct. The bump at the bottom and shape made it often lose and it was always going down the slim wrist. Yet with several tests I have done it was still more accurate than Sense. Original Sense had huge amount of complaints (even among CC members who probably know how to wear a watch). I commented on this response several times in the past pointing out that if Fitbit is so complicated to be worn correctly to give good reading then it serves more as a distraction rather than help during exercise. I don't want to keep my mind occupied whether I wear watch correctly during exercise. I want to focus on exercise. Some activities leave no room for adjusting the watch. For example, cycling. No one sane will be adjusting the watch being in the middle of traffic or on the MTB downhill 😂 .

One of my recent runs came up with HR almost spot on. It had a little inaccuracy in the beginning and three little spikes but it delivered result very close to the chest strap (just eyeballing timeline >95% accuracy). I did nothing different, worn watch as usual, did my usual thing and just one activity in many worked great. The same thing I was observing on original Sense. Unexplained moods of the watch when decided suddenly to be correct.

[rbittman]

I was pretty annoyed at their response too, for the reasons you say. 

I saw your graph of the recent run with the Sense 2! Very good result!

[Dopovo]

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@t.parker wrote:

...

Yet with several tests I have done it was still more accurate than Sense. Original Sense had huge amount of complaints (even among CC members who probably know how to wear a watch).

...

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Please see this discussion for example where, at the time, @Giampi71 was a CC member.

[t.parker]

@Dopovo I remember that post. If you scroll down you will see I contributed to it, too 😁

[Dopovo]

Yeah the link wasn't meant for you @t.parker 

[rbittman]

The Quantified Scientist released his testing of the Pixel watch and included some testing of the Sense 2 as well. A full Sense 2 test will be coming in a few weeks, he said. 

Pixel isn’t so great. Sense 2 initial tests not great either. 😞