Sense 2 First Impressions

[moryasena]

I already had a bad feeling about this after seeing the reviews.

Pros:

1. I liked that I got a notification during my walk today that there was a walk in progress. It was delayed (I lost a few minutes of data on the walk), but it was fine.

2. You can hide the calorie burn from the Today menu

Cons:

1. The device lags and is slow to respond

2. No apps

3. No music control

4. No Google assistant

5. Can't figure out if the cEDA even works.

I'm returning it. Still don't know if I'm going to stick with my Luxe and hope it doesn't die on me or if I'm going to go fully over to Garmin (I'm still debating between the two). This product is absolutely NOT worth the $300+ price tag after tax.

I haven't ruled out the Pixel Watch as an option, but this device is a joke. The $100 Inspire 3 is likely just as functional and a better value for the money.

[Dweaver]

I was fortunate to be able to essentially get an upgrade for "free" due to wisely buying extended warranty on my original Sense through Best Buy.

I upgraded to the Sense 2 even though the Sense has more features on paper. The reasons are simple for me. The only time wifi was ever used by me was when the watch did updates and BT performance is only a bit slower. I don't care to control my music from my watch as that is what my earphone controls are for. I NEVER used the Sense for music as it was a paid service I refuelsed to pay for since carrying my phone is easy enough. I never used 3rd party apps because I never saw any value in them. I never used any payment system from my watch. Google assistant is only slightly of use since my phone is always with me so Alexa is good enough for my needs.

The bottom line is I want an easy to ready friendly phone that offer good insight into my activities, health, sleep, and stress. The original Sense did this with ease and I have no doubt the Sense 2 will do the same and then some as the algorythms for the new cEDA sensor improves. Several features on the Sense were not great at the start and just improved over time so I will assume the Sense 2 will be the same.

Lots of reviews have slayed this new model and somewhat rightfully so. They removed a lot of feature but barely lowered the price. So we have a watch that appears to be deliberately neutered to make the Pixel Watch look bette. But at the sale price they have this watch on for at the moment this is much less of an issue as it is a more realistic price point and at that price make this watch much more reasonable.

I imagine the reality is most of the removed features were used by less 25% of the usersand that estimate might be way higher than the reality. So removing the features just made sense. The only mistake Fitbit made was not dropping the price more to reflect the loss of the features. Something I think they are realizing in lost sales and this a significant sales price.

At $260 Canadian versus $399 MSRP this is a great looking and working watch that looks much better than any band style watch made by Fitbit or other band style watches on the market. It also has an amazing array of sensors that help give more insight into the average person's life.

[Killroy-TM]

I have the same importance than you regarding features and some of the things missing like WiFi don't bother me and I never used any music on my Versa 2 and also carry my phone with me. Yet I returned my Sense 2 after some +30 days and bought a Sense 1 which is $2 cheaper then the on sale Sense 2. Here are my reasons why.

1. Biggest deficiency for me was the smartwatch notifications. They do not show up UNLESS you either press the button or make a gesture move to wake up the screen. Then you only get the app icon, sender and subject line. Now you stare like an idiot at a black screen until the whole message appears. The Sense 1 instantly displays all notifications in its entirety and I just have to move the eyes.

2. There are no health tracking benefits on the Sense 2 that the Sense 1 or Charge 5 do not have. The cEDA is an absolute annoying joke and no one has yet figured out what it does. You get a 10 minute delayed notification asking you the question how do you feel. You answer it and that is it. No further processing of it nor filtering on any trends that may exist. Since it drains the battery, I turned it off.

3. Because the Sense 2 has a new OS, its navigation is sluggish and jerky to accommodate the different display layers I presume.

4. The AFib notification went off several times only for me to find out it was because the overnight reading of the different sleep stages were not registered the sensors must have lost connection with the skin for proper data collection. The Sense 1 did not do this so far. I guess it is because the underside of the Sense 1 has a better way of resting on the skin then the Sense 2 which has these extra two huge sensors for the cEDA.

5. I did find the clocks app of the Sense 1 of use because you can store up to 5 clock faces and when switching they instantly are displayed. The reason why this may be important, ONLY Fitbit can display clock faces that are deemed to be medical like SPO2. Usually I find 3rd party clock faces are more intuitive because the developer is more in tune what users like. To make things worst. Google modified some of these 3rd party and made them available for the Sense 2 without really testing them and I have found erroneous operation of the Sense 2 because of it. Fitbit will ask you if you have problems, are you using an original Fitbit clock face.

6. I like wrist calls because I found myself many times in a situation where I could not reach the phone in time, even though I answered it from the watch, but by the time I reached the phone the caller had hung up. When sitting on the throne and doing a wrist call is another experience altogether. I know Google promised this would come to the Sense 2 but for me Goggle can not be trusted as they have shown over and over again promising something and then not following through or discontinuing a product or service.

Final summary as other reviewers have also deducted the Sense 2 was knee-capped by Goggle on purpose to make the Pixel watch shine which has with some features turned on a battery life where the watch has to be charged before going to bed. ATROCIOUS! Google has a tendency to be sneaky and dishonest. During the pandemic they turned on the SPO2 sensor in the Versa 1 only to turn it off once the pandemic was under control. For me I hope that my Sense 1 will last at least 2 years after which I will evaluate the market again.

[Dweaver]

Great points and we'll articulated. You used yours for a month so gave the new model a good try at least.

I will be doing that as well. I will report back my experience as I use the device.

[MarkMM]

@Killroy-TM My sleep history on the Versa 1 currently has SP02 readings every night?

"During the pandemic they turned on the SPO2 sensor in the Versa 1 only to turn it off once the pandemic was under control."

[JLH64]

Versa 1 never had Sp02.

[MarkMM]

@JLH64 What is this then?

[t.parker]

@JLH64 of course it did have. It measured the EOV and for SpO2 night reading (after it was finally released) it was necessary to install the SpO2 clock face:

https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/2459.htm

Although, the perception of Versa not supporting the SpO2 may be a result of how long we had to wait for the feature. My Ionic never supported SpO2, got retired long before the feature came to life. I guess, many Versa watched got retired by that time, too.

[Jdsenter]

@t.parker My Ionic had SpO2 before I turned it in for the recall, just before I turned it in I wore it for 48 hours to make sure it was registered with my Account, as I heard that some Ionic users were being rejected because they couldn't detect the Ionic, so I switched from the Sense to the Ionic and SpO2 was registered, even took pictures of it as my device so if Fitbit rejected I had documented proof on my account. Now as Fitbit has my device I can't switch to validate it still works, but it did before the recall. 

Funny I keep getting emails from Fitbit to Upgrade to the Sense 2, don't they get it? It is not an upgrade, but a downgrade, even the Pixel Watch is a downgrade from the Original Sense. Now if it was $50 or less it would be worth it just for the 6 months Fitbit premium, but from following this forum and reviewers, my impression is a downgrade. 

[t.parker]

@Jdsenter when I was applying for a recall refund I also turned my Ionic on but haven't been using it. It wasn't necessary to keep it on your account for that long. In fact, right after registering the device, the instruction said to dispose of it (at least in the UK). I know that eventually, the Ionic had SpO2 but not when I was using it.

[Dweaver]

Having now had a chance to use the Sense 2 for a while I can understand the angst about this new version. Google really did reduce it's functionality and so far the device is a bit more flaky than my original Sense. 

I miss features like swipe up to see my basic Fitbit stats. They are still on the watch but I have to tap something like sleep to get to them. I also miss having the ability to switch watch faces on the watch.

Most of my comments I made in my original post are still valid, unfortunately they are only part of the changes made to the Sense 2. Between those obvious big feature changes and many of the UI changes on the watch it's just not as functional as the original model.

I can't help but feel Google has either miscalculated how bad the reduction of features would impact people desire the new product or they have deliberately done this to kill off the brand, or at least the brands high end watch line.

If they drop the price to what the sale price was they might stand a chance to sell what they have made as that price point is not to far off the mark for what they are offering for features but their current MSRP is just to high considering the watch has less functionality and none of it's touted new features really offer much of an upgrade.

I will likely just keep the Sense 2 since mine was through BB extended warranty and I am unsure I could switch back to the original Sense. I somewhat wish I had just got a new Sense replacement and added the extended warranty back on it out of pocket.

The original Sense had a couple of updates that made it more stable so am hopeful the Sense 2 will as well. If they make it at least as stable as the original Sense I will likely be happy in the long run as it still does the core metrics I want and has great battery life so meets my use case better than the other watches if have tried from Samsung and Asus. But it is not an upgrade from the original watch and can not even be considered a side grade. It's simply a down grade.

I like having another 6 months of premium which I will cancel before I start to pay for it as I don't feel it's justified at it's price point but do like it while I can get it for free. (If your listening Fitbit, cut the price in half and I might just pay for the service...).

The new size and depth is slightly more comfortable to wear, but not by enough to ever use it to justify buying the new model based on that area alone. So if you own a Sense and it working fine just use it. I would imagine this statement is also true to Vera 3 owners.

[Dweaver]

I am starting to wonder if the Charge 5 might offer the most bang for the buck. I originally used a band style watch from Samsung before I started to use a more traditional style watch shape. The Charge 5 reminds me of that watch, offering just enough graphical detail to make it useful versus the smaller models that seem to be to basic in those areas, forcing a person to have to use the app for everything.