Feedback about features on Sense 2

[--Smeagol--]

Seeing as my original post was buried in the Google assistant thread, even though its unrelated. I've decided to post it again.

I purchased the Sense 2 for my wife. We were aware that Google assistant would likely be missing (this is not our complaint), and she was ok with that (although I thought differently). 

To our surprise as you can imagine, we were shocked to learn that Google assistant isn't the only downgrade. Let me list the downgrades so that other users can save themselves some time. 

• No Google assistant.
• No WiFi (means software updates will take forever). 
• No Fitbit app gallery or access to 3rd party apps (this means no Deezer, Spotify or the likes).
• No music controls. That's right, there is no ability to even control the music playing on your phone. 
• No on wrist Bluetooth calling. 
• No Google wallet or Google apps out of the box (we did know about this before the purchase). 
• Inability to rearrange exercise shortcuts.
• No snore detection 

I'm sorry but to me (and my non techie wife) this is an outright downgrade to the Versa 3 my wife was currently using. That's right the Sense 2 is a downgrade even on the Versa 3. Fitbit should be ashamed of themselves, they are acting no differently to a scam artist and will not be getting a dime more out of me.

Good luck and think twice before parting with your money.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[Jdsenter]

Well now, we know Google is setting the stage, Fitbit brand is about fitness, health, and anxiety, Pixel brand is about Google Services with Fitbit integration... Both will require Google account, as they will transition from Fitbit accounts in 2025, per help articles. Remember Fitbit as a company is gone, Google calls all the shots, they are the new management. 

Was just my thoughts, but the Pixel watch will have all the Google apps, maps, messages, wallet, assistant, on board music, even LTE, maybe even full voice calls without the phone. 

Sense 2 is void of that offering I think on purpose to separate the two brands, maps and wallet helps for mostly non US as reported in several forums, Fitbit pay is very limited to certain banks, where Google pay has way more. No third party apps, clock faces or functionality really makes this more a health and anxiety watch, all smart functions have been removed. 

Also the battery life is the killer feature of the Fitbit brand, days not hours, which is where the fitness part comes in tracking sleep, and all the health related features.

Kind of like the Apple Watch SE to the Series # now to Ultra. But they forgot if the Fitbit Sense 2 is nothing but a health tracker, the price point goes way down. My Sense I got from the Ionic recall was less that $180, and it can do 50 features more than the Sense 2, so price the Sense 2 50% less, should be on sale for less than $100.

I use a Pixel phone and the integration of Google services is awesome, if the Pixel Watch has the same integration and no need to tether a phone, it could easily be an apple watch competitor only for Android.

[robinjamesshort]

Fully agree 

[ali_baba7]

Wow. They're removing support for music storage from older devices? I'd like to know their justification for making such a spiteful decision. At this point, what's stopping them from removing music controls and third party apps from older devices as well? If this is all being done to drive people to buy the Pixel Watch, they've made a grave miscalculation. 

[BenSF]

@ali_baba7 Indeed they did. I for one switched to the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro and returned the Sense 2 after it started acting funny and restarting every time I tried to sync it to my phone. I got the Galaxy Watch for $50 more than the Sense 2, and it more than deleivers for it's price. In my opinion the sense 2 shouldn't cost more than $200.

[ali_baba7]

Exactly, @BenSF. If they're going to remove these features from the Sense 2/Versa 4, then they need to remove the smart watch category on the Fitbit Store. There's no justification for such a high price point. 

[SunsetRunner]

 @BenSF Do you have a Samsung's smartphone? If no, then the functionalities of the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro are limited. Samsung also has its own dirty tricks, as well as problems with data privacy. They faced a data leak a couple of weeks ago, and weren't very keen on informing the customers...

[robinjamesshort]

Anyone know if I get a Google pixel will it link to my fitbit account or if I can transfer history and such to Google ??

Sent from my iPhone

[BenSF]

@SunsetRunner I have a Galaxy S22. I love the compact form factor. I really don't mind about my data. I've got noting to hide really so I don't really care about privacy. Also, Fitbit belongs to google now so privacy is no more.

[bdrit]

I actually have a Pixel 6 Pro, but after seeing what was happening here (as I was on the verge of preordering the Sense 2), decided to go with the Galaxy Watch 5, even instead of the Pixel Watch (as the leaks on the Pixel Watch haven't been super encouraging, a great looking watch for sure, but a mediocre battery and a dated processor plus a premium price). It plays fine with my phone, probably better than my Sense did. I'd say there's only three negatives, and all have workarounds. You lose ECG and blood pressure, but there is a modded app out there that works fine. The stock camera control app only works on the Samsung phones, but there are other apps in the Wear OS store that work fine with my Pixel for that feature too. 

[Jdsenter]

@robinjamesshort at the moment a Google account is not a Fitbit account, and a Fitbit account is not a a Google account. You can link your Google account to the Fitbit account for login authentication and can link a Google assistant to Fitbit account (Step Activity and a sleep profile are separate links), so technically you have to link the Google account three ways at the moment. But soon in 2023 they will allow a merge of the Fitbit and Google accounts, at that moment their will just be the Google account, but your health data should stay separate, per EU requirements for now, once that time limit expires all your health data can be used for what ever purpose Google decides to do. 

@ali_baba7 Google decided to drop unlimited photo at full resolution for all devices, except the original Pixel, the Pixel 2 to 5 (not 5g), can still backup photos unlimited in storage saver resolution, so Google has been know for dropping features, they just dropped Stadia so, any and all features that were can be dropped, not sure if that is allowed by law, but I heard a speaker company disabling all their old devices car companies are now making you pay for remote unlock for your own car you own? 

[SunsetRunner]

@bdrit Using a modded app isn't very clever. Especially when you use your phone for banking. Such a modified app might include bugs or even viruses.

[t.parker]

@N8teGee I just received the watch and set it up. Set up was smooth, and the update too. No WiFi was used during the update, so WiFi isn't in use at all despite WiFi being part of the hardware. Hence the previous theory that WiFi may be used in a limited scope (like FW updates) was wrong. The update however didn't take very long so it may be that Fitbit finally figured out how to pack and send FW packets quicker over the BT so they didn't bother with WiFi. Now, the first impression of the UI - is choppy. Not like Sense. Worse than Sense (this I still need to compare with measuring). I will make a high-speed video of the navigation and will estimate framerate but so far it looks visibly worse than Sense if you put both watches side-by-side. The straps are reused from Sense (exactly the same). For me, it's bad as the Sense strap causes bad skin irritation and I expect that to continue with Sense 2.

The distance tracking stays unchanged. The GPS plays a minor role. The Sense 2 overestimated the distance of my run. GPS is 7.36km, Stryd detected 7.35km, while Sense 2 detected 7.42km. Not a huge difference, although will be significant this Sunday as I'm gonna race HM with Sense 2. I don't think Fitbit invested any time and money into improving exercise tracking and it's just the same as it was so for now I'm gonna leave it there.

I did a short 40min easy steady-state run so far (very raining outside :D). GPS failed to connect twice but eventually did connect. I had to restart the Run exercise to get GPS working and the successful attempt took 2 minutes to connect. The battery went down from 100% to 90%. That tells me 40min on GPS costs 10%. Easy math and we have about 6,5 hours on GPS. More than 5 but definitely less than 12. There is no connected GPS. Nowhere in settings, anywhere. HR accuracy shows similar behaviour to original Sense. Here's an example:

Orange - Sense2, Blue - PolarH10

It did quite well between minutes 4 and 17 but then something happened and things went wrong. Mind that this is a steady-state, with no intervals, all increments and decrements in HR are not rapid. The wrist sensor should be fine with tracking it. For now, too early to draw a conclusion.

Other things: Unlike in other models, I noticed that Zone alerts during running work despite setting the Custom Zone in the app. Before, I used that as a hack to shut up the watch and stop vibrating during runs. Now I need to turn off zone alerts one by one.

The new exercises are just a bunch of new labels. I see no sport-specific metrics anywhere.

I find navigation through the exercise app a chore. The UI layout is not very user-friendly but the worst is that the UI is very slow to navigate.

Due to the race on Sunday I won't probably do any high-intensity exercise and test HR more thoroughly next week. Sunday race will get my HR a lot higher and it will be a better test for how long the GPS can last.

[N8teGee]

@t.parker Thanks for your initial review. It seems to have confirmed what most of us already expected, but we're hoping might not be the case. So far all of the reviews I've seen have said the same regarding HR, there are issues with it. Most describe it in a similar way to what we have come to know from the original Sense, laggy.

I've had some better results recently with my Sense GPS so thought they may have changed some things, although I'm not a runner (yet) so my tests have been walking and hiking. Perhaps it performs better at a slower more steady pace.

I walked a marked out 1 mile track and first used cycling mode on the Sense as I know this definitely uses GPS for distance, I then stopped the workout and used hike and then walk on the third lap. I also had a Garmin Fenix 7 with me. Each device recorded exactly 1.01miles for each lap, I was quite surprised. I've also done some longer hikes and they have been very close also.

Obviously your testing with the Sense 2 says otherwise, but I wonder if it's more a running issue. Maybe for one of your test you can use cycle mode to see if that produces a closer result. 

[t.parker]

@N8teGee Original Sense doesn't really cause issues with GPS itself. The running distance is off because it doesn't GPS for running but if I load the GPS track into any viewer then the length of the track is usually the same as I get from the other GPS sources. So that for cycling would probably work much better. There is a reason why watches don't use GPS only for running. Simply speaking, it's because of real-time metrics on very short distances for which GPS isn't accurate enough (especially when it starts drifting). The bike will get away with GPS accuracy because it usually moves a lot faster and on known routes. Runners - not always (or rather pretty much never 🙂 ) Google has brilliant tech utilizing all the sensors in order to compute the distance outdoors (sensors provide the data but also correct each other) so I was kind of hoping this would be eventually used in Fitbit product but I think this code on Fitbit hasn't been touched for years 😄

My problem with GPS is that it takes a long to connect on Sense 2. 2 minutes doesn't sound like long but if I'm used to that my devices connect within 5 seconds and that changes slightly a perspective. Also, two attempts when "No GPS Signal" appeared and I had to restart the activity (I don't know whether it would try to reconnect or not?). So eventually I started my run after a total of 10 minutes of waiting for acquiring the connection. Hopefully, that won't be the case on Sunday. I can't imagine telling the race organizers "wait! don't start yet! I need to get my Sense 2 connected!" 😄 But that is better than what I experienced on original Sense during the first weeks when GPS sometimes didn't connect at all or disconnected and never reconnected. I haven't had GPS issues for about a year with first Sense so something had to get improved.

I took videos of UI in 240FPS. I need to run it through my frame processor to get the FPS so I will have more data. I have a feeling the guts of Sense 2 are pretty much the same as the original Sense. Although, the battery life on the GPS is slightly worrying. Original Sense lasts slightly over an hour on 10% of battery. Sense 2 lives a lot shorter.

One thing I'm curious about is the HR during outdoor cycling (maybe tomorrow I will give it a go). Original Sense never tracked it correctly. I have no single activity tracked with HR even remotely correct.

[N8teGee]

@t.parker Interesting write up, thanks. Yes I understand as you say, a lot more is going on in the background when it comes to tracking with GPS. As for the slow acquiring of a signal, I wonder if it was because you have only just set the device up and it hasn't yet downloaded an assisted GPS file? One would think it would be downloaded/updated on the initial sync, but I don't think it's possible to check the expiry date on a Fitbit. That's if it's even got assisted GPS (I'm sure it does)?

I noticed my Garmin locks on instantly, but the Sense wasn't too bad in comparison the last time I used it. Maybe around 20-30 seconds, which I think is quite acceptable.

I have to say in every video I've seen so far the swiping seems extremely laggy. I did read somewhere that Fitbit said the processor was an upgrade, which could explain the decrease in battery life for GPS tracking. If this is the case, the OS/UI must be extremely heavy and resource hungry. Perhaps the addition of animations isn't helping.

Edit - - - - -

This is a quote about the processor from this Android Authority review.

"Although the company declined to give specifics, the Fitbit Sense 2 has an upgraded processor when compared to the original Sense. Combined with the new version of Fitbit OS, the UI is smoother, snappier, and more reliable." 

[t.parker]

Another change is lack of showing a lap count when swimming. Despite Sense 2 having gyroscope that feature has been removed, too.

Also, the double tap of button doesn't seem to be configurable anymore. I turned off showing shortcuts for long press but double press has no settings anywhere.

[ali_baba7]

You can't even configure the double-press? It keeps getting worse... 🤦‍:female_sign:

[datalore]

I didn't see a gyroscope listed under specs for the Sense 2, but maybe I missed it. I love my Versa 3 except for the fact it doesn't count laps on my watch. I can see them in the app afterwards, but I tend to get in a flow state when swimming laps and I have a set workout, but I've never been able to count laps swimming. We've asked for this for years with no response from Fitbit. I should have probably taken a hint from that lack of response. 

[t.parker]

@datalore it's listed in the manual. Original Sense can show laps during swimming that's why it's a "missing feature".

@ali_baba7 I see no option to set shortcuts for double-press. On Sense 2 you can see only this:

While on the original Sense this menu is larger:

So +1 to missing features 🙄

Edit: just to clarify, on Sense 2 double-press works but it's not configurable and hardcoded to this:

For me it's more important to be able to disable it permanently like I did on Sense. I can't.

[SunsetRunner]

I was waiting for Sense 2 since it was revealed. I really wanted to buy this device. That's the reason I might be less demanding. But even a possible fanboy has its limits. I won't become a new Fitbit customer, and instead of Sense 2, I will buy Garmin Forerunner 955, even it's twice as expensive. It's a shame because I might buy Sense 2 for around 265 bucks, but it's ridiculous how they massacred Sense 2, as well as how they (or rather don't) communicate with customers. Shame on you Fitbit (or better: Google)!