Starting with Sense 2 - good or bad idea?

[SunsetRunner]

Hello everyone! 

I'm thinking to change my old Galaxy Watch to Sense 2. I wonder if it's a good idea to give a try to Fitbit, starting with the newest and probably the best (?) watch of this company?

Likewise, I mainly focus on wellness functions, less on fitness ones. 

I'm afraid about 3 things:

1/ Battery life of Sense 2. 

2/ No media control (e.g. changing songs on smartphone when I'm using Spotify).

3/ Privacy concerns.

Do you have any advices? 

Thanks a lot!

[t.parker · Accepted solution]

Yes, wait for the product to be released, wait for reviews (from professional sources as well as from the users, for example on this forum). There is nothing better you can do right now if you don't want to get burnt.

[SunsetRunner]

Sure, but it means that I have to wait till the end of October? Is there any way to see first reviews in September? 

[t.parker]

It's up to you. I'm planning to wait even longer, at least first FW update. I see no problem with that. Early reviews usually are rushed and I'm more interested in reviews given by users who use watches similar way to mine. I own several different watches so probably it is easier to be patient in my case but believe me, there's no reason to rush and jump onto hype-wagon.

[SunsetRunner]

I agree with you, but to be honest, I don't see alternatives to Sense 2 right now, which is quite pitiful for me. 

I own Android smartphone, so there are no sens to buy Apple Watch. Samsung's watches also work best with Galaxy phones, which I don't posses right now (maybe next year).

Then we have Garmin and Fitbit, but in my opinion the former offers less since I'm mostly focused on general mental and physical wellbeing, rather than fitness activities.  

Therefore, I'm focused on Sense 2. I want to stay with it for the next year or two, and then buy something else. Maybe other companies (Samsung, Garmin) will offer more in wellness department?

What's your opinion? Could you compare Fitbit and Garmin for me? Thanks!

[t.parker]

@SunsetRunner I'm probably not the best person to compare both brands when it comes to health & wellbeing tracking. My main focus is sports tracking and other stuff is nice to have but not really needed. It depends what features you need. Garmin does quite a lot of stuff that Fitbit (resting HR, detecting max HR, sleep tracking including stages, movement and BR, HRV tracking during night and activities, SpO2 tracking all-day/night/activity/on-demand). Well, quite standard features in that field. There is no Readiness Score but there is (in my opinion) better feature - Body Battery. On my watch there is no ECG (it's possible to add third-party app that will use chest strap for ECG reading). I know there is opinion that Fitbit's sleep tracking is far superior but to be honest, when I track on both watches the differences aren't significant and it's something I cannot verify myself anyway so won't give you my opinion about it as I don't have one. On all the platforms I'm interested only in sports tracking and performance analysis. Garmin definitely has steeper learning curve, Fitbit is really simple to use. Garmin doesn't have premium, everything is available out-of-box. Fitbit has premium (DRS and a few other features are only premium feature). There are things that Garmin doesn't have (or does quite poor) like there is no food tracking/logging, tracking your weight may be tricky (and no support for fat%, no idea why and I haven't found way to sync it with any smart scale). If you look for stress management and anything like breathing exercises I think Garmin may have something but probably it's easier to use Fitbit (?). Like I said, I'm not the best person to be asked about health&wellbeing features because I'm the last one to use them 🙂 I purely use my watches for sports tracking. What H&W features you need that only Fitbit provides?

[SunsetRunner]

I want a smartwatch that will help me to sleep better, stress less, be more active, and finally have a better diet. I know that's a lot, but if I understand you well, Garmin will shine only in physical activities department? 

To be honest, I don't know that much about hardware features. For my taste, Garmin's devices don't have enough senors to track well all spheres of life that I mentioned above, but maybe I am wrong? 

[t.parker]

I think there are some users here who switched from Garmin to Fitbit and they may give you better insight. My opinion is that no watch will help you sleep better or stress less. This is 100% up to you. All your watch can tell you is whether you slept well or are stressed and really, do we really need watch to tell us that? I open my eyes in the morning and I know whether I slept well. I know context of my day so can easily tell whether I'm stressed (physically or mentally). That's why I don't really do much with data I get because it doesn't tell me anything I wouldn't know. Being more active - well, sometimes just buying a new gadget for this purpose does the job but it's you who needs to be active not your watch 😄 For diet, Fitbit has own food tracking in the app and Garmin needs integration with for example MyFitnessPal (I use MFP but integration with Garmin platform is very disappointing, I use it as standalone tool). So yeah, Fitbit will help you as much as you have will to follow some diet habits and track what you eat. Garmin in general has most of the features that you're after but it may be presented as "too much data" for a user who expects something simple.

The watch is just a tool, regardless which one you will choose. Just see what features you need, which one matches your requirements best and my advice is to pick something already in the market (or wait until the watch is in the market). Lots of wearables suffer issues of premature release and it's very frustrated when features don't work or they are "coming soon" without telling when this "soon" is. We all have different needs and who knows, Sense 2 may be a watch for you and Garmin probably will have many features that you won't even need and ever use. Do good research before you buy anything. Mind as well that for now, it's hard to tell anything about Sense 2 as even moderators don't answer to questions posted here.

[JackDrake]

When it comes to diet or meal plan fitbit is the much better choice in my opinion. On Samsung health you can only use the smartphone app to add meals etc. In Fitbits ecosystem you can use a tablet, PCs Browser or whatever. Much easier and better to read. In addition, the calculation for a day is more motivating on fitbit as you can directly see after a workout or similar how much more calories you have left.

My last Galaxy watch needed to be charged once a day, the actual used charge 5 lasts for > 5 days.

Regarding privacy I'm not happy with both. Samsungs stores data "somewhere" having the option to stop cloud storing, Fitbit at least at google. 

One thing I really miss are more apps. Here I'm looking forward for the sense 2. Having my kalendar on the watch, steering my smart home etc. would be a great advantage.

[KB9WNS]

No smartwatch can do that.  The smartwatch can track your activity levels, heart rate, respiration, oxygen levels and general sleep tracking.  What you do with the data is what is going to drive your fitness and wellness goals.  Fitbits are easy to use with a very intuitive app and website.  Garmin's are much better for the hardcore athletes, the data is much more detailed and the app/website can be overwhelming for the casual user.  I do H.I.I.T. 's and rely on the accuracy and response speed of a chest strap monitor.  A spreadsheet is used to track food, water, weight, glucose, blood pressure and other health metrics.  I started Fitbit with a Blaze, several Versa's and a Sense.  Have a Garmin with chest strap.

Based upon your comment I would recommend a Sense (get the extended warranty and a TPU wrap-around screen protector) and setup a spreadsheet to track stuff that the app does not track such as blood pressure, your doctor's lab results and medical info, your general diary, etc.  If you decide to go hardcore get a Garmin or Polar with a chest strap monitor.  

[JackDrake]

In addition I will definetly wait with an order until some reviews are available. Looking at the sense this watch did not measure heart rate accurate for more than a fistful of users.

[SunsetRunner]

TBH most of the smartwatches are mediocre when it comes to HR accuracy. Even Garmin devices. At the moment, the best is Apple Watch 7 or newer Huawei series. 

[KB9WNS]

The accuracy issue along with the response time is the reason why I use a chest strap during workouts.  Most devices are reasonably accurate during sleep and light activities. Doing H.I.I.T.'s at max heart rate makes it critical to know when one is exceeding max heart rate especially us 60+ older guys.  Chest straps use the same detection mechanism as ECG monitors and are very accurate.

[SunsetRunner]

That's my plan. Stick to Sense 2 for a while, and then try something more complicated. As I mentioned, right now I'm not very active.

[javds]

In that case I would go with the actual Sense:

1. I would assume that the price for the Sense - after the release of the Sense 2 - will fall.

2. Sense 2 brings new features, but it seems that some old ones are going away.

So I would take a close look at which feature set suits you better and then decide.

Speaking for me: I'm eagerly waiting for the new Sense 2, but it seems that I'll stick with the current version for a long time (if the GPS runtime is getting worse. The fact that the Google Assistant isn't included or that navigation will come 'at some point in the future' doesn't matter for me.
I like long runtimes in everyday use and when using GPS.

Me and the Sense 2? Let´s wait and see ...