General review about the Fitbit Sense

[SunsetRunner]

I like Fitbit. But after using a Sense for about 8 months, I come to the conclusion that, with all its bells and whistles, Sense was a bite more than Fitbit could chew. And that's a pity, because it's affecting the brand's prestige, in my opinion.

The only feature I find GOOD since the beginning is the new ECG graphs, totally approved by my cardiologist, besides FDA and other countries Health Authorities. But not its Afib auto-detection, though. It works poorly.

SpO2 seems ok and useful, in line with clinical measurements I did.

Steps seem also ok, but who wouldn't expect that after years of experience?

GPS: just bearly enough. But I rather use my phone's GPS, which is clearly more accurate. The question is: could we expect more of a GPS in a smartwach with so many features?

As for the rest?

Heart rate (HR): useful when you learn how to use it and its pitfalls. As with several other features, it's a pity the manual and help pages don't warn you enough about what can often go wrong.

The same with HR dependent features, like Calories and Active Zone Minutes. I find them useful to compare different days, but quite rough, mostly in absolute values. We must learn first what can affect their values.

Resting Heart Rate seems good enough, though. It requires no hand movements, which are the weakest point of HR readings.

Floors: still a disaster. Useless.

As for the other features, I really don't know whether I can trust them or not. So, I just look at them, try the EDA just for curiosity, but don't take them seriously. Why would I?

So, Fitbit: please continue trying to improve Sense's software (many of us are not willing to buy a new expensive Fitbit every year) and be more careful on next devices. Maybe including less but more reliable and accurate features?

(cont.)

BATTERY. In spite of complaints from several users, I think it is still one of Sense's strongest points. Actually, it was one of the main reasons why I chose to buy a Sense, 8 months ago, and on this feature I have not regretted so far. For me, each battery charge lasts from 1 to 3 days, depending on the kind of use and the features I have switched on. GPS, e.g., uses a lot of battery. Not using GPS nor ECG, I easily get 3 days until I reach 25% of total battery charge. Not bad at all, comparing to other competing brands.

[clk1986]

SpO2 wasn't available initially, of I remember correctly.  It is also only part of sleep tracking.  If I was CS, I'd just suggest keeping up on updates (I'm not sure what newer Sense ship with, but there are often a series of updates and as far as I know, they need to be downloaded and installed oldest to newest.). 

Not currently having any issues, USA Sense user here.  

For the SpO2 clockface to show, I believe your Sense firmware has to be completely updated and your app up to date, it might state on the SpO2 clockface description what firmware is needed.

As far as WiFi goes, it's seems like it is an issue with how your network is configured.  Security encryption type might not be compatible or your 2.4gHz and 5gHz are bonded. Or possibly another issue.

I do notice some spike similar to that when I'm doing high intensity cardio, but typically it's only when I first check the tracker, but the rest of the time it's...steady?

I'll have to see if I can refrain from looking at my watch next time to do a session and whether that affects the spike.  I kind of assumed it was just having issues due to movement/hair on my wrist.  Maybe flipping over to sense HR on the underside of my wrist while doing cardio will yield better results.

I'll let you know how it goes, hopefully tomorrow I will get a normal session or two in.

Moderator edit: merged reply

[SunsetRunner]

Thanks for your post, @belovedbyHim .

I find it appalling how Fitbit customer support has gone so low on Sense, in particular when I compare with the good support I had about a year ago concerning a Versa 2 I owned and returned by their own suggestion, due to skin problems it was causing on my wrist. I have not yet had to use customer support on Sense, all the help I needed has come from this Community forum.

Sometimes I can't avoid thinking that we, users who bought a Sense, are maybe being used as guinea pigs while testing the many (too many, in my view) new health and other features in Sense, many of them apparently not properly tested before their release. And that it looks like Sense is like a beta test by Fitbit, at our expense, of some new great watch that will be released some day in the near future. Not a great perspective for us, Sense users. I hope I'm wrong on this.

UPDATE:

This post was much about replying to a @belovedbyHim  post. After this, belovedbyHim post was removed, apparently by this Community moderators. Later posts by the same user in this thread make me now wonder how truethful was everything in that removed post. So, please take this post of mine with a pinch of salt.

[Jules565]

Thanks for all the replies! Glad I’m not the only one having issues they are very frustrating. I wish I would have bought the basic version of Fitbit , and shelled out for an Apple Watch .


Sent from my iPhone

[SunsetRunner]

@clk1986 , after several tests, I came to the conclusion that at least the initial spikes on some of my walk HR records happen AFTER I was touching Sense screen while setting it up in the beginning.

As for flipping over the Sense on the underside of the wrist, I've never tried that, but I tried to shave my arm hair under the Sense. The quality of the HR readings improved a little bit, but nothing dramatic. Besides, as Sense should be placed either higher or lower above the wrist bone depending on the activity of the moment, it didn't look good when the shaved part was on view for everybody to see 😁

@SunsetRunner , I couldn't help noticing how clean and devoided of background wigglings your Sense HR record is, when compared to mine. Mine were always like this and to this day I still don't know whether they are caused by Sense's HR readings noise or are just the way my heart works on these walks. But I'm more inclined to a mix of both. Anyway, that never bothered me much.

[Jdsenter]

Wow I have read your previous topics @belovedbyHim, but never had any issues like that. My Ionic and Sense have both worked on WiFi but I use my hotspot on my phone, SpO2 has worked during sleep on both devices. I always wonder how there seems to be such wide issues with these devices. Some users never get a device that just works. Only issues I had is water related and was caused by a chip in the screen. Now is this device accurate is the question from @SunsetRunner? Mine is close enough, not perfect, but acceptable to me.

The bigger question is trying to create an all in one device, means to me, the device does not do everything great, but good enough, you can't create a device that does it all with out trade offs. That is where Fitbit I think needs to focus on, make the device better over time (software updates), but their updates don't detail what they fix or how that fix caused a trade off that broke another feature. 

[SunsetRunner]

Thanks for your feedback, @Jdsenter .

The last words of your comment match what I've been thinking so far about my Sense: "Mine is close enough, not perfect, but acceptable to me".

But this doesn't invalidate these relevant questions: Why isn't Sense better? Or why often isn't it providing results as good as many of us were expecting, taking into account all the publicity and its price? Or why, with some less known parameters, we don't even know whether they are right or wrong, good or bad? Because, while selling a device with many health measurements and by a not so low price, at the same time Fitbit apparently takes no blame for possible wrong values, and there are quite a few. And some can be quite important for many users, like heart rate, which has been around in the market for some time already. And, most of all, many of the current issues began, or got worse, after a Fitbit firmware/OS update...

[belovedbyHim]

Thank you for your thoughts.  we set up a dumbed down channel on our WIFI to try and address this issue but no joy.
I have done ever update as suggested by Fitbit.  I actually called before I emailed them and so I was following along step by step for nearly 2 hours and still cannot get this to work! 
When I bought this in June Sp02 was available.  it's not like I've had it very long now! just 3 months but it's been nothing like advertised.
I'm glad you are not having issues but I have had nothing but!

I have been with fitbit since my kids got me my first one in 2013.  I'm so disappointed in this product I'm looking at options! Sadly I'm out my $200!

That is my thought Too!!

I'd accept close enough but no readings at all is unacceptable!!  It seems to me that I got a defective product and that FItbit should replace it at the very least but their response is that needed to happen in the first 45 days and it didn't.  Well it didn't because they informed me there was an update coming that would fix the problem.  I waited in hopes that it would not realizing that when it didn't I would be Screwed!!

Moderator edit: merged reply

[clk1986]

@SunsetRunner Good to hear you tried this!  I typically have to do a light trim to about 1cm because my hair tends to get pinched where the wristband meets the watch body (Ouch!) But haven't gone to the extreme of a close shave on my wrist, I think I'd have to end up shaving my whole arm to Make it look...normal?

I do need to get in the habit of placing the Sense higher up my forearm, I generally just tighten it one notch and leave it where it is. My forearm gets bigger the further up my arm I go, so I find that it's harder to keep the Sense in place if I do what is recommended. It always ends up at my wrist and loosey-goosey.

[Jdsenter]

@belovedbyHim , I have found thru these forums, support is non existent the moment your warranty is up and during all you get is a refurbed device, if my device was not working within the first 30 days, I would return it where I got it from and exchange it. Each state changes warranties in the USA and method of payment changes returns as well, but never would go thru Fitbit, you and others taught me that... 

Now Sense is a good smart watch, but I expected more of an upgrade from Ionic, but it is just modest upgrade, some more bells and whistles, but I expected more polish, like heart rate and SpO2, exercise tracking should be exceptional. Was hoping it would take ECG's on its own, tracking my electrical pulses, instead of me having to hold the watch with two fingers, or a palm. Like it attempts to track sleeping and stress.

[SunsetRunner]

@clk1986 , your experience with placing Sense on the forearm is very similar to mine. I ended up concluding that the place where I get better HR results, besides Sense not keeping sliding down the forearm or, alternatively, having it too tight, was just about 1 finger above the wrist bone. Maybe my fingers are thicker than Fitbit's standard finger 😁

[SunsetRunner]

@belovedbyHim , I can see 3 posts from you in the last 1/2h. Have you tried to reload your web browser and check the previous page of this thread?

[belovedbyHim]

No, I got an email from Fitbit Mods letting me know they had removed my post.  It's the one I made last night about all the issues I've had since day one along with their responses.  They don't want the fact that they are NOT going to do anything about the problems to be widely known.  You can scroll through all 3 pages and it's gone. Also gone is a comment someone made about those of us who got suckered into buying a Sense being the guinea pigs for all the items fitbit wanted to try!

[SunsetRunner]

@belovedbyHim ,

Your comment you mention, from yesterday, seems to have been removed indeed. I have it on a Community auto email, though.

The other comment you mention, a reply to your comment, is still there. I posted it and I'm sorry that you put in my pen some words I didn't write.

Putting all this together, you must be more careful and more accurate with what you write.

[belovedbyHim]

I am sorry if I said something that was not what you intended.  That was not my intention. Your Comment: "Sometimes I can't avoid thinking that we, users who bought a Sense, are maybe being used as guinea pigs while testing the many (too many, in my view) new health and other features in Sense, many of them apparently not properly tested before their release. And that it looks like Sense is like a beta test by Fitbit, at our expense, of some new great watch that will be released some day in the near future. Not a great perspective for us, Sense users. I hope I'm wrong on this."
Ok so you didn't say "Suckered" but that is how it feels from my perspective.
I am just so frustrated at having wasted $250 and then to have Fitbit remove my posts, which were my experiences and their response copied verbatim!  I'm NOT making stuff up here and I am being completely Truthful!!! (I do not care for your insinuation that I am not because the Mods decided to remove my unflattering posts)  I really don't care that they don't like it Censorship is wrong! I have all the emails as well as the ticket number if They (FB)  or you doubt the veracity of my experience.

[SunsetRunner · Accepted solution]

Fitbit Sense is a complex smartwatch with many features, several of them are new when compared to previous Fitbit devices. All these features, old and new, provide many values obtained by a device (Sense) placed on the wrist.

There have been many complaints and appeals for help from users in this Community Forum about several Sense issues and problems, many of them came up or got worse after a Fitbit OS/firmware update in May/June 2021.

This thread is mainly about discussing and exchanging experiences and ideas between Sense users on the topic "Is Sense more than Fitbit can chew?", having in mind helping each other on getting the most from Sense, providing feedback about what each one thinks is good and bad and how to solve or minimize the bad or not so good stuff. And also what should be fixed by Fitbit as soon as possible and what each of us thinks about what can be expected from Fitbit on all these, given the apparent inability by Fitbit to solve many of the problems and issues in a timely manner, some of them waiting for a satisfactory solution for months, some even since Sense's release, about a year ago.

So, the requested BEST ANSWER is the sum of all the posts in this thread.

[MonroCoury]

What's keeping me from going back to Fitbit:

- Inaccurate OHR sensor.. seriously I haven't used the sense and I'm yet to see an in depth review that praised the OHR for accuracy. Meanwhile, here's how the one on my Fenix 6X compares to the industry benchmark polar H10:

[IMG]https://i.ibb.co/jM6CJzQ/Smart-Select-20210831-224732-Gallery.gif[/IMG]

- No compatibility with chest straps or any sort of external sensors, neither ANT+ nor BLE. External sensors vastly improve the accuracy of the collected data, making them a must have for people serious about fitness tracking, especially chest strap HR sensors. Even the best OHR sensors are useless for exercises involving lots of wrist movements (like training with weights) or sudden drops it spikes in HR, like HIIT. You can't even pair a running dynamics pod with the watches to get accurate pace cadence and other running data.

- No watches that will last, stainless steel, titanium, or sapphire crystal screen are all things you could buy from Garmin or Apple, not so much from Fitbit.

I want to like Fitbit, the app is just the best in the business, and their prices are pretty reasonable for what you get, but without the above 3, they'll never be a serious exercise/fitness tracking tool.

[SunsetRunner]

Thanks for your input, @MonroCoury .

I totally agree with most of what you said, mainly:

• The general innacuracy of Sense optical HR. In some circumstancies it works surprisingly well, but in others... a total disaster.
• The lack of compatibility with external chest straps. I just bought one, I had to. I will have to use a non-Fitbit watch with it when its phone app is not enough. That was Fitbit's choice.

As for the other bits you mention, thanks for sharing with us. I just don't have enough experience and knowledge to discuss them here.

[jmcewen]

Fitbit had nailed it with the Ionic. It was a smartwatch for adults. The Sense looks and works as if it was created for an overzealous design student's grad school thesis.

[Marybotkin]

I'm not convinced Fitbit has the ability to solve/resolve/fix all the current problems. I'm. Looking for an alternative to Fitbit...NOT...Apple either.

-------------

I completely agree. I loved the Ionic, unfortunately it will burn you AND possibly your house down. So I opted for the "Sense", it never works and always needs charging, Sense. It is a horrid choice. Tries to do too  many things and does none well. Unfortunately, now it won't charge but Fitbit will send me another, useless charger, since the first one doesn't work. Too bad for me that I have now gone past any return or refund times, so I'm out over $225.00 bucks and have no usable, working smart watch...just dumb me.

[Dchapman]

Agreed. I have experienced pretty much all the problems reported by others. If I can't wear the watch for more than 8-10 hours (after which I have to fight with it to recharge) what is the point of the night features. It seems that the sense is being sold so customers have to buy the Premium subscription to get any value at all from the metrics collected. Seriously folks, watch out and don't get duped into this.

Looks like a Garmen for my next purchase.