What is your opinion about the Sense?

[MichaelGrace]

Hi, 

This is a very upfront question but I feel it's necessary. 

I was considering buying a fitbit sense, and get into the fitbit universe (upgrading from my old tomtom runner 2) and getting a whole lot more bang per buck. 

But considering a the reviews and topics in this forum regarding the laughable HR accuracy, robot-like scripted answers from moderators which are little to no help (not their fault, just complying with their "orders" I guess), I must say that all the confidence and hopes I had for getting a Sense are pretty much burnt to a crisp. The price is very steep for every single complaint I read about here or reviews elsewhere. 

Can someone give me their opinion?  What's the scenario? 

Is it a wait a little longer? 

Is it a no-go? 

Is it a wait for a Sense 2?

Thank you for your attention! 

Regards 

-MG

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[t.parker]

@sanman202 the reason why most of the users are rather happy is that they are the actual target of the Fitbit. Any product which tries to do many things will do at least a subset of those things right and this will make some people happy. This is pretty much "a target audience". I believe that for Fitbit this one thing is sleep tracking. There is no way to tell whether it is accurate or not (sleep tracking without proper medical equipment cannot be verified) but the way it's implemented speaks to the majority of people. For me, a long time ago the weight tracking/calories tracking was also a quite good thing. In fact, my first ever tracker, Charge 2 helped me a lot with becoming a healthy human being (and it might be, I'm still here, on this Forum, mostly because of some kind of nostalgia and I really don't want to see the company be sinking like that). The majority of people won't try to verify whether HR tracking is correct. They will take it for granted. Also, most of Fitbit users joins because of a few reasons:

- step tracking

- community and challenges (another thing that Fitbit did right, with exception of removing groups without prior notice a long time ago)

- calorie and weight tracking

- sleep tracking

The majority of users try to get fit, lose weight, add some activity into their daily routine and they look for support, where the community comes. This also reflects how I joined Fitbit. The problem with "happiness" appears when users "evolve" and after reaching certain goals they want more and this is where Sense and other devices fall short. Such users will find out about accurate chest straps. The user will buy one and will have suddenly two questions:

1) Why wrist HR is not as accurate as chest strap?

2) why Fitbit cannot pair with an external HR sensor

And answers to those questions will make a person less happy. Some people will get into sports and will find out the sports tracking support is very poor, too.

Many people have been Fitbit users for many years and they get upset that the product doesn't evolve with them. It is only natural that with the progress we want more. There will be always a huge number of "base users" but they will migrate eventually (and new base users will replace them) because Fitbit doesn't do anything to stay attractive for longer. The "end game" experience isn't there. I'm sure Sense will make a lot of users happy but it isn't a device for everyone in my opinion. In my case, I'm past the point that I need reminders to move or drink water, I don't count steps, I don't track sleep (in fact, sleep tracking made me more stressed, now I rely on very simple "natural" sleep tracking by answering a simple question in the morning "do I feel rested?" 🙂 ). I've been doing all of it in the past and I was rather happy with my Charge 2 (except problems with HR when it was showing "--" in the middle of workouts). Now, I want an advanced sports tracker where I can customize data fields, customize layouts, connect external sensors, have advanced analytics in place, etc. I can't say I was "unhappy" with Sense because I wasn't even expecting it to make me happy (I sort of knew what I was getting into).

For people who want to get in shape and lack any activity in their life Sense (and other models, to begin I would pick a cheaper model) is a good place to start. It won't be perfect, it has its issues but in the end, it will help to do the job. After the "job" is done, with no hard feelings, such users should be ready to part ways if necessary (it really depends on expectations and requirements).

[Goodman15]

Hello there! Initially I was worried my Sense was useless since I was very impatient regarding the "syncing" for the first 3 days after programming it. It seems to work just fine now, but I can't compare it to anything else since I have never owned a Fitbit before. Mine takes a couple of seconds in the morning to sync up, and then, from then on, it follows EVERYTHING!!!!! I went for a bike ride and it even tracked that without me even indicating I was doing that kind of exercise. Actually, I am really enjoying it! Please have patience! 

The only thing I wonder about is getting it wet, as in wearing it while swimming. 

[Cindylouwho57]

It's not the watch per se it's the app which keeps dropping out of the
blue tooth. This in turn doesn't allow it to sync or get call,texts,
notifications. I have to constantly unpair and start from scratch at least
five times a day.
Trying to be patient ...but so frustrating. My other device never gave me
any trouble.

[Goodman15]

Occasionally I have restarted my Android, and as soon as I do that, the Sense instantly syncs. 

I might do this once ( or none) a day. 

I guess I've been lucky with this one, fingers crossed!

[jayinatlanta]

I'm disappointed and am already looking into a different brand. No firmware updates are available that solve the problems, and the only answers are workarounds with rebooting the device or the watch or deleting alarms and re-adding them.

I bought this watch to:

- wake me up in the morning with a silent vibrating alarm

- track sleep

- track exercise

- focus/meditate using the EDA scan/relax

The alarm functionality is absolute garbage. Adding a smart alarm that senses when to wake you up within a 30 minute period will work one time, and never work again - literally won't wake you up the next day. The answer is to delete the alarm, but then the next one you add will stop functioning also. So then you can add a normal alarm that is supposed to wake you up at a specific time on days (like M-F), but even that doesn't work sometimes. Even when an alarm works, sometimes the touchscreen on mine doesn't respond well to the snooze command and I have to tap it over and over again to get it to stop vibrating.

The watch rarely syncs with the app automatically to either do things like record your exercise or sleep. And if you care, this means it almost never syncs automatically to get the updated weather ("Sync the Fitbit mobile app to update"), which completely invalidates the point of not having your phone on you and wanting to check the forecast. You have to force the sync or reboot the watch or reboot the Android device to get the sync to work. When you do force the manual sync, the resulting data is fine.

Meditation / relaxation is the best feature of this watch, and it's the only reason I haven't already moved on. I really like touching the watch for 2 minutes to get a "Sense" of any stressors, and using the relax mode for further mental tuning.

But there are some pretty basic features of a fitness watch these days that I'd expect Fitbit to get right, and I don't think this watch is there.

[MichaelGrace]

Everyone, thank you so much for putting your time and effort into my questions. 

I have made up my mind.

I wish you all the best and a great year.

See you around. 

Best regards, 

- M

[aremick]

I have not had any trouble with that myself. With my Ionic, I had trouble
before I upgraded to a new phone.

So far my only issue with this Sense is the inability to load music on it.

[CDM06]

I was quite honestly shocked on the price for what we get. I have had mine for 3 days and feel as if I am wearing a knock off. I vowed to give it a week but cannot fathom why I should wait to return it. 

I bought this for the health monitoring and was disappointed to discover the following flaws:

1. The oxygen sensor ONLY reads while you sleep and will not give levels but a graph not dictating rates. 

2. Google assistant will not respond to commands for unique names. For example, my husband's name is Jon but because it is not spelled John, it will not acknowledge him

3. There is no oxygen sensor widget, you can only access the night graph on the app.

4. The in call volume resets after every call so the caller cannot hear you, nor you them, at the beginning of every call.

When I contacted customer support chat I was told that the oxygen sensor is only a tool and not for medical purposes. I understand that, but neither is the heart monitor.

[HollieAyne]

Not happy at all. The heart rate sensor is wildly inaccurate. I've been trying to get help with it for months and they just send standard responses or blame placement. I've been a fitbit owner since 2013 and the sense is by far the worst one I've had. Alexa and Google constantly have an error so it's mainly unusable. Most of the time my voice to text doesn't work. I get an error everytime. I have the heart rate zones turned off but keep keeping the vibrations when I'm in and out of range. They won't shut off. With the HR monitor being so inaccurate it's useless. Not to mention unsafe for those trying to stay within a certain zone. It can be off as much as 50BPM. I have photos showing the difference. Fitbit has been no help.   The Versa 2 was great. The Sense is absolutely the worst tacker they have made.

[aremick]

Unfortunately, I got mine second hand and have no recourse to return it.

But I will replace it with something else eventually, and based on their
removal of the music storage capability it will NOT be a fitbit.

Garmin is starting to look pretty good again. ND, s a runner, a device with
accurate pulse rate capability is preferable ...

[Zufallb]

I have the same issues. I am constantly having to reset watch so it syncs. I paid for the Sense because I wanted the convenience of call notifications as well as texts. Very disappointed.

[MOCarter]

It has terrible battery problem. It drained like bad faucet.

[lenstewart]

This is the worst product I've ever owned. Bought it two weeks ago for my fitness and cardio exercise tracking. Not for spotify, not for voice response. Not for any wallet, not for Starbucks, not for Pandora, not for Deezer. I bought it to tell time and track my exercise and cardio sessions. It does not do that. It connects to my phone via Bluetooth most of the time, but often I have to re-pair. It gives my emails and What'sapp. But that's all. It refuses to track my cardio sessions, or to sync the data to my cell phone. I've spent maybe 10 hours uninstalling, reinstalling, flicking Bluetooth on and off. It always says it cannot connect and there's a little button that says "Fix It" but it doesn't fix anything, but sends me into a rabbit hole of pages and links to other pages. Or tries to sell me a "Premium" subscription (maybe that's the whole scam: buy this fitness watch/tracker that will work only if you buy a subscription. If you don't, well, sorry). If you want a watch that plays your Spotify mix, then maybe this is the watch for you. But, the "fit" in "fitbit" is either a bad joke or a very poorly designed watch/app. I had a cheaper Chinese fitness tracker/watch for 2 years and it worked just fine out of the box. Stupid me, I decided I'd like to spent $300 and upgrade. That'll teach me. Don't make the same mistake.

[lbeyries]

I'm not happy with my Sense.  It doesn't track floors ( I will walk up 10 long flights of stairs and it will only track 2) or sleep accurately.  I will have woken up after a full 8 hr restful night's sleep and it will tell me I only slept 2 hours.   And steps are counted by arm swings not actual steps.  So, if you are carrying something, pushing a shopping cart or just not swinging your arms your steps are not counted.  But you could be sitting in a chair watching a movie and steps are counted anytime you move your arm.  It's very frustrating. I think if it's not tracking those things accurately is it tracking anything accurately.    I bought my daughter an iwatch for Christmas and she is so much happier with her watch than I am with mine.   Her's tracks so much better than the Fitbit Sense.    I have only had this watch about 1 1/2 months and I'm very unhappy with it.    

[MManger1611]

Got my Fitbit Sense on Christmas Eve, 6-days ago. 1st impression isn't good. My gearfit 2 did more with my morning alarm than the sense does. Didn't realize I can't download music to it, I guess I thought that was a given and didn't do my research on it. I can't seem to find a watch face that I like better than the default. 
Pro is the battery life and the time it takes to charge up to 100%, super love this feature!

I don't have the premium and won't be buying the premium. Do other watches pull this crap? Hide features behind a pay me monthly wall? 

[SunsetRunner]

I am less than a week wearing Fitbit sense and = I am confused? What's the point of one if you have to log anything meaningful and in depth data cannot be displayed? With no vital sign exporter...etc...  

The bloatware becomes more offensive when the base functions don't work. The device is generally useless to me when the data reports are paywalled and the API is not worth the effort to make my own UI. 

Downsides given by other users help me realise I am not fussy or inane. This thing is terrible. 

Will return this junk asap.   

[Abrydon]

I’ve had Fitbits for years, loved my versa2 until it stopped working just after a year. I’ve already had my sense replaced once and it’s still not working right. Unfortunately I’m looking at a different brand as well! 

[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.

[DMel08]

In my opinion they released it too early without doing adequate testing. Instead, it seems they left the testing to their users. I think the sheer volume of complaints on this board bears this out.

[Clove6060]

Still happy since11/20