Fitbit Sense Advanced Smartwatch with Tools for Heart Health, Stress Management & Skin Temperature Trends, Carbon/Graphite, One Size (S & L Bands Included)

UPDATE: 2 FULL YEARS later practically to the date. My SENSE crapped out. Was a good Smartwatch up until it just started not working (only showed fitbit icon, intermittent vibration, would work for a few hours, then go back to showing nothing. Was a quick death). Not changing rating as all these gadgets are basically throw aways. Now back to original review:---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Probably want to select reviews based on "most recent" as that will provide you with most up to date and relevant information pertaining to this product. I acquired my Fitbit Sense in June 2021, it has not yet been a month, but so far so good with 24/7 use. I am slow to check out and use all the features, but what I have interacted with so far has been stellar.I have been using Fitbit products since April 2015- kinda have a love/hate relationship with this brand. I use the activity tracker constantly, and I greatly enjoy the app. So I have stuck with it as I upgraded over the years (Charge x2, Blaze x2, Versa 2, and now Sense). As with many Fitbit users, there is a known frustration with the products. Despite some of my own qualms, and having the ability to spend whatever I want on any fitness tracker I want, I still end up (so far) with this brand. Mostly because I haven't found a tracker and app that I totally like better. I even have a Garmin, but I find that so far off base of accuracy (save for HR), that it is a glorified watch. Garmin seems to do best for actual intended activities (going for a run, going for a long walk, going cycling) where it seems to not be accurate in steps for any other part of the day (only counts about 1/3 of actual steps unless engaged in a longer duration activity, and even then it takes a few minutes for it to start). Also, the app seems to have a lot of info, but doent really tell me anything. That being said, when it was time for me to buy another fitness tracker--I went from Versa 2 to Garmin.. back to Fitbit. I went with the Sense because the price was right, and it was an upgrade over the Versa 2. After my underwhelming experience with the Garmin, I would have happily taken over a 2nd hand Charge from 2015. At least my steps would be accurate.Ok, so back to the Sense. WOW, the visual on the screen is really clear and precise. Even way more so over the Versa 2, and I had no issues with that. Set up was EASY, and QUICK. Basically, just like in adding any other fitbit, just let it pair and it will very quickly be all set and ready to go. I didnt have any weird upselling offerings, or at least nothing that wasn't fantastically easy to opt out from. Nothing shady that I saw.ONE POINT that I DO think is important to know is that if you happen to have a Versa 2 (Not sure if this also happens with regular Versa, Versa Lite, or Versa 3), but this could not be added alongside my Versa 2. I had to take the Versa 2 offline in order to add this Sense. I know this is the case with trying to add more than one of the same products, yet I have always been able to have several Fitbits paired no problem, as long as they were different models. SO, I guess the Fitbit app sees Sense and Versa 2 as the same. Not a big deal as my Versa 2 had essentially died after I wore it on a hot humid day and my sweat killed it (then I brought it back to life after putting it in a bag of rice for about a week, Then afterward the battery was never the same. It drained to nothing daily.. and I needed to not have to worry about daily charging.. hence my picking up a Garmin in the interim to see if I liked them enough to spring for a more fancy model--nope-- and ended up buying the Sense.)Hope it lasts. I love the look. The band is way better than the old pin style. Swapping out bands is so much quicker, easier, less need for super fine motor skills. LOVE the charger. It just sort of magnetizes to the fitbit. No need to clip in.SP02 wasn't the main feature I was drawn to, but in order to have accurate use it seems a special clock face is needed, and that clock face will drain battery quicker (from what I have read). That being said,Battery life has been excellent for me.Love being able to add other apps, and features. Scrolling is easy, turning face on/off is not complicated.HEART RATE is accurate. I have tested it against my garmin, two blood pressure devices, and a doctors appointment. All saying the same.Also, I the voice assistant is great. You can choose GOOGLE Assistant, OR Alexa. This is why selecting most recent reviews on this sort of stuff is important, as the early release of Sense did not have Google Assistant, but would soon with an update. True, and they followed through as I have it.AT THIS TIME, I have ZERO issues, concerns with this Fitbit Sense. I will be back to update as I learn more, or if I have anything worth sharing that is bad. I keep up with my reviews as needed.

Let me first say that I am not a smart watch person. I had the Samsung Watch before and absolutely hated it. I was very resistant to switch from my faithful Charge 3 to a new device that seemed similar to a smart watch, especially one that clearly had features that hadn't been fully sorted out yet. At the same time, some of these features, like the 24/7 heartrate monitoring and improved data for sleep monitoring were definitely a draw.I haven't had this device for months yet, and may update this in the future if I notice different things, but I will say if you go into this with the idea that you're buying a health tracker, you'll get about what you expect. This is not a fancy smart watch and if you want all the music features, additional apps, and things of that nature, this device is not for you. It doesn't function like a smart watch near at all. The music player is limited to Deezer, which I haven't tried. It allows you to navigate Pandora and Spotify on your phone through the device, which is literally the only feature I wanted a smart watch for when I was teaching dance, so for me it's perfect. Almost everything else focuses on your health.Other reviews have commented on the press point to activate the watch being problematic, but I have had no issues. It doesn't always come on when I turn my wrist to face, which was the same issue with all my previous Fitbit devices. However, the press point to turn it on is basically the same idea as my Charge 3, so maybe that's why I have no issues there.Not all the newly available metrics have obvious uses. The additional sleep data is very much up for interpretation, but if you keep a log with how you feel when you wake in the morning, any correlation becomes obvious. While I don't know how to interpret this data myself, it is something I've mentioned to my doctor and we will be reviewing on my next visit to help give us a bigger picture of what contributes to my poor quality sleep and other sleep challenges. This is one of the reasons I opted to upgrade when my Charge 3 was still working great and perfectly serviceable.In additional metrics, we should talk about that EDA scan that's mentioned in all the reviews, but no one seems to understand. I'm actively trying to train myself to make use of that feature. A nifty little thing I've noticed, EDA responses don't appear when I'm under high stress, but they do appear when I've experimented with using the quick scan feature as a non-visual timer for deep breathing in the middle of a anxiety attack. While I don't know if this is reliable, it is giving my medical team more information to try and figure out what's going on, so this may have useful implication in the future.Another note on the EDA quick scan, as I haven't done any of the guided sessions, it gives you information on your heartrate variability in comparison to your baseline, which I assume is taken from your sleep baseline. Below baseline indicates high stress where above indicates a relaxed state. For me, this has become a useful tool to make sure I'm getting enough exercise, which directly impacts my depression. I know some people out there say "just make sure you get XYZ amount of exercise every day." For me this is giving me useful data on how much and how often is enough to get that number up. Will a run or yoga in the morning be effective for the day? Does an evening routine impact the next morning? It's quantifiable data that I can use as a cue in building my own routine.I also want to mention the other feature that sold me on this device, the 24/7 heartrate monitoring. Before the pandemic (and became increasingly difficult throughout the pandemic) I had taken up running. One of the things my training app asked was my heartrate during my run. Only problem was I could not accurately get that data as my Charge 3 needed me to remain stationary for an accurate heartrate read. While my heartrate on a run may not have been a necessary detail to include, not having that heartrate often meant exercises were missed and other activities that possibly should have flagged a response didn't. My active minutes have dramatically increased as a result of having more accurate heartrate monitoring. I am also getting a much more accurate look at my activity levels and my calorie intake versus calories burned. This constant data is a lot more useful for anyone who is monitoring their health during exercise, trying to get an accurate calories in/calories out record, and anyone trying to get an accurate picture of what their activity level is throughout the day beyond simply steps to include things previous trackers may have missed. It even picked up on 4 minutes of cardio levels while I was doing an excited sword demonstration for my kids while homeschooling. Is that 4 minutes useful time? Probably not, but it's good to put in my list of activities Fitbit wouldn't have noticed before, but logs now, which also includes dance and other movement exercises that weren't enough to trigger my Charge 3 to identify them as exercise. It was disappointing that 2 hours of dance 3 days a week would often only show up as maybe 30 minutes each day, and sometimes not at all. Those same practices (with an admittedly shorter 30 minute cap due to lack or stamina, thanks pandemic...) are being picked up in their entirety, even if my heartrate elevation is small, but enough to push it into registering in one of the "zones". This has helped a good deal in getting an overall portrait of my health and activity levels, which I'll be bringing to my doctor on my next visit.The only thing I have found is I haven't been able to get 6 days of battery life out of it, generally landing at 4-5 days. For me this isn't an issue as I don't wear my device to shower and have had a habit since my original Charge HR (way back in the day) of popping it on the charger whenever I shower. This may also be why I don't have any effect from the device or band as my wrist gets regular breaks.If you're primarily looking for a smart watch and just want something with some extra features, this will not be the device for you. While the extra health tracking is a great draw, it loses a lot of the functionality my old smart watch had, the notifications for things like texts don't always come through (which is fine for me because I don't want that) and the pay feature isn't fantastic. Again, that doesn't matter to me because it's a feature I don't intend to really use anyway, but had to test it out. The apps are limited, and options for music and taking calls aren't wonderful.On the other hand, if you're looking for a device to give you detailed health information, to accurately log fitness activities, and increased metrics for sleep, this may just be the device for you. It's the best fitness tracker I've seen so far, and this is giving my medical team some new information to work with, which may or may not be useful in the long run, but looks promising. That EDA quick scan had potential for people who suffer clinical anxiety or even PTSD as it can be used to cue deep breathing, and the resulting data may result in creating a better profile of what's going on during an attack, or at the very least can result in creating a cue to take specific actions in a way that simply feeling in the moment cannot. Not all of this data will be useful for everyone, but it could be useful for someone who needs this kind of data to help understand their sleep patterns, anxiety levels, how activity, even in small amounts of a few minutes here and there, impacts their mental health, or even just someone who wants an accurate profile of their physical fitness throughout their exercises.I was 100% resistant to the idea of yet another smart watch, but in the end I'm happy I made the switch. The added information I've gained has given me a lot more understanding of what's going on with me. I now have clues as to why nights I get plenty of quality sleep (according to previously going on just my sleep score) I wake up feeling tired, and I'm seeing a correlation with sleep temp particularly and low quality sleep. That 24/7 heartrate has been huge. I can now actually monitor my activity level instead of trying to track exercise my Charge missed (because I never turn on exercises prior to start as I never remember or can't figure out which fits best), and result in trying to figure out a routine that way. Everything is logged now, making it simple and accurate. The EDA scan is becoming a tool to manage my anxiety, and while the metrics may or may not be useful, it does cue activities which are useful, so even if it's no more than placebo effect, the end result is valuable.What you will get out of this device will be very personal and it depends on how you use it, and what you expect to get from it. The Fitbit Sense can be a useful tool for you and your medical team, or even you and your trainer, depending on your goals. This device is definitely not for everyone, and the price point does not make it worth it for every user, but if you're looking for a tool to track your health, this one seems to be the best on the market to date.

I wrote a very negative review about this product on Saturday because I had not been able to get it to work. I had downloaded the app to my phone and tried several times to link the Fitbit without success. My original review is in parentheses. (I am assuming this is a one off because this Fitbit Sense was very highly rated. I ordered it because it is one of the models that can detect AFib. I have not been able to get it to work. I downloaded the app but the device does not respond to anything. Most of the time the screen is blank. When something does come up, it is simply an icon telling me to download the app, repeated in several languages. So I can't even use it as a watch or step tracker, let along monitoring my heart rhythm! I will be returning it.)After uninstalling and reinstalling the app three times, the device finally linked to it and started working as intended. I have not experienced an episode of Afib since getting the Sense Fitbit so I do not know if it will actually alert me when one is starting. The pedometer works well, keeping track of my steps and reminding me to move when I have been sitting too long. It tracked my sleep well last night and accurately displays my heart rate. After a very frustrating start, I am happy with my purchase.