Fitbit Announces New Apple Watch Rival 'Versa' and Kid-Friendly 'Ace'

[DeepIn2U]

They look like dollar store merchandise. I like the kids model better.

I think that's the key ... rake in sales and revenues via mass number of units sold. The kids model is VERY smart angle and a boon if they ever get into partnership with school boards to outline fitness and bring in sponsorship outside ... not unlike what State Universities do with BaseBall, Football and Basketball students.

Apple it's time to:
Revamp your Nike+ lineup, in fact all S4 watches to have double the battery life, faster and much smaller processing cores.
Remove UI delays like when launching the Strong App! (I'll bother the developer on this, yet the Music iOS app also has a 3 second launch count on WatchOS4 on S2 Nike+
Series 1 models should be priced at $99 sell to youth.

The Ontario School Board seriously screwed up physical fitness activities (even killing and filling pools, shortening school yards, etc) while under the last administration for K-Gr8 students. We need proper fitness program for children in schools. It's smart, it's a huge cost savings for future of health care and it's just right!

 

[eyeseeyou]

For me, having to carry a phone on runs is a non-starter ... too bulky/heavy. That's what makes the AW Series 3 the perfect running watch for me. Just wish you could stream Pandora directly to the watch like you can Apple Music/Radio.

I never saw the value in having gps or music stored locally on my AW, especially since the battery life on my previous Series 0 was atrocious, but now that I'm slowly getting into running outdoors I could see myself taking a run with only my bluetooth earbuds and aw2.

ehhh still would probably carry my phone lol

 

[macking104]

If only it had GPS.

the more expensivevversion has GPS..

 

[chucker23n1]

Some things can be displayed effectively within a circle (just take any analogue watch/clock face, but also things that show percentages, eg, 'closing the rings') but generally you are right. I was just explaining why people find round watches (generally) more appealing visually. But visual appeal is naturally only one aspect.

Right.

And how does it compare (on paper) with all the various Android Wear smartwatches?

No idea. For starters, most of those are terribly huge and thus completely stupid for many wrists, especially female ones. This one seems slightly smaller but still larger than Apple Watch. They seem to do a good job hiding its actual dimensions.

I wouldn’t mind some competition, though.
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the more expensivevversion has GPS..

It doesn’t appear to. Only NFC.

 

[Bob190]

ehhh still would probably carry my phone lol

That's what makes the Apple Watch Series 3 w/LTE the ultimate running watch ... there is zero need to carry your bulky phone with you.

Plus some of the running apps are now pretty good (Strava, iSmoothRun), and can rival what you would get from a Garmin.

 

[eyeseeyou]

That's what makes the Apple Watch Series 3 w/LTE the ultimate running watch ... there is zero need to carry your bulky phone with you.

Plus some of the running apps are now pretty good (Strava, iSmoothRun), and can rival what you would get from a Garmin.

Good point although for me personally I still don’t have enough use cases to where that extra data fee would be worth it just to occasionally leave my phone at home for an hour or so.

Do people really leave their phones at home all day now?

 

[Lotusman]

Maybe it's just me... but I find the Fitbit App/dashboard thingy wayyyyy nicer to work with, understand, get data from and navigate around than the Apple health app? Maybe I'm missing some magic button in health that simplifies it all but I seem to have to dig, up down and sideways in health? The Fitbit App is the one thing keeping me in their ecosystem.

I'm far more about the fitness aspect than talking to my wrist or sending unintelligible text messages, plus (and this seems to be entirely overlooked by Apple), if you're over 50 (when your arms start to shrink)... you can't read the feckin' screen without glasses... on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off...

 

[falcn]

Their website advertises "Swimproof**" and then in small characters at the bottom "**Water-resistant to 50M.". Not bad.

Yep, you'll be fine as long as you are 50 meters or more away from water

 

[manu chao]

Maybe it's just me... but I find the Fitbit App/dashboard thingy wayyyyy nicer to work with, understand, get data from and navigate around than the Apple health app? Maybe I'm missing some magic button in health that simplifies it all but I seem to have to dig, up down and sideways in health? The Fitbit App is the one thing keeping me in their ecosystem.

You are not alone in thinking so. And my main reason for sticking with Fitbit is its app, not the device hardware. The Health app also seems to more of a (health/activity) data clearing house via which different apps can record and extract data.

 

[Lotusman]

You are not alone in thinking so. And my main reason for sticking with Fitbit is its app, not the device hardware. The Health app also seems to more of a (health/activity) data clearing house via which different apps can record and extract data.

YES YES YES, that's what I need/want/demand. It's like Apple has their fingers in their ears... la lala la lalalala la la

For a company that prides itself on usability the Apple Health app sucks ass... (compared to Fitbit)

TY!

 

[GeekishlyGreek]

If they're anything like my 8 year old, they get plenty of fitness through school and just being a kid. The fact that Fitbit has mass produced these things speaks volumes to the current fitness level of kids today. Sure less invasive blood glucose testing is always welcome, but the real problem is the fact that there's such a great need for it now due to rising DM rates in children.

My daughter actually wants one of these fitbits. (the kids who will want one are the kids that see their parents have one)
I think it's very useful, so am going to get her one too.

Even if they don't use all the features, just being aware of the relationship between calories in versus calories out (with or without a fitbit) is a very useful thing to be conscious of, at any age. (wish I knew that stuff when I was young). They never taught it properly at school, and most adults are still clueless). This has alot more to do with the childhood obesity problem than alot of people realize. So having a way to actually monitor this stuff I think is a great way for kids to become aware of that calories in versus calories out relationship on a conscious level (also helps with the understanding that we can affect it by either food or exercise, and do it in an easier way rather than just flying blind). So I don't think this is a bad thing at all.

The only downside I would say is that while it is now possible for kids to track steps and calories burned with these things, the one technology that has not caught up yet for kids yet is bodyfat testing equipment .(for example, the Omron BioEletcrical impedance grips, or the many electronic scales out there). Even the skinfold caliper method (like AccuMeasure or idass calipers, etc), have the same age limitation. Because while they will measure the skinfolds still, the charts that relate to what those measurements equate to in bodyfat go by age (and again, they only cover adult age ranges).

I could be wrong, but perhaps this is just because there may not be enough scientific data in order to be able to even create such a chart. So for the moment it looks like BMI is all a child could really go by. But as BMI is not really an accurate thing to go by to determine how much of your weight is actual bodyfat, I really hope the bodyfat chart data gets updated to include all the age ranges at some point, so that anyone can have accurate information, regardless of when you start.