Fitbit works with my company's pedometer plans where I can earn $600 per year in rewards for tracking steps. Apple watch does not. This is where Apple screwed up. They needed to take things further than just being a fashion accessory and try to actually make it a useful medical device that insurance companies offer incentives for using. Oh well.
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Fitbit Announces 'Surge' Fitness 'Super Watch', Two New Activity Trackers
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no it isnt. as an ios ecosystem dweller, i place value on healthkit. i want synergy w/ other data sets and devices. i do not want nor value "data silos" of sectioned off app data like this that i cant use w/ the rest of the ecosystem.
ignoring that is silly.
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FB is a niche device, AW is a generalist device. same way that point & shoots (niche) had longer batteries than smartphones (generalist)...but generalist devices are "good enough" for most. thus they squeezed out point & shoots. same thing.
You sir are incorrect! How does a fitness or sleep tracker track your sleep? With the same accelerometer and other sensors thats already in the device. Now Apple chose not to include first party support for sleep analysis but that doesn't mean a 3rd party dev won't pic up the slack and create a sleep cycle app you'd launch when you lay down to sleep. Also no one knows the battery life on the Apple watch so you may not even need to charge every day.
Or I can do all of that in the Fitbit app. Now. Without HealthKit. Like now. Or in ten minutes.
Not to mention the health app is ridiculously ugly and clumsy. An afterthought in the UI at best. It is horrid IMO
And also VirginHealth which integrates with Fitbit. Many employers are signing up for VirginHealth, I'm hopeful that Apple will try to integrate with it as well.
You could of course of said:
"so...for only 40% more you can get the Apple Watch"
But I guess that wouldn't sound the same...
Yes, but I currently have 3 other apps putting data into health kit. All 3 providing me with feedback on health related stats. Providing me with one place to view all of it and keeping a consistent database for everything. I am sure we will see other companies come out with comparable products with health kit soon enough.
All this may not seem like a big deal now, with apps currently just scratching the surface with what it can do. As of right now apps are just inputting data with non really using all the data being stored there. Give it time and we will see much more robust use of health kit. One app might be keeping tracking of your weight, calories, food etc, while another device/app inputs your heart rate. Apps then have the potential to read this data and perhaps tailor a workout program, or provide food suggestions.
The possibilities become endless once you have all this data in the same place.
You miss the point, Apple Health app can host more health related data than any other app ever made, and this is why Apple said to the industry focus on hardware and integration and not to worry about building mediocre apps. Build great hardware, fitness trackers, sleep trackers, glucometers, blood pressure cuffs, scales etc... And sometime in the future we will have our lab results sent encrypted directly to our phones and maybe the app will only be accessible by touch ID (wishful thinking) but if the banks are pushing and supporting Apple Pay so heavily this might be a reality soon too. Have you even bother to fully read what the Health app can do?
Different product categories dude. Apple watch doesn't have GPS. Useless for runners ( unless you plan on lugging your iPhone 6+ with you)
You know Apple Watch works with iPhone 5 and higher, right? And I typically carry my phone with me anyway, so it's not an issue.
Apple has certainly indicated that you have to charge this device every night. And there is nothing out there that makes people think it will have two day battery life, so charging every other day is the best we can possibly hope for. We don't know, but we've been given very strong hints. So while the technology is there to analyze sleep, the battery life isn't. It certainly doesn't seem like Apple's watch is going to be as good at some stuff as the bands that are currently available.
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I went jogging with my 6 this weekend. It really was not ideal. My Q10 is smaller and it may become my jogging phone. The 6+ (presumably in some sort of case) is going to be even worse.
glad i got rid of my force and picked up the vivosmart from garmin. If the charge was waterproof i might have considered it but its pretty much the same as the force was.
Apple clearly expects that you charge the Apple Watch overnight, they referred to that multiple times. Even if it only needed charging every second night, that could mean only tracking your sleep every second night.
But the question is naturally (a) How long does the charging take? If it only takes 30 minutes, you might be able to charge it during your morning routine, and (b) whether the battery lasts 24 hours easily, because then you could charge it during the evening before you go to bed.
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Health.app might turn out as comprehensive as you think, or it might be an also-ran, like iBooks, the Podcast app, FaceTime, maybe iCloudDrive.
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Useless for runners who want/need tracking of the route and distance travelled.
No chance in the world I will buy one. Since they couldn't be upfront and honest about their product's issue and only caved in after being threatened with a mandatory government recall; their product could be 25% the cost of any other tracker, I still wouldn't support it.
Deny delay deny delay then hide behind a potential nickel or stainless allergy my wife doesn't have ... brilliant! Yet, she still has a slowly fading wrist scar from the Fitbit Force I gave last holiday season.
How could I paraphrase? ... Burn us once, won't get burned again.
Deny delay deny delay then hide behind a potential nickel or stainless allergy my wife doesn't have ... brilliant! Yet, she still has a slowly fading wrist scar from the Fitbit Force I gave last holiday season.
How could I paraphrase? ... Burn us once, won't get burned again.
It appears that the sleep tracking for the Surge is automatic. I'm assuming that it will be able to tell that I'm sleeping without needing to press a button like I do on my Fitbit One. That would be nice since I normally don't bother with that feature on my One since I forget too often for it to be worthwhile. It would be nice, too, if we could set it to wake us up during our lightest state of sleep like some other trackers, like the Jawbone Up, can do. The site doesn't mention that, though, and I'm sure it would make a point to advertise it if that feature were included.
The Surge seems like it hits a lot of the high points for me but not all. None of these devices are perfect; they're all missing something. I'll have to wait for reviews before I consider this, the Apple Watch, or another one altogether. Tracking fitness is my primary concern with a device like this, so whichever one hits all of those points for me will get my money.
The Surge seems like it hits a lot of the high points for me but not all. None of these devices are perfect; they're all missing something. I'll have to wait for reviews before I consider this, the Apple Watch, or another one altogether. Tracking fitness is my primary concern with a device like this, so whichever one hits all of those points for me will get my money.
For folks that are more focused on GPS run tracking this is a welcomed update. Although I'd never get a FitBit, I'm happy to see that they are pushing their competitors to figure out 24x7 optical HR monitoring while throwing in a bit of the smart features to boot. I'm looking forward to see responses from Garmin and Polar.
Can someone explain this whole waterproofing thing to me? I see that the Charge is rated to 1 ATM ( or ~10 meters) I would have thought that would be fine for swimming and such, but from what i've read devices rated bellow 5 ATM should not even be used in showers or baths
This is exactly the news I've been waiting for. I just can't seem to fully justify getting myself a full 'smart watch', especially seeing as they all look like they'll be completely overshadowed by their 2nd generations. But something along the lines of the Charge or Charge HR is what i'm looking for.
I know its not as 'elegant' as others may want, but currently I prefer something that will sit alongside my watch rather than replace it.
I know its not as 'elegant' as others may want, but currently I prefer something that will sit alongside my watch rather than replace it.
I've loved all the fitbit products I've owned but let's not kid ourselves - their app has not always worked perfectly. In fact, it sometimes simply will not detect nor connect.
Really, the Withings watch is elegant and does everything this one does. Given the choice, that's the one I'd buy.
http://www.withings.com/activite/en-US
I think the Surge looks awesome. Does anyone think there is a chance the Apple Watch will flop with all this competition? It happened to Amazon with the Fire Phone.
Honestly, companies like fitbit and withings haven't had a lot of competition from the big hardware makers yet. I do love their products but I wouldn't assume that this is anything like that situation was for Amazon.