Fitbit has been eaten by Google. Held up for ages now by regulators, I wasn’t sure if it was ever going to happen, but obviously today, is the day. Oh happy day. Hopefully this is a good thing for Fitbit’s customers, personally I have a hard time seeing it as such. Google has a way of devouring companies and expelling their dried, and empty, husks into the toilet of history. On a…
Fitbit
The recently announced Fitbit Sense includes all the sensors, and when I say all, I literally mean all: ECG, EDA, GPS, HR, SpO2, HRV, accelerometer, etc. It also includes all the good stuff you see on other Fitbit wearables, like advanced sleep tracking, contactless payment, step counting, etc. but I really have to wonder if Fitbit will solve the transparency/data issues that got me off its platform. My guess is no, and…
I hate to nitpick…
OK, that’s totally a lie. I love nitpicking, but I generally treat the output as an “inside the head” thought, and not the kind that comes pouring out. But, since the echos of our breakup are still reverberating, I couldn’t let this go… These are not new features of the Charge 4. My Charge 3 had them… I can only speculate as to why Ray didn’t get this right, he’s generally spot-on,…
Fitbit announces Charge 3 with GPS, er… the Charge 4
There certainly are people who loved the Charge 3, but really, really, really wanted to leave their phone at home when stepping out for a run, hike, cycle. I wasn’t one of these, and frankly I don’t why you would leave the phone at home – it’s your lifeline should anything bad happen while you’re out. Of course, built-in GPS doesn’t solve the real problem with Fitbit. But hey, if GPS and…
Fed up with Fitbit
After waiting almost 18 months for Fitbit to turn the SPO2 sensor in my Charge 3, seeing how useless the implementation is, and watching them kill off one of the feature requests I marginally cared about with a tone-deaf response which indicated that they didn’t understand the ask, I’m done. Three Fitbit trackers and five years on the platform, the magic is gone… It’s been building for a while, with many reasons,…
About five years ago, someone created a feature request on the Fitbit forums requesting that they allow the device to act like a BTLE heart rate (HR) monitor. Simple enough, Fitbit devices have BTLE (that’s how they sync with your phone), and they track heart rate (at least most of them). Adding this feature, which many other HR tracking watches can do, should have been pretty easy. Obviously not a massive priority,…