Why You Can Trust CNET Fitbit Blaze hopes to out-fancy your Apple Watch (hands-on)
Swappable leather bands, a color screen, but no GPS. Blaze aims for good looks and a few new fitness tricks. But how does it feel?
- Nearly 20 years writing about tech, and over a decade reviewing wearable tech, VR, and AR products and apps
Fitness bands still make up the majority of wearable tech on the market. And in this landscape of fitness trackers, Fitbit is king. But most of its products, to date, have looked pretty pedestrian. Both the Fitbit Charge HR and Surge that debuted last year have a utilitarian feel, held back by their rubberized straps.
Smartwatches, on the other hand, look fancier: steel, leather, touches of gold. Smartwatches are folding in fitness tracking, too, and getting better at it. Consider the Apple Watch, for instance.
Shop for Fitbit Blaze (plum, large)
See all pricesFitbit's latest tracker, the Blaze, seems directly aimed at the smartwatch lovers. The Blaze will be available in March for $200. (International prices aren't available yet, but this roughly converts to about £135 or AU$280.) It leans on style, with a dash of extra watch-style smarts. And you can change the design. The center part of Blaze pops out and can be swapped into other bands and accessories.
Note, though, that accessories cost extra. Other elastomer sport bands are priced at $30 (which converts to £20 or AU$40), leather bands cost $100 (£70 or AU$140) and metal links are $130 (£90 or AU$180).
Blaze in metal, or leather.
The Fitbit Blaze is Fitbit's crack at a smartwatch for fitness. Really, it's an enhanced, more universally stylish take on last year's Fitbit Surge, minus the baked-in GPS. The Blaze uses your phone's connection to track GPS for runs and to get buzzing notifications for incoming calls, texts, and calendar appointments. But that's it: this won't be full of Facebook messages or have separate apps. According to Fitbit, that's by design. The Blaze isn't meant to be too distracting, and there's an easy-access notification silencer if you'd prefer to work out in peace. As with other Fitbits, the Blaze unfortunately can't be worn while swimming or even showering.
The Blaze does have some new fitness tricks. Fitbit claims there's improved heart rate tracking that now records more frequently when tracking in multi-sport modes, and the Blaze also can record more activities -- including those that don't involve step-counting -- with better calorie-burn estimates. There are also new workout coaching modes: three pre-installed workouts from Fitstar might be the start of Fitbit pushing into more guided fitness instead of just tracking. The Blaze interface has steps, calories, heart rate and more -- all available at a swipe.
Fitbit Blaze: more watchlike than fitness band-esque.
If you've seen recent fitness smartwatches such as Garmin's, you'll find a lot in common here...at least, on the surface. The Blaze has a much nicer design than last year's Surge, and Fitbit says it has similar battery life. The touchscreen color display is bright, but slightly reflective, somewhere between a regular phone screen and the Pebble Time. In many ways, actually, the Blaze feels like a fitness cousin to Pebble's recent line of Time smartwatches, which recently added a fitness tracking function.
Pop-out band designs.
But it isn't the look of the Blaze that's the big question. It's this: will a slightly smarter fitness watch be a better bet for most people than a fitness-smarter smartwatch? Lots of people I know have given up on their Apple Watches, or found smartwatches too complicated for their own good. Fitbit's going to take that bet and double down on it this year, starting with the Blaze.
Fitbit's instinct to get a bit more fashionable might end up being one of the bigger trends in wrist tech this year. But are better looks the only thing fitness bands need to be better at, or is it the easiest goal to achieve right now?