Fitbit is putting their mark on 2016 early, with a new device called the Fitbit Blaze. It’s a smartwatch with a full color touchscreen, but no GPS, and it will sit between the Charge HR and the Surge price-wise, at $199.95.
The Blaze will be able to receive basic smartphone notifications, tracks your steps, various workouts, and heart rate, but it does not have standalone GPS; instead it uses what Fitbit calls “connected GPS”, which is just a smokescreen way to say the Blaze uses the GPS from your smartphone for outdoor distance tracking. There’s DNA from the Fitbit Flex line in the Blaze as well, in that the Blaze can be popped out and put into various styled frames and bands. So if the basic athletic style isn’t your personal aesthetic, you can spend a bit more and add in a leather or stainless steel band, or swap them back and forth depending on the occasion. This makes the Blaze pretty competitive against devices like the Pebble Time/Time Steel/Time Round, and will likely appeal to people who love the Fitbit ecosystem but want something less sporty than the current Fitbit lineup.
Dan had an opportunity to check out the Fitbit Blaze at CES, and here were his first impressions:
Here are a couple of impressions. It is thin and light and incredibly comfortable. I actually can see myself forgetting I’m wearing it because it is so ergonomically designed to wrap around the wrist and sit nicely. It also feels much lighter than the Apple Watch.
It has serious fitness functionality but also has just enough smart notifications built in to make it useful. They also have designed it in a way that you can get to do not disturb with a tap rather than having to dig down into the menus.
The fact of the matter is I can absolutely see wanting one of these when it comes out in March for $199 and using it as my smart watch and fitness band in place of what I’m currently using. In addition, it looks really really sharp and is highly customizable which lets you really wear it in a way that is fitting whatever you’re doing on given day.
Fitbit Blaze comes out this March, and clearly here at Gear Diary we’re quite excited for it!
