Fitbit may be best known for their fitness bands, but they’ve been increasingly making products that veer into the fitness watch category. This time around, they inch ever closer to smartwatch territory with the Fitbit Blaze.
A fitness watch, you can use it to track all the usual activity and sleep metrics, which you can review on an accompanying smartphone app. Except this time, it has a big enough screen where you can check real-time stats and view summaries of your workouts, with the smartphone app serving as a historical log for checking your long-term progress.
Unlike Fitbit’s previous efforts, the Blaze looks like a full-fledged watch, with a water-resistant stainless steel case and an assortment of bands with stainless steel buckles that you swap in at will. That case houses a full-color touchscreen display, which can show a selection of attractive watch faces for telling the time, along with various activity information. Crossing over to smartwatch territory, it can deliver call, text, and calendar alerts, so you can quickly check messages and schedules without having to pull out the phone, along with playback control for your phone’s music.
On the activity tracking end, it can monitor your steps, distance, calories burned, floors climbed, activity duration, and heart rate, along with the ability to recognize when you’re engaged in any physical activity, prompting it to immediately start tracking all your action. Features include auto-sleep tracking, vibration-based alarms, on-screen step-by-step workouts, and five days of battery life.
Now available for preorder, the Fitbit Blaze is priced at $199.95.