The FitBit Blaze : First-month user review
Shyam G
I’d always been on the heavier end of the scale and too lazy to care. Of late, reason caught up with me and I decided to make a healthy change in my lifestyle. Along the way, I needed some help. After considerable research and procrastination, I decided on the FitBit Blaze. (In the words of my boss, “You wear a sh***y watch anyway….”)
And so began my tryst with the amazing FitBit Blaze.
How it started!
To start things off, FitBit has a great website that all the information you need, when you need it. To choose the right device for me, all I had to do was visit their device comparison page. It was a simple and rather enjoyable experience to sit down and weigh the options before zeroing in on the Blaze.
My reasons for choosing the Blaze
Instead of being a fitness band that makes a meek attempt at being a watch, the Blaze is a rather sleek watch that makes a strong argument for being a fitness band.
Display and motivation I realised the impact of display only after getting the Blaze. I had reminders every hour to remind me that I wasn’t walking the required number of steps. This made me jump to my feet for a few minutes at the end of every hour to meet the hourly step goal. If I did not hit the step goal would take me on a guilt trip for the remainder of the day.
Style points
Initiation
The FitBit was delivered one day after I placed the order for it (all hail Amazon!). Sitting in the snug packaging was my brand new Blaze. I was pleasantly surprised to discover the Blaze was larger than it looked online.
The first sync was a pain; in fact, it still is. It seems as if the device has a mind of its own and refuses to sync at times. Once the sync starts, the issues subside. But the initial sync often requires enabling/disabling the Bluetooth several times, and even the occasional reboot of your phone.
Customizable notifications - By default, the Blaze provides notifications for incoming calls, messages, WhatsApp and Facebook notifications. However, it can be configured to display notifications from any app on your phone. Receiving email notifications on the watch is very useful, especially for a person whose job revolves around online correspondence.
Brownie points for being super-helpful while driving. All I have to do is raise my wrist and the display would light up instantly and it is very readable.
Although the Blaze has a wide range of features, I found these to be the most useful:
- step counter
- BPM
- calories burned
- floors climbed
- Sleep Tracker (really cool!)
- challenges and community
- alerts and motivation
The step counter was where I started because it was the easiest to figure out. The BPM and calorie counter are just “good-to-know” features, but the other features take some getting used to. The alarm is great, especially when you don’t sleep alone as it doesn’t make a sound. The slight - but sufficient - vibration on your wrist wakes you up without feeling like a hammer to the head (unlike most other alarms).
The Sleep tracker, with a tidy reminder 30 minutes before your bedtime, monitors sleep duration and the weekly report tells me how much sleep I was actually getting. This also reports disturbances during sleep.
The best part, however, is challenges and community. It provides your prescribed daily dose of motivation, with some fun on the side. There are work-week challenges for the active professional and weekend challenges for … well, the rest. Achievements and goals, which are predetermined or personalized, keep the momentum going as you work your way towards a healthier lifestyle.
Overall, I’m loving my time with the Blaze and it just keeps giving me more. There’s something that I discover every day that makes me go “yay!” with delight (on the inside, obviously!), like the fact that it throws up an alert when my phone is low on battery!
It continues to exceed expectations in the best ways possible, an especially rare quality in the world of electronic devices which is notorious for up-selling products to make them seem better than they are.
Shyam, from Projects, is our in-house tech-lover. A voracious reader, he stays up-to-date with what’s what in the tech world and, given his penchant for writing, contributes regularly to the Influx blog. Shyam has an engineering degree in computer science.