If you are not familiar with Fitbit, they produce a lot of Fitness bands. Considering the uses of a fitness band, allowing the wearer to track their health in real-time, this has created a market for a lot of similar products. In fact, many smartwatches including the recently released Apple Watch, have fitness band capabilities built right in them. This is a comparison of Apple Watch and Fitbit, with the review and features.
Let's start with the Apple Watch. A lot of emphasis in the presentation shows the Apple Watch's fitness applications, which means it is a fitness bracelet/fitness tracker as well as a smartwatch. The Apple site proudly displays the activity App, for a simple visual snapshot of your daily activity, in the form of three circles. There is a Move ring to show how many calories are burned, an Exercise ring to show how many minutes of brisk activity is completed, and a Stand ring to show how often you've stood up to take a break. In addition to the health at a glance, the Apple Watch suggests daily Move goals for active calories each day.
While the Apple Watch comes in just one form, Fitbit makes many types of products. Unlike the Apple Watch, which is trying to do just about everything on your wrist, Fitbit's goal is to track fitness, and it can do it with products that don't cost as much as Apple's $400 smartwatch.
A fitness band/smartwatch for $249.
Products like the Fitbit Zip are made for tracking steps, distance, calories burned and active minutes. The Zip costs about $59.95, and is also good for wireless syncing as well as a long battery life of six months (the Apple Watch has a battery that will last a day, if you are lucky). Similar in construction is the Fitbit One, which has a clock and display, and can do a little more with a higher price ($99.95) but lower battery life of 10+ days. The Fitbit Flex has a minimal display of five LED lights, but it can do similar features at the same price as the One ($99.95).
Once we go to the Fitbit Charge ($129.95) and Charge HR ($149.95), this is getting into smartwatch territory as these can give call notifications. When it comes to the Fitbit Surge, or "The Ultimate Fitness Super Watch", it can do pretty much anything a lower-priced fitness band can do, and more for a price of $249.95.
Christine Campbell, a fashion expert, was recently interviewed by Forbes about her thoughts on wearables. She voiced that a lot of women complain about how ugly they are, including Fitbit. She also stated that the Apple Watch is "too big" and "it's just not pretty". Campbell notes that big issue for wearables is how they can merge technology with jewelry, and how that might not even be possible.
