Gadgetory

this is running in England in November and this is the Fitbit flex - the Fitbit flex - is the latest upgrade to want a Fitbit small entry level fitness trackers a first glance it might appear to be little more than a fancy pedometer but I'd be a very unfair judgment of a device that actually has a fair few tricks up its sleeve or up your sleeve let's take a closer look and see if the Fitbit flex 2 is right for you so first up let's look at the design this is a little hard to judge things the design can be pretty much whatever you'd like it to be that's to say that the main brains of the unit can be removed and then inserted into a range of different accessories the device itself is absolutely miniscule and weighs under an ounce meaning that can easily work in a variety of form factors the two included rubber bands both in black one large one small look nice enough and a plenty svelte for wearing all day but you can also find a ton of first-party in third-party alternatives which include an attractive bangle and even pendants there should be something here to suit everyone meaning that you can complement your own style and get the device to work with your routine there's no screen on this device like the one you'd find on the Fitbit charge - but you do get a 5 small LEDs these can be used for very basic notifications or to show you how close you are to accomplishing your step goal DoubleTap on the band and you'll be shown a corresponding number of lights to indicate your performance so far so say your step targets 10,000 you've done 4,000 steps two lights will show and so on tapping is sometimes unresponsive though leading you to jab at the thing like a madman and I find myself half wondering if this was a sneaky way to get us to burn more calories the Fitbit flex 2 has no heart rate monitor or GPS which means it isn't going to be a good choice for serious athletes but that's clearly not who this is aimed at it works well as a step counter and seems to be pretty consistent with the results for my vivoactive HR and that information along with some basic metrics such as height and weight will then allow the Flex to to guesstimate your calorie burn for the day note though that without asking for your body fat percentage or taking a heart rate reading this isn't going to be terribly accurate it should be good enough for most users though and what's important here is that the calculation is consistent and that the numbers are moving in the right way it also handles basic sleep tracking auto detect when you doze off in theory in my experience that hasn't been terribly accurate however it seems to think I'm sleeping when I'm awake a lot at the time it's nice to have it with air when it does work though what it does do remarkably well and what makes this much more than just a pedometer is it auto detection for activities so if you go for a run or a walk then the flex pay will automatically detect that activity and log it for you this works really well and the algorithms it must use a mind boggling I've had it auto detect runs walks and even swims are pretty shoddy swimmer so the latter was especially impressive after 17 minutes of rest stroke at a local fitness center I was able to review my number of laps and the rough number of calories burned and yes that of course means of devices also waterproof the full list of activities the Flexsteel detect our walking running cycling elliptical training sports aerobic exercise and swimming unfortunately there's no option to log awaits workout though I tried keeping on while I did my usual cast annex and pumping iron and I didn't get a peep from it so this isn't going to cut it for most gym rats which is a shame with a name like flex other than that unfortunate omission though I do believe that Fitbit is the best in the business when it comes to activity detection one more Fitness feature is the obligatory movement reminders which cause the device to buzz when you've been sitting for too long this is pretty standard by this point but it's well implemented here so this is definitely no Smart Watch and if you're looking for an assistant you can wear on your wrist and I think you should look elsewhere however the Fitbit flex 2 does offer very basic notifications for texts and calls there's to say that if you receive a message or a call you'll get a small light and vibration to indicate that it does also support whatsapp and hangouts etc but you can only use one messaging app at a time the last point to consider is the battery this will last roughly four days on a full charge or as Fitbit likes to put it up to five days this isn't great when you consider that many fitness trackers with a screen can last significantly longer but then again though it makes more sense when you factor in the tiny size of the unit what I do find irritating is that you only get a small notification to warn you when your device is running low on charge that's pretty easy to miss and it led to me failing to record quite an active day when I actually walked around 13,000 steps on the software front Fitbit has always had one of the best Android apps of any fitness tracking solution and that shines here with the Flex - the interface looks clean and is generally easy and intuitive to find your way around and Fitbit has also included a lot of built-in additional functionality here too such as the ability to map your walks or runs using the phone's GPS or the option to track your calories by scanning barcodes or entering foods manually Fitbit also syncs with all the major third-party solutions such as MyFitnessPal RunKeeper or endomondo but it's nice that the functionality is built-in for those just starting out you get plenty of encouragement from Fitbit too with badges awarded for various milestones and a strong social element so the Fitbit flex 2 is a well-designed fitness tracker that has lots of neat features and serves as a great introduction to fitbit's excellent software and ecosystem it's a small convenient device that can take on any look to match your style and that will easily survive a dip into the pool while let my lack advanced features it's nevertheless smarter than you might expect it to be thanks to a highly capable app and brilliant activity auto detection it's not a viable option for serious athlete but for those looking to just shed a few pounds or improve their basic fitness it's definitely one of the better options on the market right now so that's the Fitbit flex 2 thanks a ton for watching guys I hope you found this video informative if you did then please consider liking and sharing and maybe subscribing to the channel of course you can also visit android authority comm if you'd like to read the full written review which goes into a bit more depth and there's tons of other great stuff there too after all we are your source for all things Android Oh