Gadgetory

hey judge Asha Vergara what's going on everybody and I'm here to talk about smartwatches again now if you remember my last piece about hybrid smartwatches I had sort of forgone the whole idea of having a touchscreen on my wrist because I was missing some more tactile feedback now I had a lot of reasons for that buttons were the main reason because I wanted to be able to navigate the operating system or to do things like change songs or pause music without having to look at the touchscreen well what we have right now is a look at the fitbit Versa and this has already been reviewed at andhra 30.com by jimi westenberg who said that this watch is a very good starter SmartWatch for a lot of users my first quip about this SmartWatch is that it's kind of missing the point about buttons at a first glance the design language of the Versa is a lot like the pebble there is a lot to like about how this watch has been developed you have a button over on the left and then over on the right you have two one less than was available on the original pebbles but it looks enough like a normal wearable that it doesn't scream runner or the FitLife to any other people the way the ionic did the comparison to the ionic is fairly obvious however it's nice to see that the fitbit Versa is fairly neutral it has a body that is really light so you barely notice that it's there until the good vibration motor actually triggers and then you have a bunch of different SmartWatch bands that you can put on here and in my case I have the leather which works with this kind of semi semi-formal thing I got going on right now the button on the left does go backwards in the interface however if you hold it you are able to get to some quick settings and to music controls more on that in a second the two buttons on the right allow for not only two shortcuts that can be programmed in the menu but if you hold the top button then you can bring down the notification shape this notification shade shows you basically the exact same thing that the Android notification would if you expanded it now the touchscreen is not bad in and of itself but the Versa is obviously trying to marry the two concepts and the problem I have with this is that it never really goes all-in on either of them certain functions require the buttons while others still ask the user to look at the screen and have pinpoint precision as to which button they're trying to press this proved the most cumbersome with music controls which are already a bit of a headache to get set up so inside of this watch there are of you gigabytes of storage that you can use and if you have local files you can transfer them via Wi-Fi to the watch and be able to listen to bluetooth headphones directly from there which is great you can open up the music app inside and be able to control music using the on-screen elements much like on other touchscreen smart watches however my main function would be to use Google Play Music in order to stream music from the phone to my earphones and control them with the watch so let's say you're driving which is the situation that I mostly find myself in but there are people out there who might be on bikes or on boosted boards just in transit in general you want to be able to change the song without having to divert your attention but that's exactly what the versa and other smartwatches are asking you to do you're able to do something without looking at the watch which is bring up the controls but then the controls require you to divert your attention it's just not ideal and that's always been a pain point with touchscreens on my wrist customizations of the buttons would really help here if I was able to program a hold of either of the right side buttons to trigger let's say next song or next track or something like that then that would be great that level of customization is something that I hope the Fitbit OS will provide in the future but if touchscreens are going to be their main focus moving forward I don't think it'll get that far I still enjoy my Skagen hybrid SmartWatch because it gives me the controls that I was talking about earlier but also because it became a filter for my notifications I even customized a chamois ban - in order to just vibrate when specific notifications came in like for example messages from my girlfriend or from the workplace and in that case I was able to use the SmartWatch as a kind of filter that only told me when I really need it to get to the phone but in the case of the versa if you have notifications turned on for an app you get all of them which means that your wrist is vibrating more often than you probably would want to now obviously this is another portion of the fitbit os that can be changed in the future and the app ecosystem is in its very infant stages there are some developers from the pebble side that have moved over to Fitbit OS and that's nice to see however what bothers me about Fitbit OS is that it's kind of like a walled garden even though there's no official word that this is the case as it stands right now Fitbit OS will not allow third-party developers to replace functions that Fitbit develops themselves for example the sleep cycles the sleep cycles are something that you would want to see at the end of a long nights of sleep so you know how much deep sleep you've got but it would be nice if an alarm app was able to tap into it so that when you're in light sleep it would alarm at that point rather than just at the time that is simply set in the symbol alarm app now I know that I've been kind of being specific about what experiences I wish this Smart Watch was able to provide but those are my use cases you can look at this video as a little bit of a JV rant of sorts but really there's a lot to like about the Versa and I would implore you to look at the for review that Jimmy made a little while ago so you can get the full story that said I have talked about some negatives but here are some really great positives the fact that Fitbit is the maker it's one of the best fitness trackers for general consumers that helps track steps active minutes which is a better metric by the way and even water intake sleep tracking is good but like I said there's a little bit more that you can do with that information and I think that users could actually benefit from those features being in the watch it comes with a heart rate sensor that's always firing so you get to know what your resting heart rate is and then there is GPS but via the connected smartphone so you have to have that around at least that functionality is still there the exercise app does give you a lot of options for tracking many different types of activities however there is a basic workout mode as well and I use that when I was hitting a bag with some sticks and doing some punching drills and I was able to burn 200 calories at least that's what the watch was telling me so it's good to have that level of information and having more information can help you get informed about your health which is exactly what Fitbit is trying to do one bright spot is the coach which is something we saw in the ionic these are built-in workouts that use the strong vibration motors to give you feedback about when the sets are done and then it gives you previews of the upcoming exercise there are three different workouts here you have the 10 minute abs the seven-minute workout and the 15 minute warm-up if you're looking to get a proper workout done every single day you have them on your wrist at all times you should do all three of them as a set and maybe it'll take about 35 minutes but that's a solid workout that you can do every single morning if you're looking for a good starting point basically you bought a SmartWatch but remember you're also getting a great fitness tool don't forget to use it the times when I was happy to have the Versa on my wrist were contradictory when I hardly remembered I was wearing a SmartWatch it was just a good-looking piece of tech that told me the time and rang when I hit my steps where it bothered me when I was sitting for too long however when I was actively trying to use the fitness tools that was also when I was really happy to have the Versa as my daily SmartWatch but if you have used a Samsung gear aware OS or an Apple watch this is not going to be really a viable alternative the search for a simpler wearable life did not lead to fitbit's latest device it just reminded me why I moved on in the first place after that very company were moved to the one that I already had on my wrist in any case you can stick around to Android Authority remember to subscribe to this channel if you haven't already hit the subscription button but there's also that bell on the side so you know exactly when we put out any videos throughout the week after that you can go ahead and drop some likes on these videos get in the comments down below and let us know what you think about this or any SmartWatch and then stick around at Android authority comm because we are of course your source for all things Android