Gadgetory

hey everyone this is Jimmy with Jim's review room what I have here is one of three bands Fitbit has introduced this year and after that recall with the Fitbit force this company in one way or three ways in this case is making a huge comeback now the surge features built-in GPS heart rate monitoring and notifications to name a few features to be excited about but of course how do they perform so without further ado welcome to Jim's review room out of the three bands Fitbit offers the surge is the biggest model some people may be accepting of this considering the surge blurs the lines of being a SmartWatch and an activity band at the same time but when placing this right next to the charge HR I'll be honest it does seem quite large but for my personal experience in regards to aesthetics it doesn't look bad at all once you personally see it and actually wear it and without any other comparisons now I don't have a huge bill but to be honest with you it didn't look awkward on me but of course this is subjective and you can be the judge for yourself now for the office workers out there long-sleeve shirts sadly do snag along the cuff now depending on your style and fitments this may be of a nuisance to you now the one area that's more important though is comfort now surprisingly this is very comfortable similar to the other Fitbit bands the strap itself is very elastic which comes in handy for anyone that's into weightlifting or doing moderate amounts of movements throughout their day now if you look real quick at a stiffer competitor like they now old Nike FuelBand or the newer Microsoft band it's completely solid and flexing the wrist back does cause some discomfort as you can see here while I'm doing push-ups now getting deeper into its physical build I have worn this nearly 24/7 and during my testing this screen has yet to scratched from normal day-to-day activities not even a fine stretch that can tell now rotating to the back here where the magic happens I guess you can say again no scratch is observed over the infrared light sensors then I'll get into the heart rate monitoring aspect a little bit later now one of the biggest benefits of going with a surge over the fitbit products and some other competitors as well it's rated at 5 atm meaning you can go swimming with this now showering with us and submerging it under shallow water from my testing has been perfectly fine now other bands most that are rated at just one ATM are only splash and rain resistant now of course read the instruction manual or contact fitbit's for more information but now going into what the band can display and this is where it gets really interesting it's a very smooth and fluid touch screen revealing your time with a radial dial that shows how active you are during that one hour swiping right reveals your steps with a small horizontal bar going across indicating how close you are to achieving your daily goal the next screen is your heartbeat in real time next here is your estimated distance traveled calories burn to follow flights of stairs climbs and lasts it goes back to the clock and speaking of clocks here there's four different phases that you can choose from through the app here Flair is what you've just seen here but the other three orbit digital and analog or on your screen no overall the displays stays on all the time which is a huge plus and I don't have to look down and press a button to see what time it is when I want to but I did notice though if you are previously looking at other data for example my calories burned the watch doesn't automatically reset back to the clock after a certain amount of time so I would basically look down for a quick glance for the clock or the time here and I would catch myself needing to go back to that screen by swiping or pressing the menu button twice it's not a big deal but I find myself doing this quite often throughout the day trying to see what time of day it is overall the screen is very much readable in all light situations even in direct sunlight and also in very dim lighting with a backlit screen that you would activate now getting to its features pressing the menu button once offers you possibly the most popular exercise which is running but first I want to scroll write showing the exercise feature and this reviews what other activities that you can record right off of your wrist ranging from my favorite here which is weight lifting to workouts hiking being on the elliptical spinning classes yoga and even martial arts are on there now each activity you select will record for that category and be revealed on the app now going back to running here real quick to demonstrate once I tap on this several more options are offered now like performing a free run being on the treadmill or running a lap and timing it now I press the checkmark button on the bottom right here and the built-in GPS starts searching for its signal now that's one of the biggest benefits of the surge here as it doesn't rely on your smartphone's gps but a built-in GPS right on your wrist you don't basically have to bring your phone along with you and your run if you don't want to and although i'm showing off running here this screen will look identical to any other exercise you perform on the search press play and the timer starts and your distance is revealed your pace is also shown on the bottom here with other useful information i'm scrolling through for your convenience and once you're finished press pause and then on the top right here is a checkered icon to finish your run or activity now i summary pops up which you can pause or rewind this video to watch over again with useful information being displayed and that's practically it but let's see how this information is transferred into the app how accurate is the heart rate monitoring and how all this data can help you in the long run now I get this question a lot what is my favorite app to use now if I had to rank them jawbone is my first and most favorite with Fitbit being a very very close second and then in the you can say almost a distant third or so is Garmin but Fitbit again it's a very clean very simple intuitive app to use starting with the top here you have your steps heart rate in real-time estimated distance calories burned flights of stairs climbed in your active minutes when you were moving more vigorously but before proceeding further down here each category I've mentioned so far can be broken down for example I click on steps and a nice bar chart is revealed showing your last seven days of performance now down below are your actual numeric steps with a green star to the right on days you've met or surpassed your daily step goals but all this data isn't worthwhile unless you can compare yourself now tapping on the chart allows you to compare data on a weekly monthly and yearly basis that way you can see if you're making progress or not and as stated earlier the data being revealed here is the same for all the other metrics being measured that's distance calories burned etc which all had the same bar graph and history chart shown now going into heart rate tracking recently the charge HR my testing showed the numbers to be accurate but it was deemed a lagging indicator when watching the numbers record in real time the chest heart rate monitor bipolar appear to present data again in real-time much faster in regards to the surge it's not as laggy though but a similar matter as you'll see in this video playing as shown on your screen performing 100 jumping jacks and some other random jumps towards the end here you can see how the numbers climbed again the chest heart rate monitor here appears to work much faster however in regards to accuracy I found the surge was nearly identical to my physical pulse when counted I place my finger on the carotid artery on my neck and it was closed within about five to eight pulses each time I measured now I also use the infrared measurement on my phone in a different instance and again the HR recording was accurate on another device and as mentioned in the charge HR video after a minute of cooldown all indicators the polar chest strap checking my physical pulse the cross-referencing of other devices the heart rate on the search is spot-on across the board and at least within tolerance to about 5 beats of each other and for me being anal here and used another branded chest heart rate monitor and cross-reference with that and you can see again here it was identical in the video being shown so from what I can personally gather I believe for an entire run you'll have all your data there at the end the calories burned the distance ran based on GPS and again your heart rates and all that data I would in the end presume as being accurate now during the run however it appears to be about 40 seconds to a minute behind what a chest strap is offering and one last note here from just normal day-to-day activities to working out the surge retain a pulse reading almost the entire time more so than the charge HR which lost a connection here and there but with all that information and going back to the app here here's what it all looks like you have a chart above with the last days of your resting heart rate a horizontal timeline for each day which is intriguing see as you can tell when you fell asleep versus actually being up and clicking on either one of these lines you can obtain information on your workout to determine how much time was in the fat-burning zone or if you're in cardio to strengthen that heart of yours and what's great about the chart and why there's an emphasis on resting heart rate typically healthier people who do train on a regular basis they usually have lower resting heart rates there's less effort for the heart to pump blood when it's a healthy and strong heart so in these charts here hopefully over the months here you can see your heart rates or resting heart rate that is average go down but back to the main page here for the avid runners out there you can track your workouts by using your phone's GPS as well when you go for a jog enabling tracking will have Fitbit record your trail on a map and all it data associated with it but a feature I really enjoy is if you have any earbuds you can turn on audio cues from the menu Fitbit will advise your statistics at every minute or mile that you choose the voice comes on over your phone or earbuds and advises you your distance time and even pace preventing the need to stop and pull out your phone now going back here on one screen the data over time can be kept on your calendar and reviewed for comparative purposes but backing out here again to the main page you can track your weight by entering in your measurements daily in addition if you have or aren't able to measure your body fat percentage Fitbit allows you to put this into the app as well and record it over time and like every chart on this app here you can make comparisons on your previous performance and see what's working for you and what's not now moving on to the next feature here sleep mode is very accurate and spot-on with my test you don't have to tell the band when you're in bed as the search does and will automatically do so for you now looking at your sleep gives you a breakdown of restful sleep versus not so restful sleep and awoke in moments now the odd part here it doesn't show you a daily breakdown numerically below the graphic as it did with the previously mentioned data now the top right here allows you to view your previous weeks months and years once again and overall it's ok Meishan but if you ever get to see jawbone zap the sleeping detail is much more detailed and easier to read now backing all the way out again here a food log is provided for calorie intake by manually entering in your food now although this feature is provided where other bands don't it's not as deep or as intuitive again as Jawbone's you can type in your food for example I'm doing here the Asiago sandwich from Panera Bread one of my favorites which it does find but once added it's lacking a lot of information with jawbone it does the same search but it answers in all of your data like calories trans fat sugars and salts just to name a few there not to mention jawbone has the ability to scan your packages UPC codes on the back of the box or bag here and enter information that way then using My Fitness Pal the very popular food locking app also appears to be easier and accurate than using fitbit's though and doing a bit of research it shows Fitbit data is able to be transferred to my Fitness Pal and a few other apps and vice-versa and the very last health aspect here is water intake which is very important as I barely drink enough water in a day you can get a mug or a water bottle at a certain size and after finishing each bottle click the login button and this will keep a record for you pretty simple and straightforward but highly beneficial and now this leads us to the non health aspects of the band which sometimes makes or breaks a purchase decision for some people clicking on the top left provides several options and settings to take advantage of first up is friends allowing you to add random people that are also using Fitbit products and that way you can compete and compare with others with leaderboards and progress reports it's one way to motivate people when they see other people do well and a friends option clearly is optional is always a plus now next up here are challenges activate one of these here and challenge others and last are your devices you have associated with this phone and app again pretty much self-explanatory and please feel free to pause the video if I'm going through these parts a little bit too faster if you're interested in seeing them now moving to the next area here and into your settings basically is your profile that you can change at will name age weight height with your units being able to change two kilometers or kilograms for distance and weight respectively and one feature here that surprisingly many people ask are the alarms more people use this than what I anticipated with this alarm this will suddenly wake you up by offering a pretty strong vibration to your wrist when it goes off now for the basics you can set up a one-time alarm but more beneficial for those who have a consistent work schedule you can set up which days for it to go off for example the work days Monday through Fridays here or you can just set it up just for weekends only now it's always a great feature to have when you don't want to wake other people around you and now the very last feature here is caller ID now when someone calls in the phone number will scroll through on your wrist here prior to picking up another feature which is not included on the charge or the charge HR is notifications being displayed on the band now when someone taxes or messages you a brief indication of the message shows for your convenience the only thing that I did not see here are push notifications from other apps for example I have Dropcam here in the house and when there's motion detected I received a notification on my phone but no notification on the wrist now I don't know if this is an issue or firmware issue but it is I personally found it on my particular unit here now it's the same with Facebook and other miscellaneous apps again I'm notified on the phone but not on the wrist something or somewhat odd in my opinion so overall after testing this and wearing this nearly non-stop Fitbit claims up to seven days of battery life I personally achieved six days and seven hours which is still considered good and slightly above the average here of five days for other bands and recharging this from a dead battery to fall takes one and a half hours to complete via the supplied USB charger so that's it for the review here I know it's been quite long here but this is a fully featured kind of activity band so if you do like my work here add me Jim's review room answer Facebook Twitter Instagram or Google+ as I normally post updates on items I'm currently testing before I actually put them on the website and it's a great way to stop by and say hi to me as well again this is Jimmy with Jim's review room you guys take care you on the next one bye