Those who truly want every health feature Fitbit has to offer should opt for the Sense smartwatch, which has advanced capabilities like electrocardiogram monitoring. But as smartwatches gain more health and wellness functionality, fitness trackers like the Luxe may have to adopt the best aspects of the smartwatch experience to keep up. You can also time events with the stopwatch or set a countdown timer. Otherwise, the Fitbit Luxe has most of the core features I find myself using most each day, except for its lack of voice-assistant compatibility. Last month, users reported that they were stuck on the Fitbit logo after the developers pushed an update. When you buy through our links, Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Plus, it's missing some incredibly useful features like an always-on display that would have really made the Luxe shine. She previously served as Time magazine's tech columnist and got her start as a reporter for Business Insider's tech section in 2014. Even the companies flagship watch of the year, the Fitbit Sense, isnt spared. Disclosure: Written and researched by the Insider Reviews team. Various reports indicate that the issue has popped up after users updated their Fitbit Sense. The small-screened $150 tracker, now available, is one of several band-type Fitbits on sale at the same time. Fitbit is looking to change this with its appropriately-named Luxe, which costs $149 and began shipping in June. Simply put, the Charge 4 looks like a fitness tracker. You wouldn't exactly mistake it for a piece of jewelry when paired with its default band, but it certainly wouldn't look out of place on your wrist at a formal dinner party either. The Luxe (left) next to the Fitbit Sense (right). But Fitbit has since sent me a new Luxe to test since the model I initially used was an early production unit. And if you're excited enough about Fitbit's fancy accessories (leather and metal bands) to want to make this your tracker of choice. But a deeper review is coming; for now we're just trying to help you decide if you're Luxe-curious. In order to do so, users need to do 2 consecutive button presses. Set one-time or recurring alarms with the Alarms app . Hold the other end of the charging cable near the port on the back of the tracker until it attaches magnetically. It can also monitor how many minutes you spend in your personalized heart rate zone during a workout and measures your heart rate throughout the day. The Luxe lasted for six full days on a single charge with the screen brightness set to normal. (Source). Yes, the Fitbit Luxe delivers on its intended purpose: serving as a sleek and stylish fitness band that has plenty to offer when it comes to health tracking. File Info : application/pdf, 63 Pages, 2.15MB. But it's missing some important features that could have made it truly excellent. Battery life will vary depending on your usage. Clicking the button once again takes them back to the clock with no way to stop the timer. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives. She has appeared on the BBC, CNBC, and CBS New York radio to discuss the latest tech news. Yes, these features are usually found on smartwatches, not fitness trackers. Looks like Fitbit Sense has a water lock mode that needs to be disabled in order to stop swim tracking. We welcome your feedback. The screen can also feel inconvenient to operate with your finger because it's so tiny. Want to know more about us? The $129.95 Fitbit Charge 4 and $99.95 Fitbit Inspire 2 are the best alternatives for those who want a fitness tracker rather than a smartwatch. 2. Since I was on vacation during my time re-testing the Luxe, I only exercised twice and received fewer notifications than usual. The beautiful screen sometimes feels too small to truly be useful. The Inspire 2 is much cheaper and claims to offer 10-day battery life. The most exciting new tech gadgets of 2020 are designed for the future, not today, How Boston Dynamics' robots went from YouTube stars to actual tools for helping doctors treat coronavirus patients and enforcing social distancing, Amazon paid $97 million to acquire Eero in a fire-sale deal that left some shareholders with practically nothing, according to leaked documents, Learn more about how our team of experts tests and reviews products at Insider here. The problem with most fitness trackers is that they live up to their name too accurately when it comes to design. Get honest reviews on top products & services delivered weekly to your inbox. We highlight products and services you might find interesting. For more information, see the related help article. But you need to subscribe to the $9.99-per-month Fitbit Premium to get the full selection of sleep and health insights. PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on breaking or exclusive news. Lisa is a senior tech correspondent for Business Insider's Reviews team, where she helps lead our coverage of the latest tech products from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and other major tech companies. Surprisingly, a big part of what makes the Fitbit Luxe stand out aesthetically is its AMOLED display, which is a variation of the OLED display. Otherwise, the Fitbit Luxe comes with many of the wellness features found on its other devices, such as guided breathing exercises and menstrual tracking. Still, it feels awkward. Samsung's Galaxy Watch 3 also has a Super AMOLED display, but it's still exciting to see this on a device under $200. But where it falls short is in its design. Stats like heart rate and steps taken feel almost microscopic. In addition to the included classic band and the high-end Gorjana band, Fitbit sells stainless steel mesh, woven, and Horween leather bands for the Luxe. Leveraging Fitbit's signature top-notch, fitness-tracking technology and adding a stainless steel casing, slim band, and colorful screen, it's clear the Fitbit Luxe was made for those who want equal parts fashion and fitness. Even without the Premium membership, Fitbit devices generally provide more insightful sleep tracking than the Apple Watch, which just shows your sleep duration and average sleep over the past two weeks. Fitbit has added a fast pairing mode for Android users, and Fitbit's tech is slowly entering Google's Wear watches. Since it's missing a voice assistant, there's no other choice for tasks like setting alarms and timers. Time events with the stopwatch or set a countdown timer with the Timers app on your tracker. (Source), I have tried and cant get beyond the water Lock Screen. Very unhappy with Fitbit. It is interesting that Fitbit hasnt made any announcement about the feature and it is mentioned nowhere on their website or in the Fitbit Sense manual. These include detailed charts showing when you fluctuate between sleep stages, trends over time, and your estimated oxygen variation overnight. You can purchase logo and accolade licensing to this story here. This number provides an indication of whether your body is showing signs of stress based on factors like your heart rate, sleep, and activity. The tracker is made of a stainless steel casing that's available in several color combinations. There's a lot the Luxe can do: track workouts, do guided breathing meditations, start timers or a stopwatch, set alarms, check phone notifications. It has a much less elegant and bulkier look, and the screen is greyscale instead of color. Follow the on-screen instructions to pair your tracker if 1. First off: I'm not sure the Fitbit Luxe is for me. Since then, Fitbit users have complained about various bugs and issues that constantly affect a wide range of devices, including the premium Fitbit Luxe and Versa 3. The Fitbit Luxe is visually striking, especially compared to most fitness trackers. It's also the first Fitbit to come with an AMOLED screen, which makes clock faces look more vibrant. Since then, I have been tinkering with OS, mobile phones, and other things. The color screen is inset from the already-thin band with some thick bezels. And for such a fashion-focused device like the Luxe, it would have been great to have that colorful watch face on-screen at all times. If you buy them, we may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our partners. I've been reviewing fitness gadgets for 8 years. The workout-tracking selection is pretty decent, offering staples like biking, running, and weightlifting in addition to more niche activities like martial arts and bootcamp. The option to show the time even when the device is inactive makes wearables much more useful as wristwatches. Sleep tracking and heart-rate data looks solid, and I appreciate the all-inclusive features. fitbit croma Things have changed a lot since the Flex days. You can run the stopwatch and countdown timer at the same time. My fascination with technology and computers goes back to the days of Windows XP. Note: We have more such stories in our dedicated Fitbit Section and a dedicated tracker for issues plaguing various Fitbit devices so be sure to follow them as well. The Fitbit Luxe is compact, but maybe too much for me. I started with CNET reviewing laptops in 2009. There's little context around what that number means, even with the Premium subscription. When I am not working on anything, you will find me enjoying video games on some Discord server. But don't expect it to be easy to control. And the Luxe is clearly aimed at being slotted into jewelry-like accessories, more like Fitbit's long-ago tracker, the Fitbit Flex. The Fitbit Luxe comes with the important health and fitness features you'd expect from a modern wearable and from the quality brand of Fitbit. In other words, they can feel out of place with any outfit other than your gym attire. The Flex was basic and had no screen. After five days or so (before recharging), the band is comfortable and almost invisible to wear. That's different from the EDA app available on the Sense, which performs a scan in real-time to see how your body may be reacting to stress in the moment. These features are pretty standard for Fitbit's more basic fitness trackers and makes sense for the Luxe, which is designed for those who want an attractive, everyday activity tracker. Pros: Elegant design, beautiful OLED screen, plenty of health and fitness features, Cons: No always-on display or voice assistant support, small screen can be difficult to use. You only get a sampling of these features without Premium. It can also monitor your blood oxygen levels overnight and on the wrist, but that capability isn't available yet. Sent from my iPhone Make sure the pins on the charging cable align with the port on the back of your tracker. Moreover, excessive battery drain is still an issue if you are using an iOS device. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Snooze the alarm as many times as you want. The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. The Charge 4, despite its lower price, comes with a few more health features, Fitbit Pay, and remote Spotify controls. But this all means swiping and swiping and swiping some more. When an alarm goes off, your tracker vibrates. It feels like a magic spell in a bad way. Sounds promising, and if you're looking for a general do-it-all Fitbit band that's as slim and good-looking as possible, this is it. To dismiss the alarm, swipe up from the bottom of the screen and tap the dismiss icon . The Fitbit Luxe also comes with a relatively new health metric: a Stress Management Score. We may receive products free of charge from manufacturers to test. The Fitbit Luxe offers impressive battery life for its small size. Fitbit ultimately succeeds at making a fitness tracker that I'm actually excited to put on my wrist, while still packing it with plenty of health tech. Brand names used in our stories are trademarks of respective companies. But casual wearers just looking to stay active will probably find the Luxe to be accurate enough. Before that, she was staff writer for Laptop Mag and Tom's Guide in 2013. 3-axis accelerometer, optical heart rate monitor, vibration motor, red and infrared sensors for SpO2. To snooze the alarm for 9 minutes, swipe down from the top of the screen. User Manual for fitbit models including: fitbit, luxe. My first early preproduction review unit had a really defective touchscreen, but the final production model I tried afterward is much improved. Fitbit needs to step their game up if they want to stay on top in the smart wearable niche, especially at a time when budget smart bands like the Mi Band 6 are offering the similar features at just a fraction of the cost. No Fitbit Pay, no GPS, no elevation tracking, and none of the apps or higher-end sensor data that the Fitbit Sense has (and you probably don't need). Email us at reviews@insider.com. It's a solid running companion for casual runners, as it is able to measure pace via my phone's GPS almost as accurately as the Strava app running on my phone. Alarms vibrate to wake or alert you at a time you set. When setting an alarm, turn on Smart Wake to allow your tracker to find the best time to wake you starting 30 minutes before the alarm time you set. Luxe automatically goes into snooze mode if you ignore the alarm for more than 1 minute. The Luxe tracks your daily activity, can log up to 20 different types of exercises, and records your run pace and distance using your phone's GPS. Literally. Fitbit's app remains really good, although with Fitbit being acquired by Google (and leaning more on a subscription-based Premium service for extras that you may not need), it's hard to tell where the Luxe fits into where Fitbit's heading next. If Smart Wake cant find the best time to wake you, your alarm alerts you at the set time. That being said, it's best to think of the screen as a design element rather than a utility. If you want a wearable that looks great and has a larger display, check out some of the options in this guide. Click the button again and it goes back to the swim clock which keeps on ticking. The biggest omission is its lack of an always-on display, which has become standard on many wearables. Amazon's Halo made me confront my body in a way I wasn't ready for. It's missing the Luxe's extra health tracking like blood oxygen level saturation and the stress management score, but has many of the metrics that matter. 3. ): Wear and forget about it, use the screen features only if necessary. Environmental boss Lisa Jackson tells us about the ambitious plan to get there. From the Today tab in the Fitbit app, tap your profile picture > Luxe tile. The Luxe is best treated as more of a screen-enabled modern version of a Jawbone tracker (remember those? The Premium membership also allows access to more trends over time when it comes to your activity, sleep, and heart rate data and Fitbit's full library of wellness programs and workouts among other perks. According to user reports, when they try to stop the swim clock, they are directed to another screen. The Fitbit Luxe is handily the most attractive fitness tracker I've worn, and delivers Fitbit's most important fitness and wellness metrics. Mine are big and hairy. 2022 CNET, a Red Ventures company. It avoids waking you during deep sleep so you're more likely to wake up feeling refreshed. It's slim, but doesn't have the polish that comes with the Luxe's stainless steel casing. However, it's missing features that would have greatly improved its usability. Apple's next big thing could one day be an all-recylced iPhone. There are a number of good-looking watch faces (twenty and counting) you can download from the Fitbit app, but they look really small on the already-tiny display. I initially wrote that the Fitbit Luxe only lasted for roughly two days when this review was originally published. About usCareersRetailersAffiliatesCorporate WellnessAPIHelp, 2022 Fitbit LLC. The Luxe is the first Fitbit tracker to come with an AMOLED screen, but it's not the only wearable with that type of screen tech. But it's missing features, like an always-on display, that would have made it even more useful. as well as other partner offers and accept our. You can't use Fitbit's contactless payments feature as you can on the Charge 4, and there's no option to remotely control music from Spotify. Fitbit's latest jewelry-ready tracker is capable, but its tiny interface is the drawback. Like the brand's other products, the Fitbit Luxe can issue a sleep score based on the quality of your sleep and provide data on sleep duration and how much time you spent in deep and REM sleep. These types of displays are known for offering better contrast and boldness than LCD screens. This will disable the Water Lock mode. When an alarm goes off, your tracker vibrates. Set up to 8 alarms to occur once or on multiple days of the week. The Luxe also lacks one of the most useful features to come to wearables in recent years: an always-on display. PiunikaWeb.com is owned and operated by DeepSeaGem Technologies India. We operate independently from our advertising team. Learn more. By clicking Sign up, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider While it's nice to see companies like Fitbit paying more attention to the importance of mental health and wellness, I'm not sure this Stress Management Score is helpful. There's only that small touchscreen, no physical buttons. Tap Notifications. But is the Luxe a sign of Fitbit's future, or of its past? And to reset the Luxe in case of a problem, you need to press a button on the (completely proprietary and unique to the Luxe) USB charging dongle three times. All rights reserved. For a tracker you can really control better, I'd recommend the Fitbit Charge 4or the Fitbit Inspire 2, both of which cost less. The Premium features are probably only worth it for those who need to keep closer tabs on their sleep for health reasons. But there's stuff that's been left out. Extremely frustrating. The latest issue affects Fitbit Sense users who use the swim tracking feature. That means all navigation is done by tapping and swiping, which gets tiring. Plug the charging cable into the USB port on your computer, a UL-certified USB wall charger, or another low-energy charging device. Inside Apple's ambitious next decade, where it could redefine consumer tech with a VR headset, foldable iPhone, and even an Apple Car, How Apple's push to rule the smartphone industry has made Apple Store employees feel like robots. Fitbit's Versa 3 and Sense watches both have AMOLED screens, and the Apple Watch has had an OLED screen for years. There was a little less than a minute difference between Fitbit and Strava results, which is a big deal for avid runners training for marathons and other races. Other obsessions include magic, immersive theater, puzzles, board games, cooking, improv and the New York Jets. If always-on display is on, the screen continues to display the stopwatch or countdown timer until it ends or you exit the app. No physical back button means it's sometimes hard to just return to the main clock display. This made me really wish the Fitbit Luxe had a voice assistant like Fitbit's smartwatches, especially for tasks like setting alarms. excessive battery drain is still an issue, How to disable water lock mode on Fitbit Sense, [Updated: Aug 09] 1Password on Mac clamshell mode won't recognize Magic Keyboard's Touch ID, devs aware but no ETA for fix, [Updated: Aug 09] iPhone 12 series slow/inconsistent Wi-Fi speeds reported by many, no official fix in sight. The Luxe is a complete package, with heart-rate tracking, a color touchscreen OLED and five-day battery life. Head here. 2. Now I explore wearable tech, VR/AR, tablets, gaming and future/emerging trends in our changing world. When the button is clicked to stop the swim clock, it opens to the wallet screen. The Fitbit Luxe is meant to be a fitness tracker, not a smartwatch replacement, so it only offers the basics like delivering calls and texts to your wrist, the ability to set timers and alarms, and support for Do Not Disturb mode. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended. All rights reserved.Privacy PolicyTerms of UseReturns & WarrantyProduct CareRecall & Safety Info. Gets tied into this loop for a least one hour. Only goes to setup wallet and then back to water Lock Screen. But it has some notable limitations that can diminish its appeal. I've always appreciated Fitbit's detailed sleep tracking, and that's no different on the Luxe. The Luxe is too minimal for me. fitbit croma The Luxe may be best for smaller wrists. In January of 2021, Google completed its acquisition of Fitbit that was valued at $2.1 billion. The Luxe's svelte build means the screen is quite tiny, which can make using it for anything more than checking the time or your fitness goals a hassle. Clock faces look vibrant and lively on the Luxe, especially pink and blue tones on Fitbit's Aura watch face. Sign up for Insider Reviews' weekly newsletter for more buying advice and great deals. Fortunately, you get a six-month trial of Premium included with the Luxe.