Some Issues That Stand Out

I really love the Fitbit Versa 2 but it goes without saying that there are a few things that I dislike about it and the user experience. I recently did a blog about The Top 5 Things I love About The Fitbit Versa 2 and so I decided to talk about those traits of the smartwatch that bothers me the most.

Number 5: Need Location on to Sync

The infrastructure of synchronization between the phone and the watch works in such a way that location has to be always on. I'm a minimalist and I love efficiency and so most times, my location is off as well as bluetooth. With this watch though, location and bluetooth is always on now. I don't mind having bluetooth on consistently but location as well too? This drastically hits my phone's battery life and the all day battery life I used to get has not dropped to a little more than half a day. A quick google search indicates that location has to be on for syncing due to complications with Android's permissions.

Number 4: Syncing Issues

With a prominent company like Fitbit, one would expect certain services and functions of their products to work seamlessly or at least reliably. Most times, things are well until the watch dies (yes sometimes I forget to charge it because the battery life is so good). When this occurs, it is a pain for the application on the phone to recognize the watch and sync again, most times calling for a watch reboot. This could be due to the phone as well but the issue has occurred with other phones. There is no prompt that indicates the watch has lost connection with the phone and so sometimes if there is a disconnection, stats on the application may not be updated but still be displayed as well. This has resulted in me having to actively check the "last synced" time, every time, on the app to ensure that everything is up to date. Not a good thing for customer experience.

Number 3: WiFi or Data Connection Needed

I was appalled one time, to find out that in order to use and access information and stats on the application on the phone, one needs an internet connection! Without it, or offline, you won't be able to sync, see or access the stats from the watch. At this point, you can only access your stats on the watch itself which is displayed in a limited fashion and definitely not ideal.

Number 2: Easy To Scratch

The Fitbit Versa 2 comes with a Gorilla Glass 3 display surface. I've had many watches and still do have that has been through my daily habits for years and there are no scratches. I simply take good care of my stuff, even my phone screen has little to no scratches after years of use. Imagine my surprise when within the first month of wearing the Versa 2, there was this huge scratch that was insanely deep for my standards as well as some little scuffs here and there. This being on the glass itself and nowhere else. Also I tend to painfully be aware if I do happen to hit my watch somewhere but to me, there was no such incident! Checking on the forums, there were actually a lot of complaints about this same issue by others as well. For a sports/ physical activity oriented watch, I would have expected better durability compared to other cheaper watches out there.

Number 1: Highly Inaccurate Step Counts

Fitbits are supposed to be quintessential fitness trackers and one would expect that the base task of stop counting to be the best. This is not the case. Myself and a lot more people on the forums have been complaining of inaccurate and downright erroneous step counts. I've reviewed Chinese smartwatches that count steps more accurately! There will be times where I'm home and I haven't put on the watch all day and when I pick it up, there would be thousands of steps for the day! How can there be steps when the watch nor the phone was in motion with me? Also when comparing the step count to the pedometer on my phone, the numbers are way off, the phone step count being more accurate in estimation with respect to the activity I had for the day.

Yay Or Nay?

To me, the good things about this watch such as the battery life and other features for its price point far outweighs the negative points that I have made. Most of them are tolerable for now though they shouldn't have to be. I believe that all except the scratching can be fixed with some software updates. Maybe I'm being too lenient but I'm not one to fuss too much and make the best with that which I possess! Thanks a lot for reading, Cheers!