The Fitbit Cost 6 is getting extra Google-y than ever. Fitbit’s new $160 health tracker inherits most of the options we cherished on the Pixel Watch, like its coronary heart fee accuracy and Google app help. Nevertheless it packs them in a smaller design, with a battery that may last as long as per week, slightly than a single day. The Cost 6 is on the market for preorder now and launches Oct. 12 in 30 international locations.
The Cost 6 shares the same look to the Cost 5, with a coloration touchscreen in a slim band design. In my overview, I referred to as the Cost 5 one of the best Fitbit you possibly can purchase, and it gained a CNET Editors’ Alternative award for its smooth integration of well being and health options.
However there’s a new aspect to the Cost 6’s acquainted design: a button. Fitbit listened to person suggestions and added a button on the aspect of the tracker for navigation. The Cost 5 solely had a touchscreen, so that you’d should swipe and faucet to vary settings. I did not discover the Cost 5 navigation too difficult, however the brand new button ought to make it simpler.
Google’s first smartwatch leaned closely on Fitbit’s health monitoring options and interface. The Cost 6 nonetheless runs on Fitbit’s proprietary working system, not like the Pixel Watch, which makes use of Put on OS. Nevertheless it does help Google Maps for turn-by-turn navigation, Google Pockets for cellular funds and YouTube Music for playback management. Observe that you will nonetheless have to have your cellphone with you to get turn-by-turn navigation and stream music, because the Cost 6 does not have LTE inbuilt.
Fitbit additionally optimized the guts fee algorithms from the Pixel Look ahead to the Cost 6’s lower-power processor and says it now has 60% more-accurate readings throughout larger depth workouts like spinning, HIIT and rowing.
Cost 6 has much more health options for the fitness center
This yr it feels just like the Google-owned Fitbit is solidly positioned because the fitness-first wearable, exemplified by together with help for fitness center gear on the Cost 6. You can see your dwell coronary heart fee information from the Cost 6 on bikes, treadmills and rowing machines that help Bluetooth Coronary heart Fee Profile. That features manufacturers like NordicTrack, Peloton and Tonal. You may additionally be capable of see that very same real-time coronary heart fee while you connect with sure Android and iOS health apps like Peloton.
There are additionally 20 new exercise monitoring modes, together with browsing, snowboarding, CrossFit and HIIT. That brings the full variety of exercise sorts the Cost 6 can observe to 40. Not too long ago used exercise modes now present on the high of the app, which ought to prevent from scrolling to search out your often used actions.
Additionally new on the Cost 6 are 4 new clock faces and accessibility options like zoom and magnification. The Cost’s case is now created from 100% recycled aluminum, and the Fitbit app has been utterly redesigned.
Just like the Cost 5, the Cost 6 is appropriate with Android and iPhone. It shares the next sensors:
Constructed-in GPS.EDA, or electrodermal exercise, sensor for stress monitoring.Blood oxygen.Pores and skin temperature.
You may want Fitbit’s $10-a-month premium subscription to entry extra particulars just like the Every day Readiness Rating, which takes your sleep and exercise information into consideration and recommends exercises relying on how “prepared” you might be. The Cost 6 does include a free six-month trial of Fitbit Premium, in addition to a one-month trial of YouTube Music Premium.
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Battery life is claimed to last as long as seven days, but when the Cost 6 is something just like the Cost 5 and you employ the always-on show and GPS, it is probably you may have to cost it extra usually. I averaged round two full days from the Cost 5 with heavier use.
For now, the longer term seems unsure for Fitbit’s Versa and Sense watches, because it feels the corporate is specializing in its health tracker lineup and leaving the smartwatch aspect to the Pixel Watch. That is smart, as a result of Fitbit’s energy has at all times been its trackers and the Pixel Watch borrows a lot of Fitbit’s ecosystem anyway. We’ll should see how issues shake out when Google publicizes the Pixel Watch 2, confirmed to launch alongside the Pixel 8 on Oct. 4.