Fitbit Versa 3 Health & Fitness Smartwatch with Alexa
The smartwatch with everything you need to just go, introducing the Fitbit Versa 3. Track your pace & distance (leave your phone behind) with built-in GPS. Receive call, text and app notifications, use Amazon Alexa Built-in and control Spotify, Deezer and Pandora when your phone is nearby. Plus with Active Zone Minutes, 20+ exercise modes and 6+ day battery with 12-minute fast charging, you’ve got all the motivation you need to reach your health & fitness goals.
- Run, bike, hike and more phone-free—and see your real-time pace & distance—with built-in GPS. Then check out your workout intensity map in the Fitbit app
- Active Zone Minutes uses your resting heart rate to gauge exercise effort and gives you a buzz when you step up the intensity so you can make the most of your workouts
- Better track heart rate 24/7 with PurePulse 2.0, Fitbit’s enhanced heart rate technology
- Use your voice with Amazon Alexa Built-in to check the weather, set reminders, control smart home appliances and more from your watch (Voice assistant availability and features may vary)
- Free 90-day Fitbit Premium trial for new Premium users (Valid payment method required. Cancel before free trial ends to avoid subscription fees. New Premium users only. Content and features may vary by language and are subject to change)
- Get 6+ days of battery on a full charge plus one day of battery in just 12 minutes with fast charging (Battery life varies with use and other factors; up to 12 hours with continuous GPS)
- Track your time in light, deep and REM sleep, then receive your Sleep Score to better understand your sleep quality each night
Store and play music & podcasts on Deezer or Pandora, plus control Spotify—all from your wrist. Subscriptions required for use of music services; not available in all countries
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Dan Rhine –
Cant add local music. You have to pay $10 a month to store music on device
Sabz –
Would not recommend this. It was a gamble to move from Apple and all its resulted in is an expensive mistake and an Inconvenience of waiting for a refund because it was so poor! Not very responsive to the touch at all, froze and had to be resetConstantly, didn’t pick up steps, said I’d burnt over 800 calories without even wearing the watch, no one burns that much in their sleep! Strap is a nightmare to do up popping open every time you try to move the strap round the wrist to close fully. It’s a shame as it’s a nice looking watch not as chunky as other fit bits which suited my tiny wrist but other than that it’s awful! Fitbit company said it sounds faulty when I rang them. Not good considering it’s brand new! Right on back to Apple for me where I can be comfortable in the fact that it will work and respond well to the touch.
Zerbs –
I was so excited for this Fitbit to be released. After using it for several day, I’m pretty bummed and will be returning it tomorrow. Here is my list of pros and cons:Pros:* GPS – This is the biggest reason for my excitement; finally a Versa with GPS! I wanted a way to track my runs without taking my phone with me. (read cons for why I still can’t go without my phone) The GPS lost signal during a portion of my run my run….. My phone still had good signal, so not sure why the Versa lost GPS signal. It wasn’t for a long period of time (maybe a 0.10 of a mile?), but still disappointing.* SpO2 % – Pretty cool that it can track this….but it only gives a range from when you are sleeping. No way to spot check this. Cannot figure out why they didn’t make this possible.* The flat back – the Versa line is the only fitness/smartwatch I have been able to tolerate. I despise the raised round backs of so many others. The back of this watch causes no discomfort.Cons:* No music storage – wth Fitbit?!?! So you added GPS, but took away music storage. Major design flaw. It can only stream music when connected to a phone via Bluetooth, so I *still* must take my phone on runs with me. This is the reason I am returning the watch. ***EDIT*** – So….you can store music for offline use *ONLY* if you subscribe to Deezer or Pandora. So, It will cost at $10/month to store music. Spotify will only allow to to control the music from the watch, but doesn’t allow for offline music. You can’t upload your own music to the watch.* SpO2% – like I mentioned above, there is no way to spot check this. I would love to see what happens with my SpO2 during runs, when I go up to higher altitude and workout, etc. But, nope, it only tells me about the values from when I was asleep. *eyeroll*I am going to try the new Garmin Venu Sq Music Edition and hope the back of it is not as uncomfortable as I have experienced with other similar watches. It is about $20 more but can do all the things that the Versa 3 can do PLUS the things the Versa 3 can’t. Onboard music storage, and spot checking SpO2. I’ll miss the Fitbit communities and my familiarity with the Fitbit platform.
Bj Gill –
So, I am an ex-Pebble watch owner having funded the first Pebble smart watch way back in 2013 and have had various smart watch devices over the years. I have owned the Amazfit Bip and GTS for the last few years and have been really happy.Unfortunately, my Amazfit GTS had a falling out with my tiled bathroom floor recently, which resulted in me needing to find a new watch. I had ordered a replacement GTS, but noticed that Fitbit were launching the Versa 3 so thought it might be time for a change.For context, I use an Android phone so Apple is out of the question, I’m sure the Apple watch is great and if you are in the Apple eco-system (or walled garden depending on which way you want to look at it!) then I would recommend just going for an Apple watch. I’m sure it will do everything you need and work seamlessly with an Apple phone. For those on a more limited budget and who prefer Android devices then ironically we have more options, but not quite as much quality.So on to my experience with the Versa 3, so far its been pretty good (although do see my Edit at the bottom!).The GOOD+ Comfortable to wear and not too big (Android Wear OS devices Im looking at you!)+ Receives notifications and has been pretty stable so far+ Have set it up to send emails,+ You can see the DNA of a Pebble watch is in here with the UI, payment methods for additional apps and watch faces, which is a good thing as Pebble got a lot of things right.+ Ive found the step count to be fairly accurate so far, requires a bit more a longer term test but seems fine to me, I’m not the sort of person who religiously checks every step so its ok.+ I like the weather details that you can get+ I like the fact I can load my payment card on to the watch fairly easily and use to pay for things+ I like the notifications for apps from my phone.+ Sleep tracking seems pretty accurate, it doesn’t show up immediately in the morning as its trying to figure out if you are awake, but does pop up on the Today screen after a short while.+ Alexa works reasonably well and I could imagine if I put in the time I could get it to do all sorts of things.+Lots of potential if the software could catch up with the hardwareThe SO, SO+ The watch band sizing is a bit odd, this is a bit unique for each user but Im actually in between a small and a large size, so have opted for large but do find the remaining strap a bit too long as its tucked into and under the watch band. Tolerable.+ The capacitive button. Not too bad a bit weird at first as really why not a physical button? Its on the left hand side of the watch. Honestly not too bad once you figure it out and really no different from a physical button after a couple of days!- The app store is a bit light on apps! It looks like Fitbit released a new SDK and not a lot off apps have updated yet so not a lot of choice. Miss the Pebble store as it had some great apps.- The screen is a bit smaller than I expected, I only have the GTS as I reasonable point of reference and that device had a superb screen, bigger and still a normal watch size. Tolerable and not a deal breaker.+ The Fitbit eco-system seems interesting and I quite like the fitness reminders and functionality – but yet to fully get into this yet having just moved over.- I did have to fiddle around with Do Not Disturb and Silent settings on my phone a bit to get notifications set up. I used to just have the phone on silent, but doing this means you get no notifications on Fitbit. So I’ve had to reset everything to work with Do Not Disturb. Which is fine but a bit of a faff.- Vibration is a bit weak for notifications and no way of changing the intensity. Interestingly the alarm notification is reasonably strong and has a pattern. But the normal message one needs to be stronger in my opinion as I do find I ignore it more than previous watches.- Responding to text messages, I cant use voice which the later Pebble watches could and were half a decade older in tech(!), so maybe something that will get implemented in the future- Kiezel Pay – still going and a Pebble thing. Bit weird the Fitbit app store uses this. Im sure they could implement something slicker but see point below around the Fitbit UI.The NOT SO GOOD- Music. Oh dear, naughty to say that the device can store music when in reality its a very poor option. The Versa 2 as I understand it has a specific offline Music app which you can transfer your own MP3s to the watch. Its not really particularly clear that on the Versa 3 only Deezer and Pandora allow music to actually be stored on the device. Two services I haven’t really used in the UK, pretty sure Pandora isn’t really available in Europe. The Spotify functionality only controls Spotify and there is no offline storage for this app which is a bit disappointing. There is no way to actually transfer MP3s to the watch as this app looks to have been removed. So if you do want music on the device in the UK, looks like you are out of luck.- The speaker. Well there is one as the watch made a noise when I first booted it up. But unfortunately it doesn’t actually do anything. I haven’t tried a voice call yet. I suspect this will is a ‘coming soon’ feature and I’m sure Alexa and Google will start talking to me one day, but until later this year the speaker serves no real purpose at present for me.- No Google Play Assistant – well yet anyway! This is coming later in the year too….- The Fitbit eco-system / UI seems a bit clunky, in fact its a bit of a mess to be honest. Feels a bit like multiple team developing there own tools and features and then somehow it just about hangs together rather than a slick and polished experience. There are all kinds of options and I’m sort of a bit confused what I’m really supposed to be looking at sometimes. The best example is switching the watch faces from 12hr to 24hr clock. You need to log into a web dashboard to find an obscure option to set. Which is a bit daft when I have an app and the watch which would be much better places for this setting! Maybe its just a learning curve Im on….- The watch bands are expensive. They are also specific to the Versa 3 and Sense and use a clip mechanism, so you cant just use a standard watch band or quick release bands of any kind (of which I now have a load of 20mm bands sitting in a draw from my Amazfit devices)- The screen on when you move the wrist, possibly the most disappointing aspect. The Amazfit GTS was spot on in this regard and would flick on instantly. Not so here, you need a fairly good forced motion to get the screen to come on to view the time and a few times Ive just given up and tapped the capacitive button on the side to wake the screen up. You do have the option of an always on display, but if you want your watch to drain after a day and a bit go for it, I quite like the comfort of a reasonably charged battery. I think I can just about deal with it but I’m sure this should be much better.- The charger cable! What were they thinking here. Its about 25cm long. Im unclear what the expectation is here but I tend to keep the devices near my phone which has a cable that stretches to the wall. Not sure why they don’t give a reasonable length cable. I’m lucky(!) as Amazfit also do the same thing, so I already have a simple USB extension cable to solve this problem. But honestly!TOP TIPS- The capacitive button! Its fine really, I’m surprised at the one star mentions…Basically put your index finger on the right of the watch and then press with your thumb just under the watch back on the left a little to ‘press’ it with a good proportion of the thumb. Honestly, when I first opened box and started to use the watch I thought it was going to be massively irritating, but its fine once you figure it out. Not a problem at all.- Notifications on the watch show the notifications on your phone and if you clear on the watch they can be cleared on the phone and vice versa.- My Agenda app wasn’t syncing. Agenda shows dairy appointments. I uninstalled the app via the Fitbit app store and then re-installed it. It then woke up and I could see my calendars and I could select which one I wanted to show on the app.- Logging water intake is hidden away in the advanced settings when you swipe up, this can be adjusted on the watch. If you turn water logging on you can then log water when yous wipe up and scroll down and press the log button under the water area.- Disable battery optimisation on your phone! Constant disconnects are largely to do with how your phone deals with background apps. If you let the Fitbit app run in the background and then lock the app on the recent apps screen using the padlock you have a better chance of not having disconnections. This is pretty much the case for most smartwatch companion apps on a phone.Ill come back and update depending on how i get on and when features are released.EDIT: So….Ive returned the device!!!, why? Well Garmin have launched the the Venu Sq and to be honest although I like the software in the Versa 3 the actual capability of the Garmin offers pretty much the same (although a bit less polished) functionality and allows me to use my small collection of watch straps. The Fitbit could be great, but the watch strap just didnt fit well and was starting to get annoying, the fitness functionality is limited (in comparison to the Garmin). The music services felt like a bit of a cheat on the Versa 3 and the speaker functionality doesnt really do what it should. Maybe in a few months time this will all get sorted but the Garmin feels more robust and just seems to work out of the box (no fitness subscription, complicted setup or half baked services). Will be interested to see what Google will do with Fitbit, but for the time being Ill stick with the new Garmin Venu Sq.
CNutbeem –
The new Versa 3 promises a lot, but ultimately it suffers from the inherent unreliability of all Fitbits. I have had several and all have failed in one way or another over the years, but one comment failure that I have had at some point with all Fitbits is difficulty to charge the device. Usually this occurs after several months, but with the New Versa 3, Fitbit have really excelled and produced a device which won’t charge straight out of the box even though the charger is magnetised and snaps into place. After several resets and plugging into several different sockets, I still have no joy. It maybe that this is an isolated case and I just got unlucky. Time will tell I guess. In any case I will have to return the device to Amazon so its not a great start .Update… got replacement from Amazon and guess what it wouldn’t charge either. Before you ask I am capable of charging a multitude of devices so this is not down to me!
NB –
Battery update 2: exactly 6 days and about 10 hours since I removed it from the charger and I’m at 12%. Lots of texts (only a few voice replies),lots of fiddling with settings, my star trek clock is set to update weather hourly,no GPS,haven’t played music through it, at least 10k steps per day, display is on motion, not always on.Battery update: I received and charged it this past Tuesday. It’s been on my arm since. At this time, it’s at 42% battery life. That’s with those initial setups and exploring and a minimum of 10k steps per day. A lot of texts came through but I only replied to a few via text. No GPS usage and the display is not always on (motion)I’ve seen a lot of folks complaining about lag and responsiveness. I haven’t had that at all (so far). Granted,this might be due to an update that took almost 45 minutes when I was setting it up.Notes in no particular order:I find it more accurate with heart rate than my charge 3.I’ve already updated it to the star trek themed clock faceIt is VERY accurate on voice to text, including in adding in proper commas (so far)It’s been off the charger for about 20 hours and is down to 86%, which I find good considering color screen and all the time I spent going over the features and getting the settings where I likeComplaint – why does this only track spo2 while sleeping???? That’s pretty dumb. I need to measure mine while working out and just going about dialy lifeI really wish their were more bands on the market for it.
S. Martin –
I was not thrilled with this Fitbit Versa 3 after using it for a few of days. The screen kept freezing when I’d try to swipe, I couldn’t get any music on it because you have to have a paid subscription to Pandora or Deezer, you can’t run a timer while using the running app, it won’t run my google calendar, and since I am an iPhone user, it doesn’t allow me to respond to calls/texts (which I knew beforehand). But I thought, no biggie, Fitbit has a 45 day satisfaction guarantee. I called to initiate the return process and they told me that they would not honor it because I didn’t purchase from Fitbit.com. Never mind that this is the Fitbit ‘store’ on Amazon and never mind that when I originally tried to purchase it through fitbit.com, the order wouldn’t process because of a glitch on their end. Bye-bye fitbit, hello Apple watch.