When the Fitbit Flex was released last May, it volleyed for dominance with the Nike FuelBand and Jawbone Up in the emerging category of bracelet-style wearable fitness trackers. Less than six months later, though, the Flex is already old hat. The $130 Fitbit Force takes the same basic bracelet design and adds a real miniature OLED screen -- instead of a cryptic series of notification lights -- so you can see bright, legible readouts of your physical activity. In addition to toggling through all of that data -- your daily steps, how well you sleep, how many calories you consume -- you also get the time, making the Force a credible smartwatch (or, at least, a smart enough watch.)
No, the Fibit Force can't log your heart rate like the Withings Pulse or automatically log your sleep like the Basis Band, and its call notification feature wasn't active during our initial testing. But the winning combination of its comfortable and water-resistant wristband design, the bright and legible OLED display, and Fitbit's easy-to-use iOS and Android companion apps make the Fitbit Force the best fitness tracker to date. You just might want to wait to see what Nike has on track for October 15 before adding the Force to your shopping cart, however.
Design
When I first laid eyes on the Force, for a moment I thought I thought I was dealing with an older product.That’s because the Force sports the same wrist strap clasp and similar boxlike shape as the company’s previous device, the Fitbit Flex.
The Fitbit Force looks a lot like the Fitbit Flex.
(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)Examining the Force closer, though, revealed many big differences between the two gizmos. First, the Force is larger than the Flex, which is especially noticeable when you place both gadgets side by side. That said, the Force isn’t noticeably heavier than the Flex and is light enough that I often forgot it was on my wrist.
Additionally, while the Flex consists of a pebble-like section that slides into a soft silicone sleeve that also functions as a wrist strap, the new Force takes an entirely different approach. By contrast, the Force is one sealed unit that’s also (like the Flex) water resistant.
The Force uses a closed not modular design.
(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)The upside to the Force’s new design is you don’t have to worry about the sleeve collecting water and dirt over time, a problem I ran into with the Flex, especially if you decide to shower with it. Trust me, the Flex’s strap can get pretty funky if you don’t wash it often. The downside of the Force’s non-modular form is you can’t pop the device into different-colored bands to suit your tastes. As it stands, the Force ships in a choice of Slate and Black hues.
The most significant new physical feature that the Force flaunts, and the primary cause of the Force’s increased footprint, is its enhanced display. While the Flex uses a simple array of LED lights to convey its status, the Force boasts a true alphanumeric OLED screen. As a result, the Force can display all the information Fitbit’s other belt-clipped trackers offer. This includes telltales for steps, distance traveled, calories burned, and stairs climbed. Also very useful is the clock readout, which is an excellent addition on a wristband-style device like this. It effectively transforms the Force into a high-tech fitness watch, a boast the older Flex can’t make.
Push the Force's button to flip through its display screens.
(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)To cycle through the Force’s various screens, simply press the device’s physical button, which sits on its left side. It’s another attribute the Flex lacks and makes interacting with the Force a more pleasant and responsive experience. The Flex, on the other hand, requires that you tap its screen to fire up its LED lights, something that works most of the time but occasionally doesn’t register. Of course you can enable this tapping function on the Force, too, if you’d like.
The underside of the Force houses a recessed well and metal contacts. Essentially it’s a port for connecting the USB charging cable included in the box.
Features
The new Fitbit Force flaunts all the powerful fitness-tracking skills of its predecessors plus a few extra impressive abilities. Just like the Fitbit Zip and Flex, the Force measures the steps you take using its built-in accelerometer. From there the product calculates how many calories it thinks you’ve burned based on your individual stats such as age, sex, weight, and height.
The Force also displays how much you’ve walked or run in distance traveled and, as with the Fitbit One, tells you how many stairs you’ve climbed -- another ability the Flex lacks. The Force keeps an eye on your most active minutes, too, which is a trendy feature working its way into more and more fitness products these days. According to Fitbit, this is an important stat to track, since the Center for Disease Control recommends a regular dose of 150 active minutes a week.
The Fitbit app shows plenty of details and syncs via Bluetooth.
(Credit: Brian Bennett/CNET)In addition, I certainly appreciate how the Force can log the duration and quality of your sleep. The Flex and One have this skill, and so do competing products such as the Jawbone Up and Withings Pulse. To activate, simply hold down the Force’s button for a few moments, which kickstarts its timer. Press the key again when you rise from slumber, and the Force does its best to calculate your sleep stats. The Force functions as an alarm clock, too. A silent alarm will instruct the device to vibrate softly when you want it to.
A modern health tracker needs to have two features, aside from standard pedometer chops, to really stand out from the pack. These are wireless syncing with smartphones over Bluetooth, and support for both iOS and Android devices. Thankfully the Fitbit Force can tackle both tasks, though only partially.
Like the Flex, the Force can be tricky to strap on.
(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)Like the Flex, One, and Zip, the Force enjoys a full wireless link to iPhone 4S models on up, which run iOS 7. That means the Force will harness Bluetooth 4.0 to sync activity data in the background (without you having to command it) to your handset and then up to Fitbit servers living in the cloud. Additionally, the Fitbit app has the power to push software updates to the tracker automatically.
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