FITBIT VERSA 3 - Watch before you buy! *UNSPONSORED REVIEW* (you might want to wait!) By ReeWray Outdoors

Hey guys thanks for joining me, I just got my new Fitbit versa, 3. , so we're going to take a look at how this compares primarily to the versa 2 and maybe a little about the new versus sense, and we'll find out, what's the same with the versa 2 what's different, and is it worth upgrading, let's get into it now this isn't intended to be an unboxing video, but uh gotta get it out of the box right. So let's do that all right, so I'm gonna charge this thing up and then go use it for a few days and make sure I have a pretty good feel for this thing and how it compares to the versa 2, and then I'll be back to share those thoughts with you right about now, and we're back well, it's been a couple of days, and I've spent a great deal of time kind of kicking. This versa 3 around. I think I've got a pretty good feel for it. It's a very good device and there's some very cool upgraded features to it.

There's one thing in particular that I think may actually be a dealbreaker for me may not be a dealbreaker for everyone, but um. It's pretty significant and I noticed there are a lot of people complaining about this on the community forum on Fitbit's site, so I'll get into the details of that here in a little. Let's talk about how we got here actually, so I actually ordered the Fitbit versa 2 back in August, and literally two days before it showed up, Fitbit announced the versa 3 was shipping on September 25th. So I happened to look and see that I actually had 45 days on the return policy that I could get used to the versa 2. So that's what I did.

I really spent a lot of time at the versa 2. I understood what it could do more. Furthermore, I read about the specs on the versa 3, the more I realized. Furthermore, I was definitely going to order the verse of three. So I ordered the verse of three, and I sent the verse of two back uh, literally just about four days before the verse of three arrived.

So that brings us to where we are right. Now, let's talk about how the verse of two and the versa 3 have a few things in common. First, they both do share a similar shape. I think you'll see if I put the images up on screen here, that the versa 3 is slightly more rounded and a little less squarish than the versa 2, but they are very similar in shape. The both watches have a 50 meter, waterproof swim rating.

They both still use gorilla glass 3. They both have a 5 gigabyte internal memory capacity. Furthermore, they both run the same apps, and they use pretty much the same clock faces from there. Things get to be a little different, so the price on the versa 2 is starting at 180. The versa 3 starts at about a hundred and thirty dollars.

So there's a fifty dollar difference there. So the big thing that uh that really made me want the versa three over. The two was that they integrate GPS now directly into the watch, so you no longer have to track workouts, especially if you're a runner or a cycle or hike person like I am you don't have to be able to have your phone with you at all times. You can track that directly from the watch, which is cool now you'll get similar battery life out of the versa 3, as the versa 2 rated up for about six days, I think in reality it tends to be four and a half to five days, depending on how you use the device. If you use the onboard GPS, it will tax the battery, although in my tests with a 30-minute use of the GPS continuously, I only saw the battery life go down about three percent, so that's not too bad Fitbit says you can get 12 hours of continuous use out of the GPS.

So, there's that the voice assistants are a little different, or at least they will be different right now, they're, virtually the same, both the two and the three support Alexei, the specs for the versa 3 says it's also supporting Google Assistant. Unfortunately, with the firmware version they're shipping right now, it doesn't yet contain Google Assistant there's no support for that. The charge cable for the versa 2. Is this clamp on style thing? It's a little awkward, and you have to get it just right. This is the versa 3 and the charge cable is actually magnetic, and the cable comes out the side.

It's a little more convenient and easier to just kind of snap on and go than the little clamp style thing that the old version had or the versa 2 has fast. Charging is another one. So, with fast charging the versa 3 can get to a full charge in about 40 minutes. It takes about 2 hours on the versa 2. Also, with the versa 3, you can get to a full day's charge in just like 10 or 12 minutes, which is pretty cool.

So if you get into a pinch, you just need to get a full day's charge out of it. You can get that in just you know less than 15 minutes, and that's really nice, because compared to like to say the Apple Watch, those devices don't get near anywhere near the battery life that this guy does so having multiple days. You know, I think you can get like 18 hours out of an eye out an Apple Watch. Furthermore, you can get. Furthermore, you know four and a half five six days out of this.

If you, if you really push it and that's, I really find that to be far more desirable than having to figure out how I'm going to get this thing back to a full charge every night and having to take it off, because then you got to plan around that constantly in order to get. If you want to do sleep, tracking and all that sort of stuff. Oh, the versa.2 uses Bluetooth version 4, whereas the versa 3 uses Bluetooth version 5. So with version 5, you get a little more range. It actually doesn't drain the battery power.

Quite as much and it's backward compatible with the older versions of Bluetooth as well, so that that is a definite bonus, so the screen is very slightly larger on the versa 3 than it is on the versa 2. This is, I believe, it's a 1.58-inch squarish screen, and it's just a couple. Millimeters bigger it doesn't feel any bigger on the wrist. So the sensor array on the three is different from on the two. So take a look at this picture here, uh at the bottom of the versa two, it looks very different from the versa three.

So supposedly the heart monitoring on here is more accurate than it is on the versa 2. I'm really not able to confirm or deny that, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they've made some improvements there. They do use different bands, so, as you can see, they've got this little style of band. That kind of goes in one side, snaps down and then disappears on the other side, so you're not having a little excess flap sticking out now the way that they connect, there's just a little kind of push button here that you can use to release the strap and that's different from the little lever thing that was on the versa 2. So the bands are not interchangeable between the versa, 2 and the versa 3, but they are interchangeable between the versa 3 and the new Fitbit, since, if that helps you at all, and I'll, I'll leave, some I'll leave a link in the description below of some bands, because those are already up.

There's plenty of vans uh from third parties on Amazon. If you want to go check those out, so this is a significant one, both the Fitbit sense and the Fitbit versa.3 are shipping with fit OS Fitbit OS version 5. This is something that is apparently not going to make its way down to the earlier versions, and there are some they claim significant UI changes, uh to the Fitbit OS 5 versus the earlier version. I think that the changes are mostly good. The biggest one is that the back button or the side button, which, on the Fitbit versus three here, as you can see, is not a mechanical button.

It's actually a like a pressure, sensitive inductive button that you have to squeeze in just the right position, and it's located. You seem to have to kind of get under the side there a little in order to make that actually uh actuate, uh and open the screen. So, but what that does? Is it always takes you back to the clock face on this new OS on the Fitbit versa, 2, the mechanical button on the side? Actually, just takes you back step on whatever menu you're in that's how you back out of the menu on this one you just swipe from left to right and, and you that's, how you back out of a menu, so you can actually get by without pressing this button most of the time unless you really need to or want to you just you can just swipe, left or swipe right depending on what it is you're trying to do. But if you swipe back left to right enough times, you end up back on the clock face anyway. So another quick word about the GPS on this guy.

So I mentioned that I know I did a've actually tried it in walk mode hike, mode and bike mode and uh. They all seem to impact the battery life more or less the same from on for the same amount of use. Time uh based on my test, there's not really much variability there, and you know I did include time. You know looking at my watch, while I was moving to try to simulate how you'd probably use it in normal operation, and I and I think that the know the three percent for every 30 minutes or so that you use it is pretty accurate. And if you do the math on that, that will give you about 16 hours of life.

Fitbit clicks, as I mentioned, claims 12 hours of continuous use. I think that's, that's probably safe to err on the side of being more conservative for that number. So I'll take Fitbit's number at 12 hours as being probably pretty accurate on this watch. When you first initiate an exercise that uses the GPS the first time I did that it took about 40 seconds for the Fitbit to connect to GPS the next time I did it. It took about 20 seconds and then the last time I did it.

I remember seeing it only took about five seconds so, for whatever reason, it seems to be getting a little faster at making that initial connection, which was uh, which was nice, because that 40 seconds was a bit long because you miss out on the first part of whatever it is that you're you're doing now. The other thing that I think I wish they allowed you to do that they don't is that the GPS seems to require the Fitbit uh, whether you have your phone or not, it seems to use the Fitbit's GPS, whether you have the phone on you or not. I could not find a way to turn off the GPS or disable if it's. It's enabling itself automatically when you use those particular exercises, and it doesn't matter if you have your phone with you. That would be nice to preserve battery life.

On this thing, if I had the option, if I was carrying my phone say on a hike or a bike, where it's easier to have your phone with you, that I could save the battery life on the watch and utilize, the GPS, like the versa 2, does on the phone, but it doesn't appear that that's at least at this point an option um now. This brings me to some of the complaints I have for the Fitbit, I'm the versa 3. As I mentioned, it does not any longer. Have that mechanical switch, it's kind of a pressure sensor switch. You know it's its possible to press that under certain circumstances um, I suppose it's more reliable than the mechanical switch, I'm guessing.

That's maybe why they did it. It also probably helps with the to maintain that waterproof ability, but it's a little less convenient, because when you are pressing it, you kind of have to dig down under the watch, and it just is a little harder to get to than the mechanical button was so that's one minor nuisance, definitely not a show, stopper, um and uh. The fact that they didn't include the Google Assistant on the initial release was a little of a disappointment, but they are expecting to add that, or at least they're announcing that they intend to add that sometime in October, so it shouldn't be long before they add Google Assistant, so you'll have your option of using the Alexei app or Google Assistant on here, and I, like the Alexei thing as well, because I've got my I've got some home automation here, and I can actually initiate from the watch since it has a built-in microphone remotely from anywhere. As long as I have my phone on me, I can open my garage door and turn on lights and things like that just by whether I'm home or not, just by using my Fitbit voice commands with the Alexei integration, so that's kind of cool. Now here's the thing that really bothers me that I mentioned in the beginning- and this may or may not be a dealbreaker for you.

But it's a significant issue for me and that is with the versa 3. You could load your own mp3s directly onto the watch using the music app. Now you had to do this with a with the desktop application. You couldn't do it through the phone, but with the desktop application you could create playlists. You could load down your own music directly to the watch.

Now I I I guess I assumed that they would not pull that feature out of the versa three, and I assumed wrong. So it is not there, and I thought maybe I was just missing something, and then I went on the forums to find out what was going on and a ton of people are complaining about this. So one of the things that I really looked forward to being able to do was to leave my phone at home. I could go out on a run or a hike or a walk or whatever I could load my own music to this thing. Listen to it with my wireless Bluetooth, headphones and track my route with GPS, no phone needed makes it so much more convenient, and I think a lot of runners would probably like to use this uh in that.

In that way, and I intended to go test to find out how much battery life would be impacted by using it that way, but guess what I couldn't do it at least not without paying for an upgraded, Pandora or Deezer uh premium subscription for 10 bucks a month. So literally right now the way it stands the only way to get music onto this thing. Where you don't have to use your phone is you have to buy a 10 a month premium subscription from Deezer or Pandora, and I think for me that is a dealbreaker, so I'm expecting Fitbit to make this right um in the next three weeks or at least give me an indication that they intend to add that back, because if they don't uh, I'm sending this back before my 45-day period is over, and I'll look at something like a Garmin or a fossil, or maybe a galaxy watch, galaxy fit, and I'll check out one of those options instead, but that's unfortunate because this other than that this device is, I think, really top-notch for what you get for the money and um. I think it's. It's really the best value in the smartwatch lineup from pretty much any other brand, except for that one feature so Fitbit if you're listening put it back, or I'm sending it back.

So hopefully there is something useful for you here in helping you with your decision. If, if there was please consider giving us a thumbs up, it helps us with the YouTube algorithm if you're, not a subscriber, and you like tech reviews and or maybe outdoor videos which we will be doing eventually here soon. Consider subscribing we'd love to have you on board for that as well. But anyway, that's all I have for you today, and hopefully we'll see you in the next one and until then have fun out there. You.

Source : ReeWray Outdoors