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The Fitbit Force is the second fitness band product I have reviewed from Fitbit, you can checkout my Fitbit Flex review to see what I though of Fitbit's predecessor to the Fitbit Force.
As I mention in my accompanying YouTube video review for the Fitbit Force. I am not going to go into a bunch of specs and quotes copied and pasted from the Fitbit website, here is a direct link so you can go and check all of this out for yourself. What I will tell you is what the Fitbit Force actually does and does not do for you.
Well first of all the Fitbit Force is an upgrade or "version 2" of the Fitbit Flex, they both do a lot of the same things so make sure to checkout both units before deciding on which one to buy as the Fitbit Flex is a bit cheaper and may have enough features for you depending on your needs.
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So what can the Fitbit Force and the Fitbit Flex both do:
- They both track your basic movements, mainly step based movements like walking and running, they will pickup other movements but not as accurately as step based movements so if you are doing some sort of bike ridding, weight lifting, circuit training workout or anything else that is not based around steps than you are going to need to manually enter this info into either your Fitbit Smartphone or web based Application.
- Both the Force and the Flex have the ability to sense when you are sleeping, not just when you fall asleep and when you wake up, they can also sense when you are in a light or deep sleep. You do need to put the fitness bands in sleep mode for this. Using the Fitbit application, you can set alarms for each device, the alarm is not an audible one but rather a silent vibration which may or may not wake you up depending on how deep you sleep.
- The Fitbit Force and Flex both sync over Bluetooth to either your Smartphone or Computer (a Computer requires the included Bluetooth dongle for syncing) and transfer your fitness data in real time to the Fitbit App, which then transfers this data to your Fitbit Cloud based account so all devices are updated and in sync. This data is displayed in the form of steps taken, distance traveled, active minutes and calories burned. If you choose to, you can share this information with other friends who have setup Fitbit accounts and have similar fitness devices.
- Both the Force and the Flex are water resistant to some degree, while the Flex is rated for swimming the Force is not, not really a big deal since neither one is designed to track your swimming motion. Both can be worn in the shower.
- Both units have rechargeable batteries, the Fitbit Force will last about 7-10 days while the Fitbit Flex will last around 4-5 days on a single charge, both units come with an included USB charging cable. You can see the status of the battery level via the Fitbit Application.
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So what is different between the Fitbit Force and the Fitbit Flex?
- First of all, there is the price, you are going to pay about $99 for the Fitbit Flex and an additional $30 more for the Fitbit Force, for this you do get some more features like...
- An OLED Screen for display of the information including a clock, so you could say it's a smart watch!
- Not only do both units have built in motion sensors so they can tell what you are doing, the Fitbit Force also has an Altimeter which can determine when you walk up a flight of stairs and will indicate this information on the Fitbit Band and in the Fitbit Software.
- The Fitbit Force also has a button which makes interacting with it much easier than having to tap the Fitbit Flex to place it in its different settings.
- The Fitbit Force is supposed to get an update shortly that will allow your smartphone to send incoming call information to it.
- There are a couple positives for the Fitbit Flex over the Fitbit Force:
- The Flex is smaller and lighter so it's a bit less intrusive but both units are pretty compact and light weight.
- You can take the module out of the Flex band and change it to another color or simply replace the band when it gets beat up, the Flex band is integrated into the sensor so swapping it out is not really an option.
- The Fitbit Flex is more water proof and can be used in a swimming pool but don't think it's going to track your laps ;)
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All in all both the Fitbit Force and Fitbit Flex are really great Fitness bands, when I did my head to head comparison of the Fitbit Flex versus my Jawbone Up, the Flex came out the clear winner for me! So now moving forward with the Fitbit Force, I do like the additional features the Force offers, mainly the user interface OLED screen that I can reference very quickly and the built in watch is kind of handy too. The Altimeter is another useful piece of information that helps me track my activity, really the only downside for me is the fact that I know at some point the band is not going to look so fresh and new since I do wear it while I workout, and I will want to replace it, hopefully Fitbit offers some sort of band replacement option that is not too expensive?
My recommendation if you already have a Fitbit Flex, keep it, unless your like me and have to have the latest and greatest ;) If your a first time Fitbit customer then spend the extra $30 and get all the new bells and whistles...