The Fitbit Sense 2 is the company’s flagship watch for 2022. It takes the original Fitbit Sense’s obsession with health tracking, improves stress tracking flexibility, and adds a physical button instead of a finicky pressure-sensitive spot on the side. It’s an improvement, but in some ways, the Sense 2 feels like a step back from the best Fitbit. Third-party app support has been removed, implying that this is no longer a true smartwatch. In doing so, the Fitbit Sense 2 loses all music support no playback, no control over what music is played on your phone.
It means that the Fitbit Sense 2 lacks a clear sense of direction. However, it’s still a good fit for passive, casual health and fitness tracking, as well as for those with a lighter workout routine, where slightly erratic heart rate accuracy isn’t a deal breaker. Fitbit’s top-tier wearable is the Sense 2. The second-generation model is thinner and lighter than the original Sense, with a more responsive touch screen and longer battery life. The original Sense was the first smartwatch to include an electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor, which tracks your body’s response to stress by measuring small electrical changes in your skin’s sweat level.
The main improvement to this year’s model is the addition of a new Body Response sensor, which measures continuous EDA (cEDA) activity for all-day stress tracking with notifications. In stressful situations, it prompts you to reflect on how you’re feeling and offers suggestions to help you relax. Its weekly summaries shed light on trends such as your most stressful days and top moods. This brings us to the third new Fitbit smartwatch for 2022, which isn’t even called a Fitbit: the Google Pixel Watch. The Pixel Watch, which combines Google’s Wear OS software with Fitbit fitness tracking technology, competes with the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 as the best Android-compatible alternative to the Apple Watch.
The Pixel Watch includes a number of lifestyle features that its Fitbit OS-powered siblings do not, such as phone call support, access to the Google Play Store for third-party app downloads, and Google Assistant for smart home voice controls. In exchange, the Pixel Watch lacks several health features found on Fitbit-branded watches, such as SpO2 tracking, high/low heart rate notifications, and guided breathing sessions.