Performance and Software
For testing, I spent a little time with the Blaze and then I stuck it on my wife. This was mostly because frankly, I’m not nearly as active. The side benefit is that she has been using the Razer Nabu then later the Nabu watch so I was really curious what her opinion was when switching. First off the adjustable band worked wonders for us. With the Nabu, she had to use a small band and the large band didn’t even fit me, so I was happy when I found that the large Blaze fit me. Even cooler though was it even fit here, though I’m sure she would be happier with the small band. It fit comfortably and really the only comfort issue I had was just adjusting to having anything on my arm at all. The stock band did its job and even though I was worried at first that the bump on the back of the Blaze would get on my nerves, I never noticed it.
The color screen on the Blaze was a big step up from the Nabu as well. The Nabu band and watch both just had tiny single color readouts where the Blaze is just a step below being an actual smartwatch. You can keep an eye on the time within the software you can even pick from a few different home screens. The different looks functioned completely different and weren’t just recolors. The one I liked the most for its clock didn’t give on the fly access to heart rate so we ended up switching.
The biggest part of performance on a Fitbit though is the software. I mean you wear it all day, but being able to look at the data is what it is all about right? Getting started with the Blaze you have to install the app on your phone and then attach the Blaze. To do this they give you easy to use step by step instructions. I don’t think anyone is going to have an issue getting up and running.
Once you are up and running you can open up your dashboard any time of the day and keep an eye on your performance. Most of this is also on the Blaze itself but from the dashboard, you can get into long-term data and really start to get a better idea of how you are doing.
For example, with steps you can look at your step totals for each day or if you want you can click a day and actually see when you are active.
The steps and stairs are interesting, but both my wife and I couldn’t help but constantly check out the heart rate over the day. It lets you know what your resting heart rate is and then from there you can actually look at how high it goes throughout the day. You can see spikes when you are busy or when you are working out or in my case you can see the lack of any good workout.
To go with the steps, they also break things down into the total distance you walk each day. They use your stride length or GPS.
On top of the notifications, you will get on the Blaze and your phone when you break your own records or reach your daily goals. You also get an email at the end of the week breaking down your activity for the week. It does a good job showing how well you are sleeping and if you have put in any weight changes it will show that as well. You can get Fitbit scales to help with that. In this situation, it looks like a crazy amount of weight loss because it was calculating weight loss from me changing the weight from myself to my wife.
The best part about the Fitbit Blaze, and what makes it so popular is its social integration. You most likely have seen friends posting up Fitbit links. You can make a Fitbit friends list and it will show you how well your friends are doing as well. This helps promote more activity by getting friends to compete against each other. It tracks step winners and has leaderboards between friends. Personally, I don’t need anyone seeing how active or inactive I’m being, but I can see exactly how that would help promote fitness.
