Fitbit Surge Health Tremendous Watch Evaluation

The Fitbit Surge tremendous watch is the primary Fitbit with built-in GPS for velocity and distance, and it additionally has steady strapless coronary heart fee monitoring. It does what different Fitbits do — counting steps, distance, energy, flooring climbed and monitoring sleep. Should you pair it with a suitable cellphone you may get name notifications and skim incoming textual content messages and management your music throughout exercises. It is a very sensible pedometer smartwatch.

Who Will Love the Fitbit Surge?

It’s smooth sufficient for both males or ladies to put on all day as a watch. Then once you wish to observe a exercise, you needn’t put on a coronary heart fee monitor strap or use a separate app or gadget to trace your velocity and distance through GPS. You possibly can view all of it in your wrist, then see additional particulars (together with a map of your route) after syncing to the app or on-line dashboard.

The Surge is constructed for walkers, runners, and cyclists who wish to use GPS and coronary heart fee to trace their exercise velocity, distance and train depth, and who wish to observe step, energy and sleep multi function gadget.

You possibly can observe different train exercise through the train timer and coronary heart fee readings. You possibly can observe indoor walks and treadmill exercises with the Surge with out GPS, it would use the accelerometer readings to present you velocity and distance estimates.

If you have already got been monitoring your exercise with a unique Fitbit mannequin, you’ll be able to simply change your identical account to the Surge and proceed with the identical historical past, app, and on-line profile. Fitbit additionally has up to date to help you hyperlink a couple of Fitbit gadget to your identical account, so you should use the Surge for exercises and one other Fitbit for day by day exercise.

Purchase Fitbit Surge at Amazon.com

On Your Wrist

The Surge is worn as a wristwatch with a comfortable elastomer strap and typical (safe!) wristwatch buckle. It is available in black solely presently and the strap isn’t replaceable. It's greatest to put on it one finger-width out of your wristbone or barely larger in your arm for the accuracy of the guts fee monitor. Your pulse is learn through their PurePulse LED sensors on the again of the watch.

Surge has a monochrome touchscreen, with the clock or different screens at all times seen and it has an computerized backlight. I discovered it straightforward to learn with my growing older eyes. The clock display has a alternative of various time shows, all of which present solely the hours and minutes (no seconds), and a few additionally present the date. I choose the Flare display which exhibits your exercise every minute.

Swipe the touchscreen to view screens exhibiting your present coronary heart fee, day by day steps, distance, energy burned and flooring climbed.

Press the Residence button to trace train classes and handle vibrating alarms. You possibly can view incoming calls and skim incoming texts on the display in case your paired cellphone is inside 20 toes. I really was capable of get texts when my cellphone was downstairs on the reverse finish of my home (in all probability 50+ toes away), which was spectacular.

Charging and Battery Life: The Surge has a battery lifetime of as much as 7 days should you don't use the GPS characteristic. The battery will solely final for five hours of GPS exercise monitoring, and so they advocate charging it after utilizing the GPS operate. It has a customized USB cable for recharging.

Is the Fitbit Surge Waterproof? No, it’s splashproof however they advocate towards swimming or showering whereas sporting it. Showering shouldn't damage it, however Fitbit desires you to present your wrist some air and taking it off within the bathe will clear your wrist to stop rashes.

Setting Up the Fitbit Surge: You want both a pc or a smartphone to arrange and use the Fitbit Surge. It syncs wirelessly to a USB dongle on a pc, or through Bluetooth 4.0 to the cellular app (iOS and Android).

Coronary heart Price 

• Are You Within the Zone? The center fee display exhibits your beats per minute and the guts icon signifies which zone you’re in. It has three computerized zones: moderate-intensity Fats Burn zone (50-69% of most), vigorous-intensity Cardio zone (70-84% of most), and the Peak zone (85% and above). You may also set a customized zone should you do not just like the preset zones. You get whole time within the zone for any exercise in addition to all-day totals.
• Coronary heart Price Accuracy: By sporting the Surge within the place they steered, with the strap cosy, I obtained steady readings that had been in step with a chest strap coronary heart fee monitor once I was at relaxation and through brisk strolling exercises. However as a wrist-based sensor, it’s more likely to be much less correct in case you are doing weightlifting or different actions that use the arm muscular tissues. 
• Exercise Coronary heart Price: You possibly can view your coronary heart fee and zone indicator throughout exercises, but it surely would not have any alerts if you end up in a selected zone or out of the zone (resembling a beep or vibration). After you end, you’ll be able to see a graph of your coronary heart fee on the app or on-line dashboard, together with your common and most coronary heart fee and time in every zone.
• Resting Coronary heart Price: This studying is taken throughout your sleep interval and is a sign of your well being and health. A decrease resting coronary heart fee is a sign of higher health and readiness for a superb exercise
• Each day Coronary heart Price Graph: See a graph of your coronary heart fee all through the day on the app or dashboard.

GPS Pace and Distance 

Select Run, Stroll, Bike, or Hike as an train exercise and you should use the GPS sensor to trace your velocity and distance after which view your route afterward on the app or on-line dashboard. In contrast to the Fitbit app, it makes use of the sensor within the Surge watch itself somewhat than your smartphone.

It’s essential to be outdoor to make use of the GPS characteristic because it locks in satellites after you select Run, Stroll, or Hike train monitoring. This will take a number of seconds, though you are able to do a fast begin and it’ll observe you primarily based on the accelerometer till it locks within the satellites.

Whereas monitoring a Run, Stroll, Bike, or Hike, the display exhibits the full mileage on the prime, elapsed time (minutes, seconds, tenths and hundredths of seconds) after which a 3rd line which you could scroll by for present tempo, common tempo, coronary heart fee, energy, and time of day. You possibly can observe laps by urgent the motion button on the finish of every lap and seeing the lap stats. Computerized laps are recorded for every mile, however you’ll solely see them after your exercise within the app or dashboard.

I discovered the Tempo (your present tempo) to be jumpy, it appeared to flip-flop between paces that had been a few minutes per mile aside at my strolling velocity (common of 16 minutes per mile). The Common Tempo and Lap Tempo had been extra constant.

You possibly can pause the exercise and resume simply. You’ll nonetheless obtain incoming calls and textual content alerts whereas recording exercises, in addition to congratulations should you attain your day by day step aim.

After the exercise, you’ll be able to view your abstract stats on the Surge and full particulars on the app or on-line dashboard after you sync.

For treadmill exercises and indoor strolling, the space and velocity are primarily based on the accelerometer somewhat than GPS. You’ll have to measure your stride size and alter it through the net dashboard to get an correct velocity and distance for the treadmill.

Intervals: There isn’t a apparent interval operate, however you possibly can use the vibrating alarms to arrange your individual intervals.

The GPS distance readings had been rather more dependable than the GPS of my iPhone 4s (which constantly overestimates my distance by 10% and due to this fact my velocity by an identical margin). They match the Polar M400 GPS Sports activities Watch worn on the opposite wrist.

You possibly can't use the GPS on the Surge to inform you the place you’re or give coordinates. You possibly can solely get map info after you sync it together with your cellphone app or on-line dashboard.

What Fitbit Surge Tracks All Day

• Steps – All-Day and Exercise Steps: The Surge tracks each all-day steps and steps for particular person exercises. It vibrates and flashes congratulations once you attain your day by day step aim, which is ready to 10,000 steps per day by default (which you’ll change).
• Energy: Fitbit tracks all-day calorie burn, plus you’ll be able to see the energy burned in the course of the exercises you observe. The calorie depend is supposed that can assist you stability the energy you eat with the energy you burn off all day. The dashboard or app will inform you what number of energy it is best to eat to be able to meet a weight reduction aim. You should utilize their meals monitoring log on-line or within the app. It’s a excellent pedometer for dieters.
• Distance: That is estimated out of your step depend for all-day steps. It consists of any distance tracked in exercises through GPS.
• Sleep: The Surge mechanically detects sleep, however would not show it on the watch. On the app or dashboard you’ll be able to view your whole time in mattress, time asleep, time awake and time stressed, plus a sleep graph.
• Alarms: You possibly can set a number of vibrating alarms and select how usually they repeat. You possibly can handle these from the watch in addition to the app and dashboard.
• Stairs/Flooring: It mechanically tracks the flooring climbed.
• Energetic Time: The variety of steps you are taking per minute are translated into Energetic minutes. This can assist you observe whether or not you’re assembly train suggestions for half-hour or extra of moderate-to-vigorous train every day. Should you use the Flare clock, you see how lively you’ve been every minute of the present hour, which could be a good immediate to stop lengthy intervals of inactivity.

Fitbit Dashboard and App

Fitbit is a favourite of mine for monitoring your weight loss program and well being stats. You should utilize its meals log within the app or on the net dashboard, observe water, your weight and extra. You possibly can interact in challenges with associates and earn badges for accomplishments. Fitbit can also share knowledge with many different in style apps and you’ll publish to social media.

Professional Evaluation 

Pluses:

• Consolation: I discovered it straightforward to put on as a wristwatch day and night time. I tightened the buckle barely extra once I wished the perfect coronary heart fee studying throughout an train session.
• Show: Like an ordinary watch, you’ll be able to view the time with out having to activate the show. It was straightforward to maneuver from display to display with a swipe to see your different stats.
• Coronary heart Price, GPS Pace and Distance at a Look: You don't should placed on a chest strap or activate an app. You possibly can go away your smartphone safely at dwelling and nonetheless observe your exercise. You possibly can view it proper in your wrist as an alternative of attempting to view it in your smartphone throughout a exercise. Better of all, for lengthy exercises you aren't draining your cellphone battery, simply that on the Surge.
• Mobility: It’s essential to sync with the app or a pc each 7 days to obtain minute-by-minute knowledge, however it would preserve 30 days of day by day totals and 39 hours of GPS knowledge in case you are unable to sync weekly.

Minuses

• No inactivity alerts or strikes reminders to maintain you from being sedentary and scale back the well being dangers of sitting an excessive amount of. Nonetheless, the Flare clock offers an excellent indication of how a lot you’ve moved inside the hour. Should you set a vibrating alarm, you possibly can verify it at set intervals to remind your self to maneuver.
• Lacks superior working watch options: In comparison with the Polar M400 GPS Sports activities Watch, it would not have interval timers inbuilt and another options that critical runners could count on on a working watch.
• Lacks superior coronary heart fee monitor options. There are not any beeps or vibration to point in case you are in-zone and out-of-zone, simply the icons.

Backside Line 

I liked the GPS and coronary heart fee options of the Fitbit Surge. It’s a excellent all-in-one health monitoring gadget for runners and walkers. I additionally loved the incoming name alerts and textual content messages. It has all the different primary Fitbit features for steps, energy and sleep monitoring. Most of all, I appreciated the Flare clock show to indicate me how lively I’ve been inside the hour.

The value tag of the Surge places it into the realm of smartwatches, and it could be that you just'd need an Apple Watch as an alternative.

Should you aren’t within the GPS velocity and distance, or the Surge simply appears too large so that you can get pleasure from sporting, the Fitbit Cost HR band is an effective different.