Samsung Gear Fit2 Smartwatch Large, Black

After a ton of research about Fitbit products, I purchased the Fitbit Charge 2 as an upgrade to my Fitbit One. I had to return/exchange the Charge 2 as the step count was wildly inaccurate. Fitbit advised that this was a defect and provided a new device promptly. However, the new device had the exact same issue. Both Charge 2’s have been returned.I then broadened my research beyond Fitbit products and was stunned to learn at how much more I could get for my money if I opened my mind beyond the popular Fitbit product line. I ended up purchasing a Samsung Gear Fit 2 and am very happy I did.I’ve used the Charge 2 and Gear Fit 2 each for at least a month, and here’s my take on how they compare -*Accuracy:This is the main deciding factor for me. The Charge 2 was wildly inaccurate (keep in mind, I received 2 devices from Fitbit as noted above – both with the same issue). It consistently missed over 1,500 steps a day and counted steps while I slept somehow. My Fitbit One didn’t have this issue. Fitbit customer support suggested I place the Charge 2 in my pocket for improved accuracy, which completely negated the purpose of upgrading from the One to the Charge 2.The Gear Fit 2 is pretty spot on. I say ‘pretty’ because the only time it’s slightly off is when I walk in place, and that’s OK with me because I’m cheating anyway… It also accurately counts repetitions when using the different Exercise features (lunges, crunches, squats), which is really cool and helpful.*Features/Functionality:The Gear Fit 2 is the clear winner here. The biggest reason is that if you’re looking to keep track of how you’re doing with your fitness goals, even if you’re just casually trying to improve your fitness level, it really makes it easy by improving awareness. For example, when viewing any item such as floors or steps, not only do you see today’s activity, but you also see how you did for the rest of the week at a glance. Tapping on those screens displays the detail by day. You can get more detail on the exercise done (map, etc) if you want to from these screens as well. There's really not much of a need to use the app with the Gear Fit 2.The Charge 2 will display this detail within the app only, as far as I know.I tried the guided breathing feature on the Charge 2 a few times and didn’t really find any value in it. To each their own.The Gear Fit 2 has built in GPS (no phone required!), so once you’re done with your run/walk/hike, you can view your route, distance, average MPH and much more, right on your wrist.MyFitnessPal works really well with the Gear Fit 2 so you can quick add foods directly from your wrist and log water intake with a couple of taps.With the Gear Fit 2, I can play music from my phone or store music directly on the device. I can view/dismiss Alarms directly from the screen. I love the ability to set a button to quick launch a feature. I use it to quick launch an Exercise, so all I have to do is press the button, and I’m off! On the Charge 2, you’d have to tap thru the screens, then press/hold to launch the Exercise - this was kind of a PITA for me and I usually forgot to do it before I set off on my adventure.One thing that I really love, which may not be a big deal to many other folks, is the ability to quickly set the Gear Fit 2 to ‘do not disturb’ mode. This means that the all alerts are muted and device won’t wake when you move your wrist. It’s great to use when sleeping so you don’t light up the room at night!*Comfort:The Gear Fit 2 blows the Charge 2 away here. You can tell by the photo that the Charge 2 doesn’t sit flush to the wrist area, largely due to the lumpy bottom and straight face. This made me abundantly aware that I had something on my wrist every second of every day that I wore it. It was downright painful to wear while sleeping if I put any pressure on that wrist (if I slept on that side). When I took the Charge 2 off to charge it or shower, I had a visible indentation mark on my wrist from it (and I wasn’t wearing it too tight).The Gear Fit 2 has a curved display with a flush bottom that I forgot I was wearing once the novelty of playing with it wore off. It’s comfortable to wear while sleeping and while active.*Customization: It’s kind of a split here, but I’d have to say that overall, the Gear Fit 2 wins.The Charge 2 has the advantage over the Gear Fit 2 in the band category since there are so many different bands to choose from. I’m really not sure why there aren’t more available for the Gear Fit 2, but I will say that I’m happy with the options that I’ve found. There’s a great magnetic Milanese one out there that I love. And, for anyone else who’s lost some thumbnails – it’s easier to remove the original Gear Fit 2 band if you bend it backwards a little bit:)The Gear Fit 2 wins over the Charge 2 with respect to the customization features available directly within the device. For example, with the Gear Fit 2, the biggest difference is that you have a color screen. So, you have a whole world of options open to you for different clock screens. I can easily change mine each day to match my outfit. Then, there are all the different apps you can download and use right on your wrist (such as MyFitnessPal and Workout Trainer).*Battery Life:It’s a draw. Some complain that the Gear Fit 2 has too short of a battery life, but that’s not been a problem for me. I set the screen brightness to 3, which is still plenty bright, and use a clock face with a mostly black background. Maybe I get more life out of it since I put it on 'do not disturb' mode at night too… I was getting about 3 days of use out of the Charge 2 which is about the same as I’m getting for the Gear Fit 2.*Fitness Goals:I didn’t really find many features within the Charge 2 that would encourage me to push to meet my fitness goals. Although I did like how the Charge 2 had automatic reminders to move 10 minutes before each hour.The Gear Fit 2 does one better by having reminders every 50 minutes, which is a bit more personalized. I’ve set an exercise as a quick launch, which has been super helpful. I have also found myself using the other exercise tracking features often, just because the device has the ability to do them (for example, crunches, squats, etc). Maybe it’s just me, but knowing I have the ability to track it with a tap on my wrist is encouragement enough.*TL;DR - Summary:For me, the clear winner is the Gear Fit 2. I absolutely love it.I can’t for the life of me figure out why so many folks love the Fitbit Charge 2, after having had 2 that were totally inaccurate. One conclusion I’ve arrived at is that many may prefer the Fitbit to other devices just like some prefer iPhone to Android. Just a matter of preference. Fitbit is basic, simple and stripped down versus the Gear Fit 2, which is feature loaded and very customizable. It can be overwhelming to some that just want a device that comes out of the box with no other options.Personally, I love the mere fact that the Gear Fit 2 is accurate in addition to the additional features, having the ability to customize and the ease of use that the Gear Fit 2 has versus the Charge 2.

I'm usually an early adopter of new tech but I waited a bit to get a smartwatch/wearable. I was keeping an eye open for the moment that wearables became viable for me as a real tool and not just as a vanity tech item, and I believe the Gear Fit 2 is it.Picked up a Gear Fit 2 from Amazon. @$150 and so far that seems like a steal. The fitness trackers I've used (calorie, step, heart rate) all work well, syncd up with the Gear app on my phone ( Nexus 6) with no problems, S Health app works well and the sleep tracker is an amazing little "Never knew I needed it till I got it" kind of thing. Battery life hasn't been an issue at all, with a pretty good bit of use I still haven"t used more than 60% of the charge in a single day. Charging is relatively fast and convenient.The alarm was the most unexpected perk. I've always needed a very loud audio alarm to wake me up, and sometimes that's still not enough. The silent, gentle vibration from the wristband has yet to fail to rouse me, and no one else gets disturbed.I'm a grill cook by trade, so I was worried about the extremes of kitchen life. So far so good. I have a wireless blue tooth speaker paired to my phones Poweramp media player (MP3's on my phones internal memory) to provide tunes to the kitchen. The media player app on my Fit 2 acts like a remote for my phone, changes songs, volume etc. which comes in handy at times I can't come off the line to do it on my phone. It's also nice to receive remote notifications from my various conversations across several messaging apps ( txt, Facebook, email, Twitter) so even though I can't engage in a full conversations, from time to time, I can at least monitor things like running conversations from group chats and make sure that the last text that came in wasn't some emergency or situation that needs my immediate attention.A few reviews I read while I was researching before purchase said the band had a tendency to come unfastened, but so far it hasn't happened a single time in all the reaching, grabbing, flipping, turning and general motion and abuse required from me throughout the night at work. The streamlined, minimalist design of the watch and band work for me as well. Not a lot of places for food to get trapped and you can imagine how nice the water resistance is in a busy kitchen.There are a few things that aren't 100% yet. The Spotify app for the Fit 2 does not work for me. It downloaded to my phone using the Gear app and installed on the Fit 2 just fine, but when I attempt to actually open the app on my Fit 2, it will open Spotify on my phone, but on the Fit 2 it says "Unable to start Spotify BT dissconnected" although the BT is in fact not dissconnected. I Googled it and at the time of this review it seems to be a known bug, but I can't tell how common it is, so maybe see if a search returns any info on your specific phone if thats's a deal breaker. I will add that the Fit 2 Media Player will actually still remotely control general playback from Spotify on my phone the same way it controls my Poweramp/internal MP3's on my phone, but i don't get to browse songs/playlists etc. Just general track forward and back, volume pause and so forth. I can live with that, but I do hope the bug gets a fix soon. The full use of Spotify's functionality available remotely would be great. Also the advertised ability to stream songs from my phone to the FIt and then to wireless earbuds doesn't work. It may be a Spotify only thing, and if so then it obviously won"t work until the previous bug gets fixed, but I can tell you that it doesn't work trying to stream songs from my phone in my gym bag to my Fit @ on my wrist and then to my wireless earbuds (proximity is king with the wireless headphones).The software involved in all of this is really sort of "Still getting it together". The Gear app keeps trying to get me to change certain permissions EVERY time I open it. There's apparently no way to remove some of the notifications from displaying on the home screen ( inactivity, loss of blue tooth connectivity) no matter what the settings are. Some of the on/off switches seemed unintuitive ( "I thought the slash meant off, but it's lit up, now so I don't know?!?!?!") and it takes some work to get everything set as close to perfect as you'd like. It would be nice to be able to change the time my "Day" starts for the tracking apps. Counts run from midnight to midnight, but my day, unfortunately, doesn't. I work nights so my day runs from 3pm to 7am. I can't for the life of me figure out how to change this, but it would sure help when tracking calories etc.Also, the UI is a little stale right out of the box. I have to keep reminding myself that the Fit 2 was primarily designed as a piece of sports gear, and the various screens and apps show it. Information is supplied in easy to read, if not attractive ways. Third party clock faces and apps do help to curb the utilitarian feel of the Fit 2 a bit, but that's another area you can feel is not quite all there. I like making my FIt look like a Pip Boy as much as the next guy, but finding usable functionality app that's attractive AND reliable still seems a bit away.All that having been said, this is still an amazing piece of kit. Within the span of a week it has already almost seamlessly established itself through use and convenience as part of my daily life. Watch, alarm, timer, calorie counter, remote notifications and music management. It does so much, so well for so little, and even though there are still kinks to work out, I can say that the Samsung Gear Fit 2 is the affordable and reliable wearable that I waited for: A great starting point.