
The process of setting up the Blaze with your smartphone is simple, and it regularly syncs over Bluetooth to keep your app updated with your progress throughout the day. That’s pretty bad for a $200 fitness device the Blaze needs to be fully waterproofed if it’s something you’re going to wear for days at a time. And you can rule out swimming completely. It's also water-resistant enough to handle getting caught in the rain - though Fitbit discourages customers from showering with it. The fitness watch automatically lights up when you raise your wrist, and this works just as it should 99 percent of the time.

Blaze has three hardware bottoms one on the left side that most often serves as a back button, and two on the right. The screen is sharp enough to where I never noticed unsightly pixels - and I get obsessive about that sort of thing. It's a vast improvement over the mono-color, very tiny displays on earlier Fitbits. (The optional leather band is even lighter than the silicone strap you get in the box.) But style-wise it’s not something I’d normally want to wear on my wrist every day.Īt the center is a 1.25-inch touchscreen LCD (covered by Gorilla Glass 3) with a resolution of 240x180. I will say that it's very comfortable despite that size, and I've had no issues or discomfort wearing the Blaze to sleep at night. Either way, the Blaze is a big, hulking thing that never went unnoticed by people around me. Maybe the company’s executives just assume that the Alta will appeal more to people looking for something more delicate. Women are too often ignored by smartwatch makers, and Fitbit is guilty of that here. The octagon-shaped steel frame that houses the Blaze is rather large on my wrist - and I'm a 6’1" male. The Blaze, like the recently announced Alta, is meant to usher in a new era where fitness frackers resemble fashion items and call less attention to your wrist.īut truth be told, the Blaze could still be sleeker. Fitbit sells a variety of other band options in leather ($100) and steel ($130).

It's also intended to be a stylish fitness watch you can remove the Blaze, which is really just a little black square, from its wrist strap in seconds. It's tossing everything it's learned about fitness trackers into this new model for something a little more sophisticated - and a little bit smarter, too. But with the Blaze, Fitbit's trying to move beyond that. But those things require dedication - long-term dedication - that a fair percentage of people sometimes lack. And Fitbit's mobile app is capable of far more than that it can track your meals, calorie / water intake, and plot out your weight from week to week. For most people, fitness trackers are motivation that we wear on our wrists: motivation to get moving more throughout the day, to hit step goals and stick to a healthier sleep schedule, and maybe even brag a little bit on social media once we achieve those things.
