hey what's up it's Jerad with State of tech and today we are going to compare the
fitbit Versa with the Apple watch 3 now I am doing this comparison because this
is a true battle that I'm kind of going through right now I love both devices
I have liked Fitbit for a long time I feel like they are kind of going through
this transitional time right now where they're really trying to figure out what
people want out of their devices and they're getting their you know they
really are but there are things that I really like about the Fitbit Versa and
there are things that I really like about the Apple watch and that's why I'm
doing this video because I wanted to kind of discuss those things and
hopefully if there are some of you out there that are trying to decide between
one or the other that maybe this video will help you out so I purchased the
Fitbit Versa right when it released I've spent probably a good two weeks at
least with it and have gone back and forth between wearing my Apple watch and
this kind of depending on you know what the scenario is I was at a conference
last week and I had a lot of meetings and a lot of things on my agenda so I
switched to the Apple watch just because the calendar on that is a bit better
although still a little confusing and challenging to use it's better than than
what's on the vs. so it really does depend on what you're wanting to get out
of your watch so that's what we're gonna talk about today in this video so the
Fitbit Versa obviously is cheaper than the Apple watch even if you go with the
Apple watch 3 that doesn't have LTE and this one does have LTE the the watch is
significantly cheaper but it does some things better than the Apple watch
mostly the fitness aspect of this this watch the Fitbit Versa is better as far
as the sensors and the data that you actually get the consistency of those
sensors everything seems to just perform better on the Fitbit now it should
because the Fitbit is a Fitbit device and that's kind of the sole purpose of
it although the Fitbit Versa is meant to be something that you could probably
wear 24/7 now it has pretty good battery life considering that the sensor is
running 24/7 even when you're asleep it doesn't stop track
for a little while and then start tracking again like it's the heart rate
monitor is consistently tracking you throughout the day and the night which
provides it with better data of course you know it doesn't have things like GPS
like the Apple watch does but it also does a pretty good job of like tracking
when you maybe go on a run or a walk or a bike ride or something like that it
does a pretty good job of keeping track of those things even though it does
require your phone for GPS so if you want that really consistent tracking
you're gonna need to have your phone with you but I mean the alternative is
to get an Apple watch that is much more expensive there so of course the Apple
watch does a better job with the tracking because it has GPS built in and
then if you have the LTE version it has the benefit of being able to pull from
your location data and everything as well so your location is much more exact
and so if it's very important to you to have that route that you took maybe
you're using an app like the Strava app or something like that and or RunKeeper
and you're wanting to keep all of your you know runs and everything and the
actual location information there you're gonna need something a little bit more
than this if you don't want to carry a phone with you if you carry a phone with
you it's gonna be perfectly fine so let's talk a little bit about the
features of the Versa and then we'll jump over to the Apple watch the things
that I like so I like the minimalistic display
I love how thin and kind of you know this is a much smaller device than the
Apple watch the Apple watch is a bit thicker it sticks up a bit more I'm
constantly bumping it on things the Versa is more just slim and almost not
even noticeable the watch strap is okay I'm not a huge fan of it but it is
replaceable if I wanted to replace it with something else I just haven't done
that yet I have taken it off it does come pre-installed with the small strap
which was a little too small for my wrists like put the large one on and
whole arch one has a ton of room so the difference between the small strap and
the large strap is is huge so that was kind of nice that it came with that I
like being able to just kind of tap on the screen and go between my heart rate
my steps and cow he's burned very nice of course I can
just swipe and get through you know the different apps we have the AOL Instant
Messenger looking exercise app which I really like I like how they have built
these out you know so whether I'm running biking or swimming treadmill
weights I can basically or interval timer which is great of course there are
you know interval timers you can get for the Apple watch but I just love the fact
that this is all built-in and and just works really well so you can even go in
and customize these here and kind of set them up just for better performance
I like these of course there are apps there's the fitness app and the Apple
watch that you can do this on but I feel like when I have used the Fitbit Versa
and I haven't used it for all of these basically just for running and treadmill
and weights it does a better job of giving me the data that I was kind of
expecting the Apple watch of course does that but the neat thing about the vs. it
doesn't seem to really kill the battery life like it does on the Apple watch now
granted that might be because the the Versa doesn't have GPS it doesn't have
some of those sensors that the Apple watch has but you know I don't I don't
necessarily think that stuff matters of course I don't need GPS if I'm at the
gym or if I'm running on a treadmill or something like that so it's nice that
the battery life isn't quite as affected with the verse as it is the Apple watch
some of the other apps the music app I'm kind of bummed because you have to
really connect the watch to your computer and load music on there it's
very reminiscent of an old-school mp3 player where you have to plug it in load
your music on there you're stuck with that music which is fine but you're
stuck with that music and then you have to go through the process all over again
I like having a lot of variety and even though with the Apple watch I have to
use Apple music I can access pretty much any music that I want and if I'm on LTE
that's great when I may be outside if I'm in at the gym or something like that
I typically would just connect to the Wi-Fi so that
I'm not using my data plan so if you don't have an LTE Apple watch you can
just connect to the Wi-Fi there and then stream but it does only work with with
apple music which is kind of a bummer on here of course you can load over your
music or you can use Pandora or there's Deezer which I haven't really messed
with too much but pandora is nice because you know of course anybody who
use Pandora but the problem is is that you have to sync over your Pandora
stations and and it still has to store music on the watch I was able to get it
to play some music over Wi-Fi but the Wi-Fi setup process is kind of a pain so
if you were wanting to like add additional Wi-Fi locations it's just not
as easy to do as other devices so of course you know the things that I do
really like about this watch is occasionally it is saying hey it's
prompting me hey get an extra 50 steps that you know right now to reach your
goal or what not it's like I've been sitting for a long period of time I
might get up and walk around a little bit might decide to go outside maybe
walk you know around the block or something I mean just things that are
gonna prompt me I typically am more apt to do this at home on the weekends I you
know if I'm being sedentary it gets me up maybe go play with my kids and just
move around a bit and so the reminders are really nice of course you can set up
stuff like that on the Apple watch but I don't know why but the ones on the Apple
watch I'm just more apt to to get rid of just to make them go away because
they're pretty much the same all the time and they're not giving me exact
goals like on the Fitbit saying you know 50 something steps a hundred and some
steps like it's giving me some sort of a goal that I can achieve and it doesn't
seem like too much and so you go out and do it and then you've added to your day
which is great the thing that I like really the most about the Fitbit Versa
and the reason the I personally would get the Fitbit Versa is because of the
heart rate monitor of course the Apple watch has a heart rate monitor and the
heart rate monitor runs quite often on the Apple watch but it doesn't run 24/7
so the data that you're getting with a heart rate monitor
of the versa is is better and of course if you're looking at your sleep data
that's even better because it's giving you that consistent information there
and even if you go and look at the sleep data that both watches have captured
you're getting better data out of the Fitbit Versa now the nice thing is that
you can load pretty much anything onto the Apple watch a lot of app support
which I found that I don't really use that often now things that I do really
like is calendars text messages phone calls stuff like that which of course
the Versa will do you can get call notifications you can answer or hang up
on them which is great but of course if you answer the call you're gonna have to
have your phone ready to go up to your ear because it's not going to allow you
to answer the call at least from my experiences take the call through the
Fitbit Versa itself so you can hang up an answer calls through the Fitbit Versa
you can see your text messages you can see your calendar reminders but on the
Apple watch you can actually respond to those text messages you can answer those
phone calls and you have a little bit more that you can do with those calendar
items now from what I understand on the fitbit Versa and a future update you are
going to be able to respond to text messages on the fitbit Versa from
Android and I I'm not a hundred percent sure on the phone calls I'm assuming
that you could probably answer phone calls on it I just haven't done that I
typically if I'm gonna look at my watch I'm in the middle of something and I
want to cancel out that phone call I typically don't answer phone calls too
often on my Fitbit device so we're looking at my Fitbit Versa right now
it's early in the morning so I don't have a lot of steps of course that's
actually almost afternoon but I've been in my desk all day so let's take a look
at my sleep time yesterday so you can see here I really like the information
that it gives it tells me these different percentages like whether I was
awake and rim light sleep or deep sleep tells me exactly what time I went to bed
and what time I woke up I can look at my 30 day average which
gonna be too good because most of the time I've been using a standard Fitbit
which does the Fitbit flex which does track my my sleep but it doesn't have
the heartrate information so it's not gonna be as solid of information as if I
have the Versa or one of the fitbit's that does track your heart rate 24/7 so
this is pretty good typical range it looks like I like this being able to see
the kind of the typical range it lets me know where I'm at and concerned
comparison to other people looking at my sleep stages I can kind of scroll
through these this is just good data I mean in comparison to what you get on
the Apple watch and sometimes I don't even necessarily know where to go
because there are several different apps that integrate with the Apple watch and
it's Fitness data but I just like I just like the what Fitbit has done here the
information that I want there's just more of it and it's better data I can
always see my constant heart rate and kind of see where that's been I can go
back and view my heart rate where it's peaked and where it bottomed out usually
during sleep or rest so this is pretty good I just I like this information I
like being able to see this stuff it definitely helps me better kind of get a
picture of my overall I guess heart health as I'm moving throughout the day
which I'm not super old but I am approaching 40 and I like to have this
information available to me so this is just good stuff this is good
stuff that you cannot get in the in the Apple watch app so let's see if I go
into the Apple watch health app which does have all of this information I'm
gonna go into my sleep analysis and just kind of look at that data and as you can
see for last night about six hours of sleep you know let's see if I can go too
well this is all data that's let's just look and see how deep we can get into
this data here so you know it's it's not there just isn't very much data you know
I see in bed and asleep that's about all that I get so I don't understand whether
or not it's deep sleep or REM sleep or any of that stuff I just know whether or
not I was in bed or sleeeeep and it doesn't really give me
anything in depth of course there are other apps that I found that I can use
that perhaps might give me a little bit better data but the Apple watch app in
and of itself this this app just doesn't give you as good of data as as other
apps so then here we have the kind of the heart rate Max and minimums I can go
to yesterday well I didn't wear it yesterday so I only have like today's
data and last night's data through my sleep and of course I can go back I mean
I it's just a couple of days that I haven't worn the Apple watch because I
was wearing the Fitbit verse and more consistently and so any gaps in here is
typically where I was wearing the Versa so I mean you know this is good
information it just seems that the Fitbit Versa kind of gives me a little
bit better information I'm gonna go into there's another app that I have which
one is it and cardiogram is one of them that I use
I guess I need to reload my data here so cardiogram gives me I think a little bit
better data so I can go in maybe I just like the way that it breaks down the
data better than the Apple watch so that's an app that I typically use a bit
because it gives me a little bit more data to work with Auto sleep is one that
I use just to kind of get a better picture of my sleep these are things
that I just end up having to use because of the fact that the default app for you
know Apple health just doesn't do this stuff and then heart watch I used to I
just I don't know I'm messing with all these apps all the time just to kind of
look and see I've been trying to find one that's like cross-platform between
Android and iPhone I just haven't found anything good so nonetheless it really
comes down to what you're wanting to get out of your SmartWatch if you're looking
for something pure fitness that gives you the best fitness data but still has
a couple of SmartWatch features I think the Fitbit Versa is gonna be the best
option and especially if you are more budget conscious you want something
that's a little bit cheaper gives you kind of the best of both
worlds the Fitbit versus definitely going to be that if you're wanting
something to make you know track some fitness but also you want productivity
you want apps you want all of the stuff on your wrist you want cellular
connectivity the Apple watch is really the only thing that you're gonna be able
to use and get the full functionality out of on Apple's ecosystem on the you
know Apple watch phone iPhone iOS phone OS whatever they're going to be calling
it that's really the only option that you have so if you're cross-platform
like me you're jumping back and forth between iPhone and Android really the
the Fitbit is great because it's a universal across both platforms and
you'll be able to get that data and keep it consistent you just lose out on some
of those kind of more technical things you know some of those apps that you
would be able to use on the Fitbit vs so who knows maybe they're gonna be
investing more in the app ecosystem for the Fitbit that would be fantastic
however they've been at it for a few years now with their smartwatches and
there hasn't really been a whole lot of movement there so who knows what that's
gonna look like so to be honest I don't know necessarily what would be best for
you you really have to look and consider your options I think for me
I like the Apple watch because it does give me that complete Apple that
complete Apple ecosystem with you know being able to connect to my air pods
being able to use it with using Siri and not even though I don't like Siri is
better than no voice assistant at all so I mean there are things about the Apple
watch like really like considering the fact that I already have one I would be
going with it if I had nothing right now and was trying to make a decision I
probably would go with the Versa just because the versus cost is so much
better and the data is actually pretty fantastic so I hope that helps you out
down in the description below are links to where you can see both of these
devices on Amazon clicking on those links help support our channel here I'm
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you can make the best decisions on your own
so I hope that this kind of look between the two helps you to some extent if you
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