CES 2016: Fitbit Blaze preview

With the Blaze, the company is looking to be competitive with products like the Apple Watch, which offer less by the way of fitness but far more when it comes to customization and style.

The Blaze has some improved fitness tracking features, like a better and more frequent heart rate tracking feature.

When it comes to wearables, Barack Obama has given the POTUS stamp of approval to the Fitbit Surge, leaving the Apple Watch out in the cold. “Google searches for the Fitbit brand last week were up 60% YOY globally; up 38% YOY in the USA; and up 178% YOY in the U.K. We also took note of Fitbit re-claiming most-downloaded status in China over Xiaomi last week”.

Fitbit will be making the device available globally in March for a price of $200, while customers in the United States can order it through the company’s website starting today or purchase from retail stores from tomorrow onwards. The smart activity tracker will also have standard notification options (calls, texts and calendar notifications) and can be used to control the volume of music on smartphones that are synced with it. Fitbit says that it will sell a stainless steel link band and a leather band separately for the device.

If you do have your smartphone along for your workout the Blaze can take advantage of its Global Positioning System to give you pinpoint accuracy on the distance of your workout.

Fitbit Blaze integrates personal trainer onscreen workouts into the Fitbit experience. Fitbit Blaze also shows smartphone notifications and can accept and reject calls. It’s not a surprise that I was happy to see the new Fitbit Blaze brings some style to the substance.

The module features a hexagonal watch face with a color display, and custom watch faces, but being a Fitbit wearable its core functionality still remains fitness tracking. It also includes connected Global Positioning System for real-time exercise stats and PurePulse wrist-based heart rate tracking, which the company introduced previous year.

Fitbit’s new smartwatch might’ve impressed consumers with a 5-day battery life, but it wasn’t enough to impress investors. Just announced at CES, this new device is a fitness-first smartwatch and activity tracker. The Blaze will come with multiple sport modes, including aerobics, basketball, bootcamp, bicycling, hiking, running, soccer, tennis, weight training, and yoga. But, in line with the company’s other products, the Blaze has an activity and exercise focus with no other third-party apps available on the device.

Fitbit The Fitbit Blaze can last up to five days on a single charge.