Fitbit has updated its thinnest fitness watch of 2022. It’s been dubbed the Inspire 3, a wristband that now includes features like an always-on color display or a blood oxygen meter and, best of all, it’s always amazing value for money. .
It costs $99.95, which is about average. And yes, there are cheaper options, like the Xiaomi Mi Band 7 or the Honor Band 6, but this Fitbit Inspire 3 is still worth considering.
We tell you why.
Design and build
- improved design
- touch buttons
- fully waterproof
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Inspire 3 looks a lot like its predecessor, the Inspire 2. It’s a fairly typical entry-level fitness tracker in terms of styling.
That is to say, it has a thin and thin design where the screen is vertical instead of being round or square like the Fitbit Versa 4 or Fitbit Sense 2 smartwatches.
One of the design changes is that the strap fits more cleanly to the main body. The flush design makes the device much more elegant. Essentially, it looks a lot like the Fitbit Luxe model.
I tried the lavender silicone strap, but you can also get the black or orange (yellow ocher) options. Other accessories are available separately, such as a stainless steel mesh bracelet ($69.95) or a clip ($19.95) if you do not want or cannot wear it on your wrist, for example with boxing gloves .
It is a very comfortable and lightweight fitness tracker, so you can wear it around the clock without any discomfort.
It has no physical buttons as you can use the touchscreen to navigate, as well as the capacitive sensors on the side. These wake or sleep the screen or bring you back to the main clock view, no matter where you are in the interface.
Oddly enough, you have to tap both at the same time instead of, say, double tapping, which I find a bit annoying, and it’s apparently impossible to double tap the screen itself to wake. However, with the Inspire 3’s new always-on display, you might not need those buttons anyway (more on that later).
The Inspire 3 has a water blocking feature which has nothing to do with keeping water out – it’s waterproof up to 50 meters – but instead disables the buttons so water doesn’t get in. do not activate them.
Filter
- now in color
- Always optional
- always small
The screen has some good things and some not so good. On the plus side, like the Luxe model, it now has a color display and also offers an optional always-on display mode.
Not having to “wake up” the screen by lifting it or using those touch-sensitive buttons is a good option, although it does impact battery life.
My main complaint is that the screen is very small. Fitbit doesn’t actually list a measurement in the specs for this device, but I’m not too surprised as it doesn’t even take up 50% of the glass front.
This makes the interface quite cramped, compounding the usual problem with those vertical screens where anything longer than the word “display” has to slowly scroll across the screen before it can be read.
Compared to the bigger screens of the Xiaomi Mi Band 7 and Honor Band 6, the Inspire 3 looks a little ridiculous and while I can live with it for basic functions, things like receiving WhatsApp notifications or the like are essentially useless because the screen cannot display them in a readable format.
If you don’t mind these drawbacks, the screen is nice and crisp, and I found the “normal” brightness setting to be perfectly fine at all times of day and in a variety of conditions. “Dim” and “Max” parameters are also available.
Tracking and Features
- Full monitoring
- Added SpO2
- Sin GPS
- iPhone and Android
As you’d expect from Fitbit, the Inspire 3 is compatible with iPhone and Android. The tracking range available on the tracker is excellent and all the basics like steps, calories and distance are naturally taken into account.
There are also a host of other options, like sleep, stress, and more, although some need to be enabled in the companion app to get started.
One of them is “Zone Minutes”, which is a bit confusing at first, but it tracks the number of minutes you spend exercising at a given heart rate. These are divided into fat burning, cardio and peak.
Tracking is usually automatic and the Inspire 3 can detect when you’re doing certain activities, but you can also log in from the device itself if you want. By default, the options are Walk, Run, Bike, Swim, Workout, and Treadmill, but you can rearrange these shortcuts from the app.
Please note that for GPS tracking you will need to continue using your smartphonebecause the Inspire 3 hasn’t integrated it yet – it doesn’t have NFC for payments either without touching.
Instead, the main novelty is the monitoring of SpO2, ie the level of oxygen in the blood, which for many users will not mean much. A normal reading is 95-99% and mine seems to be pegged at 96%.
Avid athletes will be more interested in SpO2 levels than the average consumer, but I imagine they wouldn’t consider the entry-level Inspire 3 in the first place, so this feature will likely be more useful to anyone with health problems that affect breathing and can help detect sleep apnea.
Getting back to the rest of the tracking, you could spend hours in the companion app looking at all sorts of numbers and metrics. There are options for setting weight goals (not that the Inspire 3 can weigh you down), as well as diet and water goals.
The Community section is where you can add your friends and family and compete for step counts, although it’s unclear what time period the numbers correspond to. The “Discover” tab contains all sorts of things, from challenges to reports to watch faces.
Several features are locked after subscribing to Fitbit Premium. You get a 6-month free trial with the device, but Fitbit previously offered a full year.
Premium gives you access to numerous workouts, mindfulness sessions, guided programs and games, as well as deeper insights into your data, such as Sleep Profile, which aims to help you understand your sleep patterns and to amuse you. by pairing you with a dream pet each month. However, for this you need to wear the tracker to bed for at least 14 days a month.
It is worth using the free trial version, but after that the Premium version will cost 7.99 dollars per month or 79.99 dollars per year.
Battery life
- up to 10 days
- Less with screen always on
The Inspire 2 brought with it twice the battery life of its predecessor and the Inspire 3 can still hit that 10-day figure.
In fact, in my testing, I found the fitness tracker to use less than 10% per day, which suggests it can last longer.
The downside is that if you want to use the new always-on display feature, your battery life will be significantly reduced.
The amount depends on factors such as screen brightness and usage, but you’ll get about a third of the full potential. So for most it will be around three or four days.
Overall, it’s better than the Xiaomi Mi Band 7 when it comes to battery life, but the Honor Band 6 is a better option if that’s high on your priority list.
Charging is fine though, so you’re more likely to have the screen on all the time, as in just 15 minutes the Inspire 3 gained 32 per cent and another 34 per cent after 30 minutes. That’s all well and good, but a paltry charging cable just over 20cm long is seriously frustrating.
Price and availability
The Fitbit Inspire 3 is now available for 99.95 dollars.
As mentioned above, the Xiaomi Mi Band 7 and the Honor Band 6 are key rivals and are available for around $50 less.
We recommend checking out our entire selection of the best fitness trackers available right now.
verdict
There are a lot of things we like about the Fitbit Inspire 3, including the fact that it continues to offer good value for money.
However, at the same price elsewhere, it comes with a sleeker design similar to the Luxe that’s also comfortable enough to wear around the clock without issue.
Improvements like a color display that can always be turned on and SpO2 tracking are welcome, though the latter might not be of much use to many people. GPS would be a more useful upgrade, but it’s common to leave it out on cheaper devices. You have to spend almost twice as much to get GPS on the Fitbit Charge 5.
The tracking is very comprehensive, and Fitbit Premium is there for anyone who wants to dig deeper (and pay more). Battery life is solid too, although the Inspire 3 does require more regular charging if it’s using the always-on feature.
The Inspire 3 is a good fitness tracker, but it would be easier to recommend if the screen were bigger and therefore more convenient. Rivals from Xiaomi and Honor are worth considering before you pay the price for the Fitbit Inspire 3.
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