Fitbit Hopes for ‘Mass Appeal’ with New $199 USD Versa Smartwatch

Fitbit is launching a new fitness tracker designed for children called the Fitbit Ace, which will go on sale for $99.95 in the second quarter of this year. The Versa, reportedly short for “versatility”, features a less “blocky” design with gently-rounded edges, a slightly smaller screen, lower battery life (four days versus five with the Ionic) and no Global Positioning System.

The company announced two new products on Tuesday: Fitbit Versa, a smartwatch that is strikingly similar to the Apple Watch, and its first fitness tracker for kids, Fitbit Ace. Like the Ionic, it features 24/7 heart rate tracking, NFC payments, sleep tracking and on-device music.

It packs 145 mAh battery that promises over 4 days of battery life with normal use. Which of them is the best Fitbit device for you? How closely do you think it matches the Apple Watch? Sure, Fitbit is leaning into smartwatches with today’s launch of the Versa, but the company’s current line of fitness trackers left a key demographic unserved.

• Personalized workouts and automatic activity tracking.

This is probably going to be turn off for serious athletes, but Fitbit is branding this for the masses.

When it comes to its functionality, the Versa allows you to view alerts from your smartphone – this includes text messages, app notifications, phone calls, and calendar events, among others.

The Fitbit Versa will be coming to India sometime in Q2 and will retail at a price of Rs 19,999 for the black (+black aluminium case) and gray (+silver aluminium case) color options. This cluster of functions allows users to record menstrual cycles and symptoms, among other, more health-oriented stats, and to keep tabs on fertility windows. According to Fitbit, the device will help motivate kids to live a more healthy lifestyle.

It’s not all about fitness on the Fitbit Versa.

The Ace, which is almost identical to its existing Alta tracker, tracks sleep, steps and physical activity.

If you don’t own music though, you’ll be able to connect up a Deezer account to get streamed music on your wrist, but it looks like you’ll have to download playlists or your FLOW to the watch before you start running as there’s no 4G connection here. And it notifies them when they achieve their goals. For example, while the CDC recommends 30 minutes of physical activity five times a week and at least seven hours of sleep for adults, the guideline for kids is actually 60 minutes of daily activity and at least nine hours for school aged kids. The idea here is that kids are indoors and sitting near screens more than ever before; an activity tracker is a great way to gamify activity for kids and help parents monitor how much time their child spends moving around versus sitting around. In terms of software, the experience is slightly different from what’s available on Fitbit’s other trackers.

The Versa is available to order right away, comes in various finishes, and will ship to your door in about a month.

That wristband is a little smaller than the Alta for obvious reasons, and comes in either purple or blue.