Don't discount this feature on a fitness tracker. The most recent Apple Watches are better in this respect compared to the first one, but the battery life is still measured in hours, rather than days.
The UX for a Fitbit as a smartwatch is honestly horrible. The Pebble acquihire prioritized watch apps, in (what I see as) a belief that watch apps are necessary to compete with Apple. Resources would be far better spend improving the first-party UX and apps first, before opening up the ecosystem to outside developers. The iPhone dev kit trailed far behind the initial iPhone launch.
Fact of the matter is that my Series 4 watch has about 2 and a half to three days of battery life, rather than the marketed 16 hours, especially when used like a fitbit (Apple's estimate bundles in music streaming, navigation, and hardcore workouts, and is tested on the smaller model, which has a smaller battery.)
I was a huge pebble fan, I still use my Pebble 2 and Time Round sometimes, the Apple watch is in another league as per what it can do, but I honestly think the Pebbles were still a better product than Fitbit's watch at doing what fitbit is trying to do. Sure the Fitbit has a nicer screen, but what do they do with it?
The same could have been (rightfully) said about the Apple Watch....
The iPhone dev kit trailed far behind the initial iPhone launch.
The iPhone launched July 2007. The dev kit was released in April 2008. The App store launched around July 2008
Battery life kept me. Being able to go 4-7 days without thinking about the watch is paramount. I also don’t want to charge every night because I want to track my sleep! So Fitbit won out.
I wish they could succeed independently. They have so much love and stickiness in my friend group and we all love the simplicity of simply an advanced fitness tracker without all the weight of a full-fledged phone on your wrist. Sadly, it seems like they don’t know how to run a company effectively. Which is a shame because I really really don’t want to move to Apple or Google products or anything else in this category until they solve battery life.
Charge at night is a habit that can easily be adjusted to our daily schedule. btw Apple watch does last a full day (I meant 16+ hrs) with decent use, unless you are playing music out of it all the time or obsessively checking time/calendar.
Only advantage of fitbit is that some models are easier to wear to sleep, particularly if you don't need to charge at night. However, even here, apple one is way ahead - the theater mode will make sure the super bright led at the bottom won't wake you up.
I have no idea about the UI that some people complain about, but my wife seems to have managed to get access quite a bit of functionality in her Fitbit, so I'd say it's good enough for its purpose.
I guess apple pay on a watch is marginally more convenient than taking out your phone, but $400 and having to charge it seems not really worth it?
That is why I was asking. The only "benefit/luxury" you mention is apple pay and you say that you are not using it much.
A fact that blew my son's mind when I explained why he didn't have to charge his watch.
It's enough to go from ~60% to ~80% and fits in as a daily habit, so my watch is almost always between 65% and 80%, It can track my sleep (I exclusively use my watch for tracking sleep, tracking exercise, tracking heartrate and telling the time. I don't have notifications enabled)
Then perhaps the best feature of charging the watch in this way, is that if you forget to charge (or unexpectedly away from home), the watch will always last for 3 extra days.
And if you are going away on short weekend trips, you don't need to pack your charger, just make sure it's at 100% before you leave for a reliable 4 days of usage.
I went on a 2 week trip to Europe and didnt even bring my charger -- lasted the whole time. I've had it for a year now and it's rock solid. It's been in the ocean with me, and been smashed into rocks on backpacking trips. Still in great shape.
I don't endorse many things very heavily but this thing is amazing. It's not sexy with it's black and white screen and small selection of watch faces... But it's so nice never needing to charge it, it's basically indestructible, and does everything you'd want a smart watch to do
It also looks like an actual adults watch too.
The configuration part of the fitbit companion app is frustrating. But that's where the UI belongs and where it should be fixed. I have zero interest in a watch that's an even smaller and more frustrating phone UI.
Mostly I like only having to charge my watch every 3-4 days because it's long enough to forget about needing to charge it.
I had a Pebble since their first kickstarter and the work Pebble did to make exactly what you are talking about blew Fitbit's current product out of the water (Even though Fitbit bought them and used their tech to make the Ionic and Versa). The Pebbles were faster, lighter, smaller, with better battery life (2+ weeks!) and a fantastic UX (By the same people who worked at Palm on WebOS). Sure they didn't have a touch screen, but they also intentionally had enough buttons to not need one. (Meaning they worked better with gloves)
Then you talk software quality, after using the Versa for a little while, the biggest problem is that its UI is such a mess to use. If you don't want to configure a watch face on the Watch, the Apple watch has that feature too and it is instant and easy to use, just like the Pebble was. Once you use everything else it's really clear that the smart features on the Versa are an afterthought that Fitbit tasked some scrum team to get done and shoved in the app in a week, marked the task as done, and moved on, forgetting that for the casual user, that is the only other thing you want to do with the app.
The other entire problem is that the Apple Watch is complex...but only as complex as you want it to be. If you never click the home button it can do everything you do with your watch with a nicer (bigger) screen, an easier, and a faster UI, and plus it has Siri and much better notification access. Fitbit is stuck between Apple and Garmin and they justy can't pick one. I imagine the Google sale would fix that pretty fast.
The Pebble was worlds better at this, when I used the Versa I was surprised by it. It sells tons even though Wear OS is way ahead.