They may not look as exciting as the Pixel Watch, Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 duo, or even Garmin’s latest (square-shaped) battery life champion at first glance, but if their predecessors and their own apparent value for money are any indication, Fitbit’s new Sense 2 and Versa 4 could well make our list of the best smartwatches money can buy as soon as they’re actually released.
For now, the two Android and iOS-compatible intelligent timepieces can be pre-ordered in exchange for $299.95 and $229.95 respectively, and if you hurry, Best Buy will throw in a pretty valuable $50 e-gift card at no extra cost.
Although perhaps not comparable with a few of the retailer’s other great Labor Day deals available on everything from smartwatches to smartphones and tablets, this does beat the $40 digital coupon included with the aforementioned “regular” Galaxy Watch 5 while falling short of the $60 gift card offered alongside Samsung’s considerably costlier Watch 5 Pro.
Despite technically being manufactured by Fitbit parent Google, the Sense 2 and Versa 4 do not run a full version of the search giant’s Wear OS platform, lacking Play Store access while offering native Google Wallet and Maps support.
Compared to some of their direct rivals, including the upcoming Pixel Watch and Apple Watch Series 8, these health-tracking heavyweights are set to hold an absolutely massive advantage in the battery life department, purportedly running for close to an entire week (rather than an entire day) on a single charge.
The key difference between the Sense and Versa lines remains ECG monitoring technology, which is only present on the former, with the latter also lacking its brother’s “all-day” stress management tools.
Of course, both the cheaper Fitbit Versa 4 and the more capable Sense 2 come with the exact same 24/7 heart rate monitoring, blood oxygen saturation, in-depth sleep tracking, built-in GPS functionality, and more than 40 pre-installed exercise modes designed to keep up with the active lifestyles of their most adventurous future owners.
The $50 gift cards currently included with Best Buy pre-orders are basically the cherry on top of two already compelling value propositions, which Fitbit and Google themselves are unable to match (let alone eclipse) at the time of this writing.
