Fitbit's Surge is one of the few fitness wearables on the market that packs in a heart rate monitor and GPS.
YOU probably would have noticed a lot of fitness wearable reviews lately – it’s not a coincidence, as the market for it is rapidly growing thanks to smartwatches like the Apple Watch and Samsung Gear sparking the public’s interest.
However, the smartwatch is a recent invention, as fitness bands have been on the market for many years, and Fitbit is one of the pioneers, along with rival Jawbone.
Now that Fitbit is officially here, it has released its entire range of fitness wearables, including the top-of-the-line model, the Surge, which we have on review.
With the Surge, Fitbit has shoehorned every high-end features into it – you don’t just get an accelerometer to track your movement, but also a heart rate monitor and built-in GPS, which means you can track outdoor activities with even more accuracy.
It’s all in the wrist
The Surge is not just wide but it’s also slightly wedge-shaped and has an integrated strap that’s wide and sticks out.
On my boy-sized wrist, the Surge looks rather oversized, especially because of the stiff overhanging strap. If you have medium to large wrists, however, the Surge will actually look quite good on you.
While it isn’t the only wearable to feature a heart rate monitor, Fitbit’s claim is that the PurePulse system is one of the few on the market that measures heart rate continuously.
Supposedly continuous measuring of the heart rate is better because it gives a more accurate graph of your cardio health not just during exercise, but also at rest. This will give an indication of whether you’re over or under training.
In terms of hardware though the heart rate monitor in the Surge is similar to other fitness bands’ – it uses two blinking green LEDs which provide illumination for an optical sensor to measure your blood flow.
The integrated GPS chip is an added bonus, as even the expensive Apple Watch doesn’t have it and has to rely on the iPhone to provide location information when tracking outdoor activities.
In fact, at RM968 the Surge is actually one of the more affordable wearables with built-in GPS – last I checked, a Garmin Fenix had a recommended retail price of RM1,335 while the Suunto Ambit3 Sport was priced at RM1,799.
The GPS itself is actually more useful than you’d think if you’re serious about fitness tracking. For example, if you’re cycling, an accelerometer-based fitness tracker does not reliably track your calorie burn because your hand isn’t swinging enough when you’re cycling.
Fitness tracking isn’t all the Surge does – the screen is fairly large (we suspect it’s the same screen that the original Pebble smartwatch uses) and allows you to control your music player and receive notifications.
There are also a number of themes to choose from which allow you to change not just the watch face but the look and feel of the other activity screens as well.
The touch interface is also augmented by three buttons – a home button on the left side, and a couple of multifunction buttons on the right side.
Track me
Setting up the Surge is relatively easy, as you just have to download the Fitbit app from Google Play, the iOS App Store or the Windows Phone store and follow the pairing instructions.
Interestingly, Fitbit is one of the few to support Windows Phone so if you’re a fan of the platform then you should take a look at what the company has to offer.
Beyond the initial set-up, if you want notifications and music control on the Surge, you’ll have to turn on Bluetooth Classic in the settings. I initially didn’t turn on the feature because I thought it was some sort of compatibility setting for older smartphones – Fitbit needs to call it something else to avoid confusion.
The movement tracking is about as accurate as you’d expect with a device worn on the wrist. You can specify in the settings whether you’re wearing it on your dominant arm, so that the device will be able to differentiate and disregard hand movements when you are not moving.
The heart rate monitor, while not an essential feature, is actually quite useful as it monitors continuously to give you a better reading.
According to Fitbit, the battery is supposed to last about seven days on a single charge unless you use the GPS a lot, in which case it can only manage about five hours or so.
In actual use, it lasted about three days when used for an hour of jogging everyday with the GPS on, and the heart rate monitor working all day.
Fitbit bundles a custom USB cable for charging, which plugs into the back of the watch. I didn’t experience any problems during my time with the Surge but it would have been better to have the contacts for charging at a location not in contact with the skin.
Handy app
The Fitbit app is actually pretty good – it has a minimalist design with a modular home screen where you can add or remove sections that you don’t want to see.
Tapping on any of the items on the home screen takes you to a detailed view with a graph of your daily, weekly and monthly activities.
You can set the app to sync the information continuously with the sports watch or only when you initiate it.
The app also allows you to add or remove specific exercise activities (hiking, weights and cycling are among the options) and add multiple vibrating alarms.
As mentioned before, you can also change the watch face but there are only four options and, as far as I know, you can’t add any more themes.
There is, however, one thing that the people at Fitbit need to update – in the country setting for the Surge, there is no option to set Malaysia as the location and the closest locale you can set is Singapore.
I’m not sure if being able to set it to Malaysia will, say, increase the speed of GPS lock-on or not, but it’s a little annoying that Malaysia is missing.
Conclusion
The Fitbit Surge is actually one of the more advanced fitness wearables and packs a lot of features for a reasonable price. At RM968 it may sound expensive but wearables with similar features from other companies cost much more.
The only problem is that the Surge is rather big and if you have small wrists, you should try it before making a purchase.
If you have medium to large wrists, the Surge is definitely a fitness wearable you should seriously consider.
Pros: Heart rate sensor monitors continuously; built-in GPS; customisable and handy companion app.
Cons: Too large for small wrists; battery life takes a hit when GPS is on.
Fitbit Surge
(Fitbit Inc)
Sports watch
Specifications: Daily step count, distance, calories, time of day, heart rate and heart rate zone, GPS, digital compass, monochrome LCD touchscreen
Other features: Bluetooth sync
Dimensions (W x D x H): 31 x 11 x 245mm
Weight: 76.5g
Website: www.fitbit.com
Price: RM968
Rating: 4.5 stars
Review unit courtesy of Fitbit Inc.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Get 20% OFF The Star Digital Access
Cancel anytime. Ad-free. Unlimited access with perks.
