Home Hi-Tech Android World ,,,,,Often at Cyber Layman when we test a product we get involved, we try it on ourselves or on our equipment, directly: in the case of Fitbit Ace, the motor activity sensor dedicated to boys and girls was not possible and we had to involve the little Gianluca, who pleasantly lent himself to putting all its characteristics under pressure.
This premise is a must because the review of something like Fitbit Ace is much more complex than other similar devices, because the variables involved are many more than you think.
Fitbit Ace, the review
The Fitbit “stamp”
Those who know Fitbit will surely have seen in the shape a natural continuation of the design that in recent years has characterized the most advanced Activity Tracker line.
In fact, from the packaging it is clear that Fitbit Ace is the exact copy of Fitbit Alta HR: (slightly) smaller, without a heart rate reader but at first glance indistinguishable when on the wrist.
And the thing is intentional and also interesting, because the child can have a bracelet “when it grows up”: during the test it was in fact the same (color aside) to the one worn by dad.
The package contains the bracelet, the power cable and a small manual of warnings and instructions, even if basically the App offers features and warnings in abundance.
During the unpacking we immediately discovered that the power cable is the same as the Fitbit Alta (not the Alta HR, attention, in that case it's different) as well as the quality of the display.
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This monochromatic is particularly bright and able to alternately show different information, from the time to the number of steps, from the calories to the distance up to the messages and the ID of the caller on the associated smartphone.
This last particularity is perhaps redundant: given that the App provides a pairing system to the parent's smartphone, it did not seem appropriate for the baby's bracelet to ring at every call: clearly the function can be disabled but we would not have it at all. mass.
Once on the wrist the bracelet does not seem to weigh and we have seen that after the first few hours in which the object is clearly the novelty to show to friends, everything becomes natural.
Contrary to what we would have expected, the bracelet proved to be safe on the wrist, thanks also to the belt attachment. Children, probably the smallest ones (the device is designed for children aged 8 and up) after a few hours of play tend to unfasten it due to sweat or heat, but this is normal.
Perhaps an elastic bracelet would have helped in the hooking and unhooking operations, being able to remove it on the fly to clean the wrist, but we are thinking outside the teeth, not being able to do real field tests.
The email message with which Fitbit announces the creation of the child account
Freedom is nothing without control
Fitbit Ace is a product for children (up to adolescence) but it is especially so for children: this small distinction can be seen from how it is built and how the App has changed lately.
In fact, to match Ace to your smartphone you need to convert a normal account into a “parent” or “guardian”, who is in turn capable and authorized to create “child” accounts, which are basically the same accounts as parents, just a little more. simple and with less freedom.
From what it seemed to us, everything can only work like this, Ace cannot be configured directly by a child, even if this child has a smartphone of his own: it must be said, however, that this situation is given by the software and could change over time.
The two profiles within the App are quite independent, each communicates only with the associated devices and from what we understand it is necessary to view the right profile to perform the synchronization.
Our impression of this father-and-son system within the Fitbit App has lights and shadows – the basic idea is good, but technically it doesn't work as expected from a Fitbit App.
If in the Fitbit Versa review we praised the choice of using only one App for everything (unlike Apple and Google which, for example, use different Apps, each for a single task), here the impression is the opposite.
Switching between the parent and child interface is slow and unnatural and you need to enter the password each time you return to the parent screen. Added to this is the fact that the buttons to go to the child and return to the parent are placed in different places and often need to look for them.
We would have liked a different App for this, perhaps dedicated only to child profiles, which can be activated on the fly without the clutter of the father figure (which perhaps only serves to authorize the devices).
The survey, far from obvious
The detection of Fitbit Ace is certainly the most important aspect: in fact, beyond the shape, the difficulty in designing a device for children is given by the parameters with which the data and the algorithm for detecting a child's activity are reported. , very different from that of an adult.
During the presentation to the press Fitbit itself pointed out that the absence of a heart rate detector (present in the Alta HR model) is intentional, not dictated by design reasons, because a child's cardiac data are very different and their incorrect reading would have led parents to false alarms.
The readings of Fitbit Ace are difficult to compare with others, precisely because of what was said at the beginning, children have a different biorhythm but above all different habits.
The writer, for example, has an activity that varies from 6,000 to 10,000 steps a day (but there are days when we do 2,000, often due to the Cyber Layman articles).
Gianluca, for example, easily takes 6,000 steps in two hours when playing with friends in the park, but he is able to do 2,000 just playing an afternoon in the living room and bedroom.
These activities must be read with the right lens, and set correctly for the child's age.
To this writer it was interesting to evaluate the sleep trend, to find out where Gianluca sleeps more or less, when activity affects sleep or even on which occasions there is the peak of steps.
For the older ones, the App provides for gratification through medals and the comparison with parents and friends, as well as all the particularities of the parent App, reported here in a lighter way (for example, there is no tracking of foods and liquids, which perhaps is cannot record correctly).
Considerations
Fitbit's first step into the world of children and, consequently, that of parents (who are different from users) is done in an elegant, functional and wisely way.
More than anything else it represents a serious and quite complete proposal in a very, very complex and difficult to regulate world, in which others have similar proposals, but apparently with less attention to detail.
There is something to improve: in summer it is better to have a completely waterproof bracelet, we see the App for children separated from the main one and some more attention in the strap, but these are details that become more important for older ages. low and less for the higher ones and in any case similar in this first version.
The price, 99.99 euros to the public, is important but the device is not a toy, the factor must be clear and the reading of the data is both for the child and for the parents: from this point of view the price is absolutely profiled. for the purpose and for the quality of the materials (and software). We also underline that Fitbit's choice not to share data with Apple's Health and Google's Health is desired with a view to preserving its community, which over the years has shown excellent results.
Fitbit is a brand distributed in Italy by Attiva and readers can find it in all major Italian electronics chains. Officially Fitbit Ace is only distributed in Electric Blue and Deep Purple, both for € 99.99 but readers can find several other third-party bands directly online.
Pro
• Excellent workmanship, children like it a lot • Careful use opens up many aspects • The “child's” point of view is very important
Against
• It is not a diver, in summer it would have been convenient • The use of a single App is limiting
Price
99.99 Euro VAT included in the colors Electric blue and Deep purple
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