It’s often said that sitting is the new smoking. In other words, we need to move more. Wearable technology products like fitness trackers can help increase our activity. It’s an excellent tool to track progress and keep users committed to long-term fitness goals.
I’m reviewing the Fitbit Luxe, a stylish wearable that tracks your steps, sleep, and workouts. It’s Fitbit’s attempt to merge jewelry fashion and fitness in one device. Can we truly have the best of both worlds? Let’s find out, starting with the design.
Design of the Fitbit Luxe
The jewelry design of the Fitbit Luxe and the variety of colour and band options make it suitable for any style or wardrobe. The Fitbit Luxe comes in Soft Gold, Orchid, White, and Black.
The main body is made from stainless steel with an adjustable silicone band and a standard metal buckle. It’s small on the wrist measuring just 1.76cm x 3.63cm x 1.01cm (WDH) and weighs only 30 grams.
It features an AMOLED touchscreen with a 124 x 206 full-colour display. The Fitbit Luxe is equipped with an accelerometer, an ambient light sensor, an optical heart rate monitor, and GPS.
There are no buttons on the Luxe and it does not feature an always-on display. Navigation is done with taps and swipes on the screen to see stats, alerts, and notifications. The battery life is 5 days on a single charge.
Setting up the Fitbit Luxe
Google acquired Fitbit in early 2021 and the Luxe is one of the newest devices released after the merger. The installation process on my Android smartphone was seamless. After downloading the Fitbit app, I tapped the icon to set up a new device. The app searches for the Luxe via Bluetooth and asks for a four-digit code shown on the display.
I gave the app permission to display phone notifications and installed the latest software version. In all, the installation was completed within 10 minutes. The next step was to wear it for a couple days to gather some all-day activity tracking.
Navigations
The FitBit Luxe screen is activated by quickly turning your wrists as if you were looking at a watch. Alternatively, you can double-tap the screen to activate it. Swiping up displays the Today app. Here you’ll find the battery level, date, steps, and calories burned.
Swiping left and right displays other apps such as Notifications, Exercise, Relax, Alarms, and Timers. Double tapping on any screen will bring you back to the main screen.
Overall, it took a little time to get used to the navigation controls. Other than looking at daily stats, the majority of the navigation happens by swiping left and right. With some practice, it becomes easy and intuitive to start and stop exercises.
Fitness tracking
The Fitbit Luxe provides all-day activity tracking but users can also use it for specific fitness tracking.
By default, it comes with six workout-tracking shortcuts preinstalled: walk, run, bike, swim, workout, and treadmill. In the app, users can also select weights, interval workout, elliptical, hike, golf, stairclimber, tennis, spinning, yoga, and Bootcamp.
Sadly, there is no jump rope fitness tracking. I learned to jump rope the past year and I’m looking for a fitness tracker to measure jump rope workouts. There was a generic workout option so I used that during my daily jump rope sessions.
Sleep tracking
The all-day activity tracking with the Fitbit Luxe extends through the night with Sleep Tracking. The Luxe tracks various stages of sleep (i.e. light, deep, and REM), time to bed, and wake-up time.
It estimates sleep stages using a combination of movements and heart-rate patterns. The Luxe tracks heart rate variability as users transition between the different sleep stages. This data is used to provide an overall Sleep Score which gives users a quick snapshot of their sleep quality.
Active Zone Minutes
While you can look at the metrics from the Luxe display, I prefer the Fitbit app. It provides a wealth of tracking data and a daily Active Zone Minutes score.
Active Zone minutes track your activity time. It’s a single score that allows you to compare your activity day-to-day and weekly. Your target heart score for activity is personalized using your fitness level and age.
The World Health Organization recommends 150 minutes of moderate activity a week or 75 minutes of vigorous activity. Therefore, you earn 2 Active Zone Minutes for 1 minute of vigorous activity.
Active Zone Minutes is a single score metric that can be used to compare day-to-day activity levels. It’s also a fantastic method to compare the Active Zone Minutes between different workouts at the same duration (i.e. running, biking, and elliptical).
Using the Fitbit Luxe
I always forget to start and stop workouts on fitness trackers. Thankfully, the Luxe uses Fitbit’s SmartTrack feature to automatically recognize and record workouts. These include walking, running, cycling, etc.
The first day I wore it, I went for a big run but I forgot to start the run workout. SmartTrack accurately detected the run and provided me with valuable data including heart rate zones, activity zone minutes, and calories burned. SmartTrack also showed me the impact of the workout on my daily steps, total calories burned, and active zone minutes for the entire day.
With SmartTrack, workouts like walks and runs will automatically be tracked without much interaction with the Luxe. These are the types of features I’ve been looking for in an activity tracker. The less I have to interact with it, the better. I just want that data to sync to my phone so I can look at it while I have my morning coffee.
I had some issues collecting sleep data. For some reason, my heart rate was not being tracked at night. It worked fine during the day so I’m not sure why it didn’t track my heart rate at night.
Still, I was provided with a wealth of sleep data including the number of times I was awake and/or restless. I found the bedtime and wake-up time to be accurate as well.
Final thoughts
We move a lot less than past generations. The knowledge-based jobs of today are usually behind a computer. Therefore, it’s important to make time for daily activity and to pursue long-term fitness goals to live a healthy, active lifestyle. Fitness trackers like the Fitbit Luxe provide a wealth of health data to track progress and ensure you’re getting enough sleep for recovery. It basically gamifies health metrics and motivates us to beat previous scores in the Fitbit app.
The Luxe by Fitbit is a great choice for people looking for a stylish wearable that doesn’t take too much real estate on the wrist and offers good battery life. If you want to get active and need a fitness tracker to keep you motivated, the Fitbit Luxe will not disappoint.
I would love the sleep tracking option
The sleep tracking function really interests me.
I like the design amd look of this , and the sleep tracker would also be nice !
I like that it keeps a charge for 5 days
I love the slim design and the Active Zone Minutes function.
With my eyes, the AMOLED screen will likely be the feature I will like the most right away. Being able to read things at a glance when being active is more important than ones would realize until one can’t.
I like the SmartTrack and Sleep tracking features as it would be most helpful.
Hi Andy, I love that you can get your phone notifications on a Fitbit. Makes it so handy as you don’t need to take your phone out to see who messages you.
for myself, I think sleep tracking is very important. also love the stainless steel case so no negative reaction from me
Sleep tracking would be a helpful part of any health and fitness monitoring
I like the sleep tracking feature.
I have kept my track with a Versa for 4 years. SmartTrack is a helpful mode. Through the past two years, I have had the Versa I use now. It will eventually need replacing. The battery can not be changed on this model although it lasts a few years, it is not renewable. The new model of FITBIT LUXE would be my choice of upgrade when this one needs replacing. Having tracking performance is a great way to stay motivated and achieve my fitness goals. I have maintained my weight with the help of Fitbit for four years.
Stainless steel case sounds classy.
I love the slim design and the sleep tracking function.
I would love the sleep tracking option
I love Fitbit Luxe’s attempt to merge jewelry fashion and fitness in one device; this is convenient & beautiful.
I would love to track my sleeping. I feel so unrested still when I get up in the morning.
I am excited about the sleep tracking feature.
The feature of the Fitbit Luxe fitness tracker that I am most excited about is Sleep Tracking.
I think that he sleep tracking functions would be great.
I am very excited about the sleep tracking feature on the watch
I like that it has the added feature of sleep tracking. This would be beneficial.
My favourite thing about Fitbit is sleep tracking but I’m also excited for SmartTrac.
So many great features but I love the battery life most. Poor battery quality is the worst.
The Fitbit Luxe fitness tracker feature I am most excited about is the workout-tracking for weights, hiking, and, the stairclimber.
I’m most excited about the sleep tracking feature.
I am most excited about the Stress Management features on this Fitbit Luxe fitness tracker.
I like that it keeps track of sleep stages.
I’m a big fan of the sleep tracking feature
It estimates sleep stages using a combination of movements and heart-rate patterns.
I like that it keeps track of your activity time.
I like that the Fitbit Luxe keeps track of various stages of sleep.
The all-day activity tracking with the Fitbit Luxe extends through the night with Sleep Tracking. The Luxe tracks various stages of sleep (i.e. light, deep, and REM), time to bed, and wake-up time.
SmartTrack will make routine workouts quite easy to monitor! I WORK OUTAT THE GYM
It provides a wealth of tracking data and a daily Active Zone Minutes score. DOES IT ALL
I like that the Fitbit Luxe has Sleep Tracking.
I think the sleep tracking feature would be very helpful.
I’m most excited for AMOLED colour display. I’ve had a lot of display brightness issues with my previous Fitbit
I love that it’s stainless steel so I won’t have an allergic reaction to it when wearing.
Sleep tracking would be very helpful!
SmartTrack will make routine workouts quite easy to monitor!
sleep tracking feature is so useful
The sleep tracking feature.
I am most excited about the sleep tracking aspect. I think it would be neat to actually track light, deep and REM sleep to see how to improve the different sleep stages.
I like the sleep tracker function
I’m most excited about the AMOLED display.
Such grat features, very interested in the AMOLED touchscreen with its 124 x 206 full-colour display.
I am mosr excited about the sleep tracking and the fitness tracking.
I like the AMOLED display on the Fitbit Luxe. Looks so shiny!
The sleep tracking feature is excellent!
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