Fitbit Alta HR Quick Review

Fitbit launched in the Philippines last month its latest wearable — the Alta HR. It brings what the former Alta offers but has new inclusive features without adding bulk to the device. Here’s our quick review of the Fitbit Alta HR.

Design and Construction

The Fitbit Alta HR is currently the world’s slimmest wristband with continuous heart rate tracking technology. Fitbit was able to put in a heart rate sensor without adding any sizeable difference to the former Alta’s body.

It’s a slim wearable with a small OLED display capable of displaying brief stats and notifications. As its default, it shows time but a tap will cycle you to the step counter, calorie counter, and more.

On the wrist, the Alta HR is a non-obtrusive piece of wearable tech. Since it already shows time, it could replace your daily watch. There are two available sizes for the band — large and small. There’s also an extra large band, but it’s limited in availability.

Hiding behind the display are pogo pins for the proprietary charger and the heart rate sensor. This enables the Alta HR to monitor your calorie burn, workout intensity, resting heart rate, and also sleep quality.

The bands are interchangeable. The main unit is in silver while our band comes in black but there’s also blue-gray, fuchsia, and coral. If you want, there’s also a ‘special edition’ with a soft pink classic band with a 22k rose-gold-plated tracker, and a black classic band with a matte, gunmetal tracker. More bands are available for purchase too from leather to stainless steel.

App and Features

The Alta HR inherits the features of the Alta with the addition of a heart rate sensor and auto sleep tracking. As with most fitness trackers, it can track steps, calories burned, and distance traveled based on bodily movements.

The wearable can automatically detect your exercise thanks to Fitbit’s SmartTrack technology. It was able to log our long walks throughout business districts. In one occasion though, it logged our window shopping walk as “biking” but this can be easily corrected through Fitbit’s app.

Another feature to look forward with the Alta HR is Fitbit’s continuous and automatic heart rate tracking technology called the PurePulse. This is perhaps the ‘heart’ of the tracker as it gets most health information of the user through this. You can view your stats in the app too and understand the numbers more from there.

Finally, the feature we loved about the Alta HR is the automatic sleep tracking and the new Sleep Stages. These sleep tools provide insight about your sleep, and frankly, this what we look forward to checking out every morning. It tracks light sleep and deep sleep, even REM sleep to monitor the quality of sleep you get. Also, the tracking can do silent alarms to wake you up by continuously vibrating.

The Fitbit app is available on Android, iOS, and Windows, so any platform is supported.

Battery Life

Fitbit boasts about the improved battery life of the Alta HR over the former Alta. It’s rated to last for up to 7 days — a week of continuous health and heart rate tracking.

With our use, it’s definitely a long lasting wearable but we weren’t able to last for a whole week on a single charge. We’d say about 4 days of 24/7 connection with our smartphone. A full charge using the supplied charger can take up to 2 hours.

Conclusion

With the growing number of fitness trackers in the market, Fitbit’s latest offering is a commendable wearable due to its size and number of features. It does lack GPS but Fitbit has a different tracker for that. The Fitbit Alta HR are for those who wants something in the middle, not basic but not advanced as well. To top it all, Fitbit’s community is an interesting group to join if you’re looking for inspiration or for friends with the same goals.

The new Fitbit Alta HR is priced at Php8,490USD 145INR 12,265EUR 138CNY 1,054 for the regular model, while the special edition costs a little bit more at Php9,690USD 165INR 13,998EUR 157CNY 1,203.

Fitbit Alta HR specs:
OLED tap display
Optical heart rate sensor
3-axis accelerometer
Vibration motor
Bluetooth 4.0

What we liked about it:

• Slim and light
• Includes heart rate sensor
• Long battery life
• Amazing companion app

What we didn’t:

• Delayed phone notifications
• Not fully water-resistant
• Lacks GPS
• Needs the app to manually start specific tracking