How to stop me, a loyal user, switching to a new Apple Watch

Dear Fitbit on my wrist,

Ugh. Help. We have to talk about our relationship. (Which, my profile page helpfully reminds me, began on March 13, 2013. I love your personal touches!)

So it’s that time of year: launch day for a brand new Apple Watch. Remember how I scoffed at those segments of keynote in years past? Remember when I assured you that this shiny upstart would never replace you, that your focused fitness functionality was all I ever really needed, that I loved going to sleep with you, that I’d never be seen dead with a wrist-based device that needed to be charged every day?

Yeah, about that. 

It may not be true this year. The Apple Watch Series 4, and its rumored feature set, is turning my head. At the same time, I’ve started to notice certain flaws in your app (not you, mostly!) which, let’s be honest with each other, are not working for me. 

And then there’s the fact that your parent company wants $150 from me for … well, there’s no easy way to say this, but for a nifty upgraded, larger-but-lighter touchscreen version of you. It’s called the Charge 3. 

(You had to know this day would come, Charge 2. I mean, didn’t you replace the Charge HR yourself? Circle of life, man. Upside: you get to have a relatively impartial opinion in my replacement dilemma!)

Dropping that much money on a smartwatch kind of puts me in the market for other, more costly yet more functional smartwatches. Maybe I should pay a little more and get a little more? Which is why launching the Charge 3 in October — probably at the same time the new Apple Watch goes on sale — was not the smartest idea Fitbit ever had.

Marriage material

As you know, my wife has already gone over to the dark side. Before, it didn’t matter; we couldn’t compete or connect in any meaningful way even if I followed her into Apple Watch-hood, not the way I competed and connected with Fitbit buddies. 

I also noted how her Watch seemed to run out of juice all the time. “The best smartwatch is the one that’s always on your wrist and charged,” I’d say, probably one too many times for my own good.

But then Apple showed off its upcoming WatchOS back at WWDC this year. It was practically made for couples: the walkie-talkie feature would save so much time on calls, and the one-on-one fitness challenges would help us kick each others’ butts into shape. Perhaps even more than the Fitbit friend step rankings.

And yeah, about those rankings. I can’t say I’m a fan of the way the Fitbit app now buries them in a “Community” tab that always opens on a social feed screen. Here I’m shown pictures and posts from people I don’t know before I can tap through to the important business of whether I’m kicking my actual friends’ butts in steps over the last 7 days. 

Remember when that used to be the whole reason for Fitbit? It’s still the main advantage the company has over Apple: more of your friends are likely to use one. The fact that the app no longer puts this list front and center is baffling, de-motivating and sadly trust-destroying.  

Giving me no choice but to look at another social feed is a dick move

I get that seeing selfies from strangers who are doing similar workouts may be motivation for some people, but certainly not everyone. I barely have time to catch up on my friends’ pictures and posts on Facebook. Giving me no choice but to look at another social feed is a dick move, frankly, and it makes Fitbit look desperate.  

Also a dick move, alas: the proprietary charger. It’s an unwieldy clamp. It can sometimes be a hassle getting the clamp to fit right. There are times you came close to death because of that damn clamp. There are times I’ve forgotten to bring it on trips, and the device died.   

I recently learned that the Charge 3 uses a similar, if smaller clamp charger. Fitbit, my loyalty could be won if you just gave us the regular mini USB jack that it seems almost everyone on the planet is always carrying! 

Apple is no better when it comes to ripping us off with expensive proprietary Watch chargers. But at least its magnetic circle is easier to use. And if my wife and I both had the same charger all over the house, in the car — maybe we’d make it work. Maybe we’d never be without charge. 

Maybe I could even charge it enough during the day to wear it at night and replicate the sleep tracking features you provide. An increasing number of Watch apps now track sleep, some in greater detail than you. (Sorry!) 

Same goes for the simple two- and five-minute guided meditations you provide. I love those, seriously. Sometimes all you need is to be told when to breath in and out. But I wonder if I’m missing out on other meditation styles, and the WatchOS ecosystem offers a world of options. 

How Fitbit could win my loyalty here: the app could actually record how many of those meditations I’ve done, and when, and for how long, instead of having all record of them vanish into the ether. I like to set a goal for how many minutes I meditate every day. Can your parent company help me with that?

I’m genuinely torn here, because Fitbit continues to have great new ideas alongside the bad. Case in point: the new Yosemite trail challenges, in which I can race up to 30 of my friends around a virtual trail in California’s greatest national park, with eye-popping visuals at pit stops along the way. As I wrote this I kept one eye on my Pohono Trail challenge, where I just passed Inspiration Point and am 2,000 steps away from the gold medal. Victory! 

The secret sauce is friends. Don’t forget that, Fitbit. You hold the key to continued dominance over your flashy rival, as surely as the tortoise overtook the hare. Just give us an app that focuses on friends again, a charging system where we could borrow any friend’s cable, and maybe even let our friends in on how many minutes we’re focusing on our breath. (Competitive meditation, anyone?) 

Thanks for the talk, Fitbit. As usual, you generally make me feel a lot better. May you continue to do so.