Fitbit Alta Review: chic fitness tracker for beginners

April 14, 2020

The plastic housings of the previous Fitbit trackers are a thing of the past – instead, the manufacturer accommodates the hardware for the Alta in a housing made of matt aluminum, the top of which is completely covered by the black display cover. There is a monochrome OLED display underneath that is easy to read even under difficult lighting conditions.

With the rubber bracelet available in black, blue, turquoise, pink and plum, I had no problems with skin irritation. The same applies to the leather bracelet , which, however, liked to rub off at first and then gave my wrist the facial color of Donald Trump. Incidentally, there is still soft pink and graphite on leather straps, metal versions are available in silver and gold. Matching gold, the Alta is also available with a 22 carat gold-plated case for a surcharge of ten euros. Soon there will also be designer bracelets from Public School and Tory Burch.

The metal bands cost at least 90 euros. Fitbit charges 60 euros each for the leather wristbands, and elastomer rubber wristbands cost 30 euros each. The bottom line is that I really like the Alta visually – and that there should be a suitable combination of case and bracelet for pretty much every taste. In any case, I think silver with leather in camel color is pretty good. Incidentally, the bracelets are pleasantly easy to change, but quite sensitive in leather.

Like the Blaze, the Alta is also quite sensitive to scratching – this applies to both the metal casing and the display. If you want to avoid that the chic tracker looks pretty rocked down quickly, you should treat it with care and avoid wearing it when climbing, for example. Otherwise you will quickly have grinding marks in the housing.

Service

Operating the Fitbit Alta is very easy due to the lack of controls. With a look at the watch gesture, the user activates the display, which then shows the time. There are five vertical and five horizontal watch faces to choose from. Alternatively, the display, which is otherwise not touch-sensitive, can also be woken up by double tapping.

When the display is activated, the user can scroll through various status displays by simply tapping the watch, namely the steps already taken, the distance covered, the calories burned, today’s activity minutes and the battery level. The order of these statistics can be adjusted in the app and undesired data can also be hidden. The rest of the operation takes place via the smartphone.

A little tip: If you tap the side of the case, the Alta reacts much more obediently. Incidentally, there is no always-on option for the display.

Step sensor

The Fitbit Alta has the obligatory motion sensor that detects the wearer’s movements and uses them to calculate the steps taken. As with all fitness trackers, this number can be seen as an approximate measure of the activity level – and is not necessarily comparable with the measurements from other manufacturers. Withings, for example, counts much more conservatively, so users have to work much harder to reach 10,000 steps.

However, this is not at all tragic, because after all, the steps are primarily intended to provide the user with a measured value for his activity, from which he can then increase. If you sit still for too long, you can also receive inactivity warnings on request. Here the Alta warns: Take another 238 steps!

Workouts

With the help of the motion sensor, the Alta not only counts the steps, but should also automatically detect other sporting activities of 15 minutes or more. In practice, however, this turns out to be somewhat mixed: jogging, for example, was always reliably recognized by me, but cycling was only sometimes. And my weekly jumping training marks the Alta as aerobics and an hour of table tennis as a “sport”. By contrast, the Alta ignored comparatively static activities such as strength training and yoga. In the app, however, it is still possible to change the automatically recognized sport, but not to edit the recognized start and end time.

Workouts with GPS can also be started manually in the app – but only in the disciplines of running, walking and hiking. Otherwise, the day before I wrote this Review, I was riding my bike, for example, and the app also recognized at least one of two sections as “cycling outdoors”. However, the GPS recording is not started automatically here.

And just for comparison: My bike tour yesterday recorded the Fitbit Alta with 31 minutes and 129 kilocalories burned. The Polar V800 with a heart rate belt, on the other hand, has an hour and 17 minutes – and 1077 kcal. Accordingly, the determined daily turnover from Fitbit to Polar with 2344 to 2942 calories looks significantly different. The difference of almost 600 calories corresponds to around 65 grams of fat – or 1.2 Big Macs.

Sleep sensor

The Fitbit Alta also uses the data from the motion sensor to log sleep. Apart from sleeping, of course, you don’t have to do anything: The tracker automatically recognizes the times of falling asleep and waking up. The Alta also records restless phases in which you roll around a lot – and awake phases when you get up at night and go to the toilet or the fridge, for example.

Finally, there is also a silent alarm function. However, I sleep too deeply that the buzz around my wrist would wake me up. Otherwise, this is a practical feature for early risers who don’t want to wake up their partners. Incidentally, the Fitbit Alta does not offer a sleep phase alarm clock such as the Jawbone tracker.

Incidentally, the integrated memory is sufficient to store all movement data for five days – at the latest then you should synchronize the Alta with your smartphone. Otherwise, at least the daily total results are held for 30 days.

Notifications

Finally, the Alta also displays notifications from the smartphone – namely for incoming calls, text messages and calendar notifications. Curiously, only one source can be selected for each of these three types of notifications in the Android app – for text messages, for example, either WhatsApp or SMS or Skype and so on. On the small display, the Alta shows either the sender of the new messages – or the sender and a preview of the content of the message.

battery pack

According to Fitbit, the Alta should last up to five days on a single charge, which was also confirmed in the Review. As usual with fitness trackers, there is once again a highly proprietary cable for charging, the charging process is very quick with one to two hours.

App

I have always liked the Fitbit app because it is simple and clear. Nevertheless, the manufacturer has decided to give the application an update that is already available for iOS. The homescreen is no longer rigidly arranged in the new app: the individual elements can be moved.

A tap on one of the elements then calls up more detailed information. In the various diagrams, the number of steps, sleeping times and so on can be evaluated over longer periods. There is also the possibility to add friends and compete with them in different competitions.

The adventure function has also been added. Here the user can go on a virtual tracking tour, for example through the Yosemite Park. The route that he physically covers in real life is then credited to his virtual tracking tour and can be seen at any time in the app how far he has come on the Pohono Trail. As a bait, there are 360-degree panoramas at spectacular parts of the tours that can be run free.

The Android version of the new app is in the works and should be rolled out in the coming weeks. Fitbit also offers a web interface with functions very similar to those of the apps. Due to the more generous presentation, it is even more fun to click through the previous successes. By the way, both in the app and in the web interface there is still the possibility to track the diet. And anyone who uses other Fitbit devices, such as the Aria body fat scale, can of course also view the data here.

Best Price

Conclusion

With a current market price of 125 euros, the Fitbit Alta is quite expensive for a pure pedometer and sleep tracker. There is no GPS or pulse sensor, but the fitness tracker just looks really chic. If you can make friends with a somewhat bulky model on your wrist, you should definitely also take a look at the Charge 2, which will be launched this month. For around 35 euros more there is a very similar design language, but there are significantly more functions, including a pulse sensor or various workouts and relaxation exercises. If you want more than tracking steps and sleep, you may be better off with the more expensive model.