TECH REVIEW: Fitbit Luxe — jewellery that measures your stress level

Fitbit Luxe

Cool factor 4½/5
Usability 3/5
Value for money 3/5

Fitness trackers and smartwatches are plentiful, all with a similar trait — they were not designed to be elegant. So Fitbit created the Luxe, which is aimed at those who want a fitness tracker to look like jewellery.

The Luxe that we have on test is a stainless-steel variant with a pink strap, but it is also available in black or gold. It has a small, narrow colour OLED screen with no visible buttons.

You navigate with swipes and taps. Swiping from the bottom upwards shows your daily stats, swiping from the top down has basic settings, and swiping across lets you access alarms, timers and notifications, and start workouts or breathing exercises.

The actual display that shows you this info is smaller than the screen size; it is tiny, and if you wear glasses, you will need them.

It does what most Fitbit trackers do: tracks workouts, calories, sleep, heart rate and skin temperature.

There is also a wellness aspect. This does stress tracking and management, rates your sleep, and so on — all accessible on the health metrics dashboard on the Fitbit app. The tracker comes with a six-month Fitbit premium subscription to access additional info.

The sleep tracking is useful. It gives you a rating out of 100 and shows you the breakdown of your different sleep zones.

An update rolled out in October brings SpO2 blood-oxygen monitoring while you’re asleep and displays it on the wrist or through the app.

You are also given a rating for your stress levels. The higher the score out of 100, the less stressed you are. This is a feature introduced last year on other devices.

When it comes to tracking workouts, it also supports active zone minutes that earn you double when your heart rate is higher. Fitbit recommends the World Health Organisation’s guideline of getting 150 minutes of exercise a week.

It is water resistant up to 50m.

The Fitbit Luxe is a chic tracker that offers the basics. It’s a great option if you’ve never owned a tracker before and want to start a health and wellbeing journey. However, the screen is tiny, and it lacks contactless payments. It costs R2,799 at Takealot.