Fitbit launches new fashion-focused tracker

Fitbit today announced the Fitbit Luxe, a fashion-focused fitness and wellness tracker designed to help users take a more holistic approach to health and wellness.

The Luxe is a sleek tracker with a colour touchscreen and up to five days of battery life, which is can be used as a fashion accessory for most occasions. It can be paired with a range of new stylish accessories, including a modern luxury bracelet from gorjana.

The wearable offers the motivation and support users need to stay healthy in today’s world, with everything from stress management tools to automatic activity and sleep tracking. It also gives users insights into wellbeing through the Health Metrics dashboard in the Fitbit app to help identify changes, which could be caused by increased stress or fatigue.

With the smartwatch, users will get a six-month trial to Fitbit Premium for added support and deeper analysis of their data.

“Over the past year, we’ve had to think differently about our health and wellness from keeping an eye out for possible COVID-19 symptoms to managing the ongoing stress and anxiety of today’s world,” said James Park, VP, GM, and co-founder of Fitbit. “Even though we are starting to see positive changes, it has never been more important to control your holistic health. That’s why we’ve doubled down on our efforts to introduce innovative tools and insights to support you in staying mentally well and physically active. We’ve made major technological advancements with Luxe, creating a smaller, slimmer, beautifully designed tracker packed with these advanced features – some that were previously only available with our smartwatches – and providing access to these tools to even more people around the globe.”

Understand and manage stress for overall wellbeing

After the pandemic began, a survey found that 50% of people felt the physical and mental effects of stress. With the new wearable, Fitbit is making its relevant stress management tools available by bringing them to trackers for the first time. Fitbit’s Stress Management Score provides a daily assessment of a person’s ability to handle stress based on activity levels, sleep and heart rate.

With Fitbit Premium, users will receive a detailed breakdown of their Stress Management Score including information on exertion, sleep patterns, and responsiveness. Premium members have access to a range of workouts and nearly 200 mindfulness sessions from popular brands like Aaptiv, Aura, Breethe, and Ten Percent Happier to manage stress. This includes Deepak Chopra’s Mindful Method, an exclusive wellness collection created and curated for Premium members with more than 30 sessions to make a mindfulness practice more accessible.

Deepak Chopra, M.D., pioneer of Integrative Medicine, and founder of The Chopra Foundation and Chopra Global, says: “I share Fitbit’s belief that mindfulness and mental wellbeing are an important part of our holistic health, and by better managing your emotional wellbeing, it can help make a positive lasting impact on your overall health, including better sleep, improved mood and more meaningful personal relationships. For example, I regularly see my heart rate lower after doing a meditation session and over time, my heart rate variability trends have improved. The Mindful Method makes a regular mindfulness practice easy and accessible – no matter whether you are learning how to begin, or are interested in taking your mindfulness practice to the next level.”

Insightful tools to manage health and wellness

The wearable gives users access to Fitbit’s range of health and wellness features to support a holistic approach to healthy living. With the Health Metrics dashboard, users can track changes in their wellbeing in the Fitbit app with insights into their breathing rate, heart rate variability (HRV), resting heart rate (RHR), skin temperature and, coming soon, oxygen saturation (SpO2).

With a light, slim form factor, the Luxe is designed for maximum comfort, so users can wear it to bed to better understand and manage their sleep. Sleep Score helps users better understand their sleep quality over time, and bedtime reminders can help them establish a more consistent sleep routine.

Additional health tools include food, hydration and weight logging, and menstrual health tracking. Premium members receive access to more than 60 new pieces of nutrition content including curated healthy recipes from Fitbit and Eating Well magazine. The new blood glucose logging feature in the Fitbit app allows users to log their blood glucose levels.

Stay motivated to reach fitness goals

Physical activity is a key component of overall health, but for most people, Covid-19 changed exercise routines. Users can also choose from 20 different on-wrist exercise modes on the Luxe, including golf, pilates, spinning, or tennis. Those who prefer running, biking or hiking outside can use exercise modes with connected GPS from one’s phone to see real-time pace and distance.

While tracking exercise, one can gauge when to push harder or scale back with Active Zone Minutes, a personalised standard for tracking activity beyond steps that measures time spent in each heart rate zone. This can help users track their moderate and intense activity, so they can reach the weekly recommended goal of 150 Active Zone Minutes to help improve their health. For more encouragement to reach goals, Reminders to Move can help users stay active and reduce sedentary time.

Stay connected and up-to-date with notifications, which can be customised to help structure one’s day, like setting bedtime reminders or using a do not disturb setting when it’s time to focus.

An elegant wearable that feels at home on one’s wrist

The Luxe’s design has a soft, gentle shape inspired by the human body that sits lightly on one’s wrist with a jewellery-like look and feel, achieved through modern versions of traditional jewellery-making techniques. It is made using a design process called metal injection moulding, a high-tech take on traditional metal shaping, to create the high-gloss finish on its stainless steel case.

Fitbit partnered with Laguna Beach-based jewellery brand, gorjana, to elevate Luxe’s style even further. The gorjana for Fitbit Luxe Special Edition features a Parker Link Bracelet in soft gold stainless steel, alongside a swimproof classic silicone peony band for two looks in one.

Pricing and availability

The Fitbit Luxe will be available on Takealot.com, Incredible Connection, Makro, Cape Union Mart, Totalsports, Sportsmans Warehouse, Dis-Chem, eBucks, Superbalist, Hi Online, Momentum and other key retailers in South Africa later this year. Luxe retails for R3,399 with a six-month Fitbit Premium trial (a $59.94 value). The gorjana for Fitbit Luxe Special Edition will be available in selected retailers for R4,399.

To preview how Luxe fits your personal style, Fitbit is offering a virtual try-on experience at select retailers worldwide. Scan the QR code at Fitbit’s point of sale displays to see how Luxe looks on your wrist.