Fitbit Ionic Vs Apple Watch 3: Features, Price, Availability And More

Fitbit announced its first smartwatch — the Ionic last week and Apple is expected to announce its new Apple Watch in the coming week. While Fitbit has delved into the mainstream smartwatch segment with its new smartwatch, the Apple Watch 3 is expected to be even more fitness-centric than the Ionic with features such as RFID tracking.

The Fitbit Ionic will be the company’s first smartwatch with built-in GPS tracking as unlike Blaze and Charge 2, it does not need to depend on a smartphone for GPS data. It can also measure altitude with an onboard accelerometer and will show speed, pace and elevation along with a course marking the user’s activity.

The device also has a new PurePulse optical heart rate sensor which the company claims will be more accurate during activities such as cycling and running.

Most importantly, it has a new SpO2 sensor which will measure the user’s blood oxygen levels in real-time and as the company claims, can even measure sleep apnoea i.e. breathing issues during sleep, which can be highly detrimental to your health.

The Apple Watch 3, on the other hand, is expected to come with new features such as a display embedded fingerprint sensor and might even have a flexible display. Its stand-out feature though, is RFID tracking, which will be a able to tell a user the nutritional value of a food product just by scanning its RFID tag, another the feature that the smartwatch is expected to have, apart from regular fitness features such as sleep tracking, heart rate analysis and exercise tracking is noninvasive blood glucose tracking — the device might be a boon for diabetics as it might be able to tell a person’s blood glucose level without invasive injections, which are currently the norm.

Another new feature that the smartwatch might have is LTE connectivity, which means that users will be able to make calls and respond to messages from the smartwatch itself.

The Apple Watch 3 is expected to be launched with the same $269 price tag as its predecessor, alongside the iPhone 8 on Sept. 12. It is expected to hit the shelves soon after

The Fitbit Ionic is actually priced steeply at around $299.95. It will start shipping in October.

Whether we go by the rumored features of the Apple Watch or its expected pricing, it seems to have an edge over the Fitbit Ionic. Fitbit Ionic might be different from the company’s previous fitness bands, but there is a limit to a premium a consumer can be expected to shell out for features such as Oxygen tracking. If the Apple Watch 3 debuts at the said price, it will give the Ionic a run for its money, if not just obliterate it.

The Apple Watch is expected to be the more advanced smartwatch of the two and is expected to beat Fitbit.

Since consumers might have to wait for October for the smartwatches to hit the stands, banking on the Apple Watch 3 makes more sense.