Fitbit Inspire 2 Health & Fitness Tracker with a Free 1-Year Fitbit Premium Trial, 24/7 Heart Rate

I’m really sad that this inspire 2 is catching so much grief in the reviews here, but what i believe it boils down to is most people only leave bad reviews. If someone is happy with something they usually won’t take the time to come on an write about it unless it is beyond brilliant. I wont go so far as to say this fitbit is that, but it is a wonderful gadget and personally i find no truths in what many here are complaining about.
Firstly i would like to start with, if comparing to the hr and making a decision between the two, definitely go with the newer model. It does more; like the 24/7 heart rate monitor which is really great to keep an eye on, the active zones and a great battery life. So far i’ve gone 4 days with no charge and only gotten to 65%, that’s incredible to me. Not to mention this new model includes a free year of premium which has a lot of great stuff in it like fitness guides and mediation exercises.
When i was making the decision i read pros and cons comparisons and ultimately it was these and the sluggish touch screen on the hr that led me to choose the inspire 2. I’m glad i did, i have zero regrets. And for some reason this is cheaper right now than the older model! (edit: it looks like that was pre holiday sale and it’s more expensive now which does make sense, it is better)

it’s functioning flawlessly. It was a great price, is very easy to use, and really is a good little motivator.
I love the gentle alarms, the relax exercises, and the little reminders to drink water and exercise. The sleep tracking is really fascinating and a personal goal of mine to work on, this is a major help to me in that regard. I love that it is swim safe as well, since i’m big on swimming.
I have pretty small wrists, and while it sits off of it a bit, it’s not overly bulky and is light, and by no means bothersome.
Also the recommendation for wearing it is slightly loose, not snug, and i find the best position for it is just above the ulna.
As far as people having trouble with it getting stuck on one screen and always showing their weight or constantly buzzing with alerts? That is 100% user error. I will say with confidence if you take your time to sit down and just read through and explore the app with patience, it is all very user friendly. These screens can be backed out of, changed, and alarms/ reminders set or cancelled.
There was also a review that mentioned there’s no way to view the hr on the main screen, and you have to swipe through 5 times or so to get to it. While that is one way, there is also the quick function on the home screen just below the clock, tapping this will cycle through which to display (hr, calories, active zones, miles, and steps) so you can have your hr and time visible anytime.
My two biggest ‘issues’ with it which are very minor, would be the band, which tends to irritate the skin slightly with constant wear. Cleaning, switching wrists or bands is a simple solution.
The other one is that the steps aren’t incredibly accurate, they give a rough idea, but i tend to halve mine based off of my walking routes that i know. This is a broad guess on my part, steps matter least to me but it’s probably closer to 75% accurate.

Keeping that and the relatively low price in mind, i think this is a wonderful all over health tracker and highly recommend it for anyone looking for a quality tracker at a reasonable price and healthier lifestyle. It is a small piece of plastic that i find quite incredible at what it is capable of doing for being so tiny, and am amazed at all of the extras in this!

I originally got the fitbit luxe and had a super bad experience- the screen stopped working (no buttons tap and wrist flick only) and the strap had fallen off everyday i had to super glue it. I was super over it, tried other fitness trackers but i got this and tried to give fitbit another chance and i’m glad i did. This has the 1 side touch “buttons” not really buttons but something direct to turn on the screen. That was my major issue with the luxe, i couldn’t get the screen to turn on when i wanted. I’m using this for step tracking and some other things- i don’t care about getting texts or anything else on it. I just want to use it to track my physical activity. I think it’s great- battery lasts a while. Screen is black and white only but i don’t care. I love the app and the fact that it comes with a year long premium is worth it for the price. Really glad i went for it.

I’ve had fitbits for several years including both inspire versions and i’m very happy with them. This one does indeed hold a charge for longer, several days at least, and charges quickly. While every now and then i consider getting an iwatch, i am quite happy using the fitbit for workout, sleep tracking (and of course the time) and my phone for everything else. I can see if i get a text or call although it isn’t practical to read texts on it for me anyway. A little hard to see the time out in the sun but it’s possible when you shade the face with your hand. It isn’t accurate for swimming distance in open water but it tracks time/calorie estimate. Excellent tracking for calories/time for sports (pickleball) and additionally for distance for walking and running and of course for steps. A very good basic tracker for basic tracking needs!

Great looking fitbit, inspire 2. Creamy white band is nice but also works well the other bands that i purchased at the same time. I haven’t had it long enough to test the total accuracy but it does have a long battery life as advertised. I haven’t had to charge it for the last 5 days. I have been wearing it to bed and have been interested in how it gives me a sleep grade each day. I am going to continue to push myself to use it to help me be more accountable with exercise and diet. I went ahead and got the premium deal for one year since it is free. It does offer more information and inspiration.

This tracker is just what i needed to stay accountable to my fitness and health goals. It’s the perfect size for me and has so many great tracking aspects. I love the sleep tracking and reminders to keep moving throughout the day. I absolutely love that i get notifications from my phone. You can’t answer phone calls or texts but you can be notified of a call and you can read your texts from the tracker. You can track your workout right from the watch without your phone and sync your tracker to your phone after your workout.

My only complaint about the inspire 2 (probably applies to all fitbit products) is that, despite linking to my phone by bluetooth, the device can’t update the app without an internet connection. It seems like if it’s got a live bluetooth connection it should be able to share data in that manner with the app… But it cannot.

Inspire 2 is lightweight, easy to wear, and all advertised features work as expected. Very happy with purchase, good value for money.

I bought my inspire 2 a couple months ago, and i just love it!

What i use it for is as a heart rate monitor and to track my sleep. It has a really long battery life – i recharge it about every 10 days (it sends me an email to remind me when it needs charging). It is also really lightweight.

My normal forms of exercise are: weights, treadmill, walks (our neighborhood is quite hilly), and yoga. My fitbit does really well at tracking my heart rate on walks – and it leverages my phone’s gps for distance. It sometimes does well at tracking intensity on the treadmill, and sometimes not. How tightly you wear the watchband affects if it misses beats. An amusing aspect of the heart rate monitor is – that something about going shopping at costco with my wife sometimes causes my heart rate to go up quite a bit. I think it is we naturally shop at different speeds. I try to fob the increase in heart rate off as the romance of shopping together, but my wife is not buying it… The fitbit will report those bouts of high heart rate as exercise. Normally, though, the heart rate is pretty accurate – i was in the hospital for a little while – and one of the things i liked to do was compare my fitbit’s heart rate measure – with that of the hospital’s heart rate monitor. In general they were within 1 beat of each other. I use the active zone minutes feature of fitbit to help me track my 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week. Active zone minutes can be more or less accurate, so i don’t follow them religiously, but more as a motivator to do more.

As a sleep tracker my fitbit is also very useful. I am trying to get more sleep — and having an objective source of data gives me feedback on how i am doing . I have noticed though, if you sit really still for a long period of time, such as in an emergency room, it interprets that as sleep. I suppose sitting quietly is a form of rest, so i don’t feel too bad about that.

I find my fitbit very motivating — it causes me to do more exercise than i would have otherwise. I think the mind set that it promotes is very helpful. It makes a great watch. For the most part it is unobtrusive. If you already have a smart-phone, and want to improve your health, the inspire 2 is reasonably priced for what it gives. So far i have not used the premium features that much – so i don’t have an opinion on that at this point.

Cronometer (a nutrition tracking app – that can also be used to track biometrics) can be linked to my fitbit, and automatically grab some metrics – i find that very useful too. Fitbit is mostly focused on exercise – i find it easier to use cronometer to track food, blood pressure, blood glucose, weight etc…

I did also try the fitbit smart scale but it did not work well for me, so i manually enter weight data into my fitbit app.

The inspire 2 is definitely a keeper and, for me, well worth the money.

I only got this to monitor my steps and sleep and nothing more. I don’t use the mobile notification sync, fitness tracker, etc.

The app is really easy to use. The step tracking is pretty good! I like that it syncs to my other fitness apps pretty easily. The sleep tracking is also pretty good. Interesting to see how many times you wake up in the middle of the night without even realizing it.

Since you might use this for sleep, exercise and throughout the day, that means you will probably be wearing this thing 23/7 and only take it off for showers or swimming.

The good thing is the band is pretty comfortable and doesn’t need to be super tight to work properly. It feels like nothing is there half the time. The band is also pretty durable. I don’t see any wear/discoloration after wearing it 23 hours a day for about a month during sweaty gym sessions, days on the beach, disneyland, hiking, etc.

The battery life is phenomenal. I maybe need to charge it about once every 2 weeks. I turned off all the notifications, disabled the movement wake-up feature and dimmed the screen to its lowest so definitely on the most optimal settings for that. However, i really don’t need to interact with it a whole lot except for sometimes as a watch or a stopwatch.

I started walking and wanted something to keep me updated on my steps. After reading some reviews i decided to purchase this little gadget. It’s perfect and provides me wit much mor information than i expected. I downloaded the app so i can access information quickly. I particularly like the sleep tracking feature, although i’m not sure about it’s accuracy. Having this device makes me more mindful of my health as it reminds me to drink water and move. It also gives me notifications for texts and calls. I really love it, and the price was right $65.00.

I am not text savvy so i am delighted in how easy this is to operate and get the information that you need at the swipe of a finger. It syncs to the weight watchers app easily as well. The only thing i found i do need to watch is that the ww app refreshes to count all the steps, but if you are just using the fit bit app then you will be very pleased with this product. Highly recommend.

This device does some things well and some not. But given the price it packs a lot in. I probably would have kept it but my wife returned hers and we had each gotten one together. Likes: the heart rate monitor is great, the app does a lot of tracking, like the trends, premium food videos great, interface good, strap superior to the amazon halo which kept falling off and was a pain, small and light, battery life great – lasts over a week, sleep tracking was handy, step counter pretty good, little feedback about activity levels good. Dislikes: lifting to view is not always perfect and i prefer my classic watch but always on isn’t possible with a screen, screen brightness in daylight not good as in you can’t see it in bright sunlight, a lot of features are with the premium subscription which is expensive after a year, calorie estimate is probably overestimating burn by 50% at least for me, so one would overeat if using this as a measure, the step counter and distance estimate doesn’t track if you aren’t swinging your arms – like pushing a stroller and i would think it could ping the iphone gps for that periodically, it only syncs data if you open the app. Overall i think it’s a great health tool. It does what it does pretty well and is very cost effective. I wish the premium subscription was less, but it would be worth it if you are using this for serious health change efforts. I already did track a lot of this data myself but this makes it easier. If i had the funds i like the physical style of a larger watch as i’m an average size somewhat athletic man but this has advantages. I will get this or another one again probably later, when i help my wife to find the right one for her. It’s fun to share:) i think they hit a good price to performance and feature balance. I am not sure how it would hold up over time, i think these scratch easily and the battery wears out from what i hear but i can’t confirm that. You won’t go wrong with this though.

In order to use this product, you need to ‘activate’ it by syncing it with the fitbit app. Beyond that, you will get a lot more data by using it with the app, but you can still see some daily data on the device itself (which clears on its own at the end of the day). Also the app is needed to do some customizing (such as setting what your ‘active’ hours are). ***beore purchasing, i recommend making sure you have a device (smartphone, tablet, or computer) that will work with the app, which is a free download. For computer users, you’ll find the link to the windows app in small font at the bottom of the set-up page on the fitbit website. If you cannot download the app to one of your devices, this product won’t work! Please note that the apps available may not be compatible with an older smartphone or tablet (and older may mean only a couple of years).

In addition to the app, there is a dashboard available by logging into the fitbit website. I can’t speak to the smartphone app, but regarding the windows app, you’ll get different views of your data on the website as compared to the app (for example, the website will show you # of steps by five-minute increments throughout the day, but the app just gives you steps for the whole day and also which of your ‘active’ hours had at least 250 steps). On both the website and app you can see your historical data.

Very important: if you are only planning to sync with a computer, you need to buy a separate fitbit wireless sync dongle. You also need to make sure your computer has bluetooth capabilities and that they are turned on (if not, i believe there may be a separate dongle you can purchase for bluetooth). The sync dongle allows your fitbit to transfer data to your computer and you must sync at least once for the product to work. The syncing occurs with the app open (not to be confused with the website dashboard). It should happen automatically, but can be manually prompted if necessary.

The product itself arrives with only a miniscule amount of instructions. The full user manual is on their website, and an internet search will find any number of other websites with helpful instructions for doing things the manual doesn’t cover well or at all (that’s how i learned about the required dongle).

I don’t have experience with other fitness trackers for comparison. This works well enough for my needs–i got it for a wellness program at work and the data can be synced directly to that wellness program’s website. I don’t think the step counter is 100% accurate. I am pretty sure it undercounts, but even if it is 90% accurate, that is good enough for my purposes. I haven’t tried out the sleep tracking features yet, so can’t comment on those.

I find the manual to be lacking and wish it had been more clear at the time of purchase or even with the product in hand that the dongle was needed to use it with a computer. (i guess they think we are all supposed to be privileged enough to own brand new smartphones.)

i have a very small wrist and the smallest wristband attachment worked for me–you’ll want to wear it three fingers above your wrist bone. I often wear it clipped to my waistband instead (separate purchase to get the clips), which seems to work as well for step counting, although the vibration reminder to move is subtle and hard to feel when wearing this way. Taking the wrist straps on and off does require decent manual dexterity.

As an elderly guy of 70 years having some trouble sleeping, i decided to get an inspire 2 fit-bit to track my sleep. My first night sleep showed i had only slept about 4 hours starting in the early morning hours giving me a fair rating, although i would consider 4 hrs to be poor. Assuming the watch needs to calibrate for a period of time, i found that the second night seemed to record properly with about 7.5 hours sleep giving me a good score. The 3rd night was not rated as a good night and the unit recorded several chunks of sleep instead of combining them into one chunk for the night. The following night the unit again divided my sleep into 2 different chunks. I don’t know why it does this. I’ve programmed my sleep start at 10:45pm and end time for 7:30am for 7 days a week, both in the watch and in the app. I would think that the fit-bit sleep chart and score would be calculated based on these time settings even if the person was up during the night for a bathroom break. The sleep chart should then show this as an awake period at that particular time. When the unit divides my sleep time into 2 or more chunks, i have to edit the time assigned after the fact for that sleep period. The fit-bit forums suggested i change the sleep sensitivity from ‘sensitive’ to normal but i found out that the sleep sensitivity setting is already set at ‘normal’. I was able to get the full sleep period by deleting the incomplete sleep logs for the night and entering it manually. Make sure to enter the start date first followed then by the correct am or pm time followed then by the end date and time. The app will get confused if you mess up on this and it may then leave a simple chart with no score, however you can delete it and try again.
The unit is a bit too thick to allow me to lay my arm comfortably under the pillow when sleeping but i’ve learned to adjust for that. Battery life is excellent as mine went a week and still had about half the charge. I’ve noticed my phone battery was draining significantly quicker due to the bluetooth usage, so i prefer to have the unit gather data for a day, using a one-time per day sync in the morning. This would however, effect it’s notification options from your phone. I sacrificed these functions and simply closed the phone app and turn off bluetooth on my phone except to sync the unit.

I have now used this for over a year and although i’m able to combine 2 or more chunks to get a sleep score, i sometimes have to delete recorded sleep time in the evening while watching tv or at the computer. If the unit thinks i’m asleep during those times, might it also think i’m asleep in bed when i’m really not? My particular biology might be out of the normal to result in these records. My scores are typically around 78-82 with a high score of 90 (excellent) and a low of 59 (poor). The 59 score was below my age margin for rem sleep and deep sleep and was likely due to supplement adjustments or something out of the ordinary.

Although the technology of this device is quite remarkable, don’t fall into a trap thinking this device is a highly accurate display of sleep data. The anxiety created from receiving an undesirable score may actually harm your sleep. My wife would keep telling me to quit relying on it so heavily. I am now to the point that if i have forgotten to put it on for the day or evening when i go to bed, i will just shrug it off and not worry about it. This watch is quite an example of engineering but remember it’s inherent limits in gathering data. It can’t monitor your brain waves but makes sleep interpretations based on data from it’s sensors, comparing it to a database of common readings for your age group which may or may not be close to your actual results. Just remember that it is a tool to help you and it is best used to show your personal trends from day to day. It’s likely more useful in checking your movements and heart rate during the day. After all, it is called a ‘fit’ bit and not a ‘sleep’ bit and since sleep can be related to exercise, i have begun to focus more on the exercise data from the unit.

If you are trying to make adjustments to improve your sleep or any other section of the fit-bit program, it would be nice if there was a place to enter notes for each day/night that could be reviewed as needed? (thunderstorm that night, sick, etc.) this lack of a personal daily notes section is a shortcoming in my opinion. Check my other reviews and may god help you in your quest for good sleep.

I bought this because it is smaller than many other activity bands and less obtrusive on my wrist. There really isn’t much to choose from these days. It seems to work ok- it is counting steps and some exercise. I am finding the calorie/activity part of the app helpful. I’m not using it for sleep tracking at this time. People reviewing this have said that they are annoyed by the vibrations when they move their wrist. I have not had that problem- but i disabled some of the notifications so maybe that helps. The battery lasts at least a week for me. The tracker works okay, but there are some negatives.
The original band that comes with the activity tracker is made of some odd material- it collects dust, and even hair sticks to it! When i took it off after a few days there was dust collecting under the band- i’ve never seen anything like that with other bands. The band is also oddly positioned and doesn’t lay flat on the wrist- very similar to the charge 4 band. The buckle is made of plastic. I then ordered a leather band also from fitbit (thankfully it was on sale) and it is much better. It is thinner and lays flatter, and it’s much better looking. It also doesn’t attract dust and hair! My question to manufacturers is: why don’t you give customers the choice of a band when they first buy the activity devices. Everyone knows that fitbits sadly don’t last much longer than a year, so it is a big waste of money and resources for customers to buy extra bands that will eventually end up in a landfill- especially when the trackers and the band connectors are redesigned every couple of years .
When i choose weight lifting on the tracker, it will register that i am exercising, but if i don’t choose weight lifting, it might not register that i am exercising. I was also surprised by the limited exercise choices on the tracker. Maybe i’ve been spoiled by more expensive trackers that i have had, but then again the inspire 2 is not that inexpensive.
Sometimes i get active zone minutes and sometimes i don’t. The other night i was making dinner and all of a sudden the active zone minutes came on. I wonder how accurate it is so i don’t even look at it anymore.
The past couple of days the hourly steps reminder has not been going on even though i have it set to remind me. I will try to shut down the tracker to see if that will fix it.
I had the app on my phone, but it ran down the battery. There are ways to try and fix that on the fitbit site, it is a known problem, but instead of trying to fix it i deleted the app and put it on my laptop. I’m home a lot more during this pandemic so it really is just as good to use the laptop for me. Just a note on apps- some really love the fitbit app, but i’ve used the apple and garmin apps, too, and they all have their good points. I don’t see anything that special about the fitbit app, and actually, it is kind of confusing sometimes. I don’t think it is always user-friendly. The calorie intake and outtake is very handy, though.
I haven’t been using this fitbit for it’s full potential, but it seems to work pretty well- not perfect. In my opinion, it is overpriced so try to get it on sale. It is okay, nothing special, but when there are few activity trackers to choose from, we have to take what we can get. If it lasts for a couple of years i’ll be happy! (haha) if it breaks i’ll update this review.
Edited to add: i did reboot the device (squeeze sides to see clock face, then scroll up to settings, tap on settings, then scroll down to reboot- tap to reboot) and the vibrations for hourly steps came back.

Edit 11/28/21: my inspire 2 is still working as of this date. The battery life is still excellent. Every day, though, the device goes into sleep mode without any intervention from me. The clock is hard to see (especially outside) and i am getting very annoyed with that with my older eyes. It doesn’t help me that the face is small. I think with the lower price it is at now, the band is more worth it than when it first came out with a higher price. It is pretty scuffed up, but that is to be expected probably. I haven’t had it quite a year, and from my experience, fitbits tend to die after a year, but maybe this one won’t. I am tempted to buy a device that looks more like a watch and can be easily seen inside and outside, which is my biggest complaint about the inspire 2. One more thing- i did not get the full one year subscription of fitbit premium. I got some months (6?) and then it ended. I do not know why.

I’ve known about the importance of diet and activity to my health for years and the fitbit app (regular and premium) has a diary feature that let’s you track food intake and gives calorie counts. I used it to lose my quarantine weight. I’ve also used the water intake tracker just to make sure i’m hydrating well. The physical activity tracking is great and the app let’s me add activities or re-categorize— it always categorizes my lawn mowing is “outdoor biking” but that’s easy to correct. Having my sleep metrics has made a big difference in my health because i can clearly see the correlation between suboptimal sleep and poor physical performance and when i crave junk food. Also i got a free trial of the “premium” version of the app and it has some helpful additional features like more sleep metrics and a readiness score which tracks data like heart rate variability. I like seeing that data and will probably upgrade to premium when my free trial ends. I’ve used fitbit products for several years (my last device was a charge 2) and all in all i’m very satisfied with my fitbit inspire 2.

I have only had the inspire 2 for a few days. I decided on this model fitbit because it had the longest battery life and good reviews. I did not realize the screen times out after three seconds and there is no way to change it to last longer. I am guessing this is why the battery life lasts longer on this model. I believe all the other model fitbits have the option to change the screen time. I am happy with everything else so i will most likely keep it. However, if i had known this prior to purchasing, i would have purchased a different model.

This watch comes with one year free premium. They charged me as soon as i signed up. Plus i will see if they first ally fixed the glitch when it give you 20k-80k steps at 3am. This make the rest of your inputs wrong, such as your calorie intake. They typically last only about a year. I bought my fist fitbit in 2017. It lasted over 3 years and i never had a problem swimming 2-3 days a week with it. Now… Not so much. I hope this watch goes better this time.

I’m not fond of the black band. My inspire hr had a lavender band. My hr also had a push button on the side for turning on the display if the screen was black, but this phone does not have the push button. Sometimes i have trouble getting the display to come on; sometimes it comes on if i move my arm. I have not started the 1 year fitbit trial yet; i have to get accustomed to this watch first.

I am very happy with my purchase of the fitbit inspire. I am still getting used to it. It probably does a lot more than i am even aware of or will ever use. The price was right. Shipping was fast. Not sure about the accuracy. I have found a few discrepancies in the sleep tracker. Which was my main reason for purchasing. Still for the price i am pleased.

First and only fitbit, it’s comfortable to wear easy to use even though sometimes it wouldn’t detect me touching it to set it on something,(timer, exercise mode or to check steps, etc..) but i’ve had it since december and 3 weeks ago it died on me. And since almost 2 months ago it started to lose battery life faster than b4. It used to last me up to 2 weeks b4 it would alert me to charge and then out of nowhere it started asking me to charge every 2-3 days. It stopped working 3 weeks ago, i thought that it had gotten wet somehow i wasn’t able to turn it on for about 2 days when a friend suggested to restart it,and i realized the battery had drained 12 hours after i put it to charged. I charge it again b4 bed time,i wore it to bed after it was fully charged and by the time i woke up it was dead and now it doesn’t work, won’t turn on even if i charge it. So i think it’s a battery issue or something because i am sure i never got it wet. Other than the battery problem and the sensory issue i really loved this device. I wish i could get it replaced because it’s been less than a year that i’ve bought it.