One of the major drawbacks of the Fitbit Ionic is its prohibitive price point. At £299.99 it’s only £30 cheaper than the latest and greatest Apple Watch Series 3 with GPS.
For a watch running a nebulous operating system with a wafer-thin selection of apps, it’s just not great value for money compared with the watchOS device.
It appears Fitbit has recognised this, with recent hints from CEO James Park pertaining to a new watch with “mass market” appeal.
ollowing up on reporting from Wearable — which obtained images and info recently — Evan Blass has revealed that device will be called the Fitbit Versa.
The replacement for the Fitbit Blaze will, unlike its predecessor, run the new Fitbit OS.
A source told Wareable the company “wants this to be something that will appeal to a larger, more general smartwatch audience,” beyond the Fitbit superfans that purchased the Ionic.
Part of that strategy may be luring female users, according to the report. The Ionic was a beast of a thing, reminiscent of some of the earliest Samsung smartwatches, and hardly suitable for smaller wrists.
However, the new watch will have a smaller face a little more in line with something like the Apple Watch, or the Pebble smartwatches consigned to history following the Fitbit acquisition.
The Versa will be available in black, silver, rose gold, and a charcoal the report says, with a range of straps to match.
The headline feature looks like it’ll be swimproof 50m of water resistance, but there’ll be no GPS on board, according to the report.