'via Blog this'
I just googled "waterproof Fitbit watch", since I have been waiting for the Fitbit Blaze replacement that is supposedly swimmable. Search turned up WaterFi, a company that does aftermarket waterproofing.
WaterFi has a good rep, both on web and by personal experience - I have a waterfi'ed iPod Shuffle.
WaterFi sells a number of aftermarket waterproofed trackers, ranging from Fitbit Charge and Charge 2 HR to Fitbit Blaze.
They don't change the software, so no "swim mode". But reports say that they count "strokes" as "steps", which is good enough.
The waterproofing closes up the air pressure port, so the altimeter "flights climbed" feature breaks. Minor sadness: living on a hillside, vertical is a useful exercise metric, correlates to intensity; but Fitbit does not do much with vertical, doesn't use for challenges, etc.
329$ for the large waterproofed Blaze, 300$ small, vs 199$ list, sometimes 150$ on sale. Since WaterFi offers a 99$ waterproofing service, it might be more cost effective to buy from FitBit or a reseller, and then send to WaterFi.
I am especially interested in the WaterFi'ed Fitbit Blaze, which has standard watchstraps (22/23/24mm?b - many for sale on Amazon) . "Leaked" photos of the (late, not yet shipping) new Fitbit watch seem to show that it does not use standard watchstraps.
---+ WaterFi'ed iPod Shuffle
A few years ago I bought a WaterFi-ed swimmable iPod Shuffle, which I used to listen to podcasts while swimming for quite a while. Notes: music fine; podcasts okay while doing breaststroke, but hard to hear doing crawl, and always miss something during tumble turns.) Still have, still works; I only stopped using (a) swimmer's knee (breaststroke), (b) got Fitbit, stopped swimming (c) it's a pain to sync podcasts to - modern podcatchers don't seem to handle non-phone devices like iPods. But I still use occasionally, when I have a lot of podcasts or audiobooks to upload, amortizing the hassle of doing so.
Prompts thoughts: one of the things that attracts me about an Apple Watch is that it can supposedly play podcasts from the watch even when not carrying phone. But I'll bet this doesn't work in the water (?)
---+ WaterFi'ed iPod Shuffle
A few years ago I bought a WaterFi-ed swimmable iPod Shuffle, which I used to listen to podcasts while swimming for quite a while. Notes: music fine; podcasts okay while doing breaststroke, but hard to hear doing crawl, and always miss something during tumble turns.) Still have, still works; I only stopped using (a) swimmer's knee (breaststroke), (b) got Fitbit, stopped swimming (c) it's a pain to sync podcasts to - modern podcatchers don't seem to handle non-phone devices like iPods. But I still use occasionally, when I have a lot of podcasts or audiobooks to upload, amortizing the hassle of doing so.
Prompts thoughts: one of the things that attracts me about an Apple Watch is that it can supposedly play podcasts from the watch even when not carrying phone. But I'll bet this doesn't work in the water (?)
