It’s easy to see why gadget makers are so fixated on touchscreens. Swiping is intuitive. It allows clean lines for a futuristic aesthetic. It’s the easiest way to eliminate bezels and maximize screen real estate. So I understood why Fitbit was excited when it introduced the inductive button on the Fitbit Charge 3. Get rid of protrusions on the side buttons and behold the sleek profile of a modern fitness tracker!
This is what an unforced error looks like.
With the Charge 3, Fitbit replaced the Charge 2’s physical button with a slick groove that could easily be confused with the overall design. Place your finger on the groove and it activates an invisible touch sensor on the inside of the device. When I initially the Charge 3 reviewed, it seemed to work: a short press returned me to a previous screen, a long press called up the quick menu, and it vibrated to let me know it had done my bidding. But something that doesn’t hurt during a short review period can become one over time.
At the time, Fitbits (and other trackers) didn’t have the most responsive touchscreens. Swipes weren’t always detected, or sometimes they weren’t registered correctly. That can be somewhat annoying, but it’s less of a problem if you know there’s a back button to undo your mistake. But the back buttons on older Fitbit smartwatches, like the Versa 2, often was stuck. (The company never had the sturdiest hardware.) That, plus a slimmer profile, is probably why Fitbit came up with the inductive button in the first place.
Physical buttons are reliable and predictable. You know what they’re doing, and you know when you’ve put pressure on them. You can feel them depressing, and some even have a satisfying click. But while Apple has shown us that it’s possible to mimic a button on a laptop-sized canvas, Fitbit shows how risky it can be to try the same with wearables.
In Fitbit forums, some users were so lost by the button on the Charge 3, that wasn’t a button they didn’t know where to start. If you Google “Fitbit Charge 3 button” the top two results are variations of “where is the button on the Charge 3?”
Tellingly, users didn’t know the Charge 3’s button existed until they needed it, and I can see why. With the larger touchscreen display of the Charge 3 and no other visible controls, it would be easy to assume that all you needed were swipes and taps to use the device.
The bigger problem: Even those who discovered the button found its use unreliable. The haptic feedback, intended to confirm you pressed the button, ended up causing confusion. If it vibrated sooner than you expected, did that mean you held down for a long time? If it vibrated later, did you accidentally long press when you wanted to short press? Because I had no clear confirmation, I often went back a screen when I intended to launch a shortcut or vice versa. That’s annoying even in a quiet environment and extremely frustrating when you’re halfway through your workout.
Also other users reported problems where the button stopped working after a while. To solve that problem, you had to press the inductive button for 15 seconds while on the charger to reboot the device. But if the button doesn’t work and you can’t see that you’re actually pressing it, how on earth is that supposed to work?
The tragedy is that no one really asked for the inductive button. Fitbit’s physical buttons on older devices occasionally got stuck, but generally all of this could have been resolved by making better tests. (As other wearable makers did.) Instead, Fitbit came up with a “solution” that created new problems and then doubled down on it for future trackers and smartwatches. It appeared on the Charge 4 and the versa 3 and Sense, where the inductive button’s flaws were even more apparently because Fitbit added a double press. Theoretically, this meant you could program a different shortcut – provided you could figure out the difference between a single press, a double press, and a long press.
Personally I couldn’t. While I generally had a positive experience with the Sense and Versa 3, the button was not one of them. Simply bending my wrist ended up triggering half a dozen accidental shortcuts. Bending my wrist while typing? That would start a run. Stretching my calves before bed with downward dog? That was also running. During testing I ended Start 15 phantom runs that I then had to go back and delete.
For the most part, other smartwatch makers have opted for a mix of physical buttons And touch screens. For example, the Apple Watch Ultra has a huge honking screen, but also added a third physical button – the action button – to the mix. Even Apple, a company that likes to do away with buttons when the opportunity arises, understands the importance of physical buttons on its smartwatches. Meanwhile, Garmin continues to update its fitness watch lines with touchscreens, while reassuring athletes that the five-button navigation system isn’t going anywhere. Scroll and swipe whenever you want, but with the reassurance of having physical buttons when sweaty fingers, gloves and laggy displays are a concern.
So it’s a relief that Fitbit, which has since been acquired by Google, has come to some sense. With last year’s Sense 2 and Versa 4, Fitbit went back to physical side buttons. But maybe it’s too little, too late. The Pixel Watch is here, and as I wrote in my Sense 2 review, we’re one Pixel band away from Fitbit completely disappearing into the Google machine. Switching back to the physical button earlier wouldn’t have changed Fitbit’s ultimate fate. But it would have made the last few devices a little more fun to use. For many people, that would have been enough.
Janice has been with businesskinda for 5 years, writing copy for client websites, blog posts, EDMs and other mediums to engage readers and encourage action. By collaborating with clients, our SEO manager and the wider businesskinda team, Janice seeks to understand an audience before creating memorable, persuasive copy.