Fitbit Sense 2 and Versa 4 have no music playback, lose Wi-Fi

The Fitbit Sense 2 and Versa 4 feature an interface heavily inspired by Wear OS 3, but they otherwise lack key features, like offline music storage, playback, or even control, while Wi-Fi is disabled.

Fitbit notes the presence of “WiFi” under the “Sensors & Components” section of the Specs page for both the Sense 2 and Versa 4. However, it immediately says “deactivated, cannot be turned on” in parentheses.

Additionally, the “How do I connect my Fitbit watch to Wi-Fi?” help article confirms that “this feature isn’t available on Fitbit Sense 2, Fitbit Versa Lite Edition, or Fitbit Versa 4.”

This is unfortunate as Wi-Fi makes possible “faster firmware updates” compared to Bluetooth – in our experience, quite a drastic difference – which is the only option now for the new smartwatches. Meanwhile, Fitbit also touted that Wi-Fi connectivity allows you to “download playlists and apps.” You can still download/transfer apps (and watch faces) over Bluetooth, albeit slower.

However, the other limitation revealed here is the lack of music options on the Fitbit Sense 2 and Versa 4. For starters, the company does not mention audio playback capabilities – beyond taking on-wrist phone calls (coming later) and Amazon Alexa – on either product page.

Additionally, another help article says Deezer “isn’t available on Fitbit Sense 2, Fitbit Versa Lite Edition, or Fitbit Versa 4.” The support page for Pandora just says “This feature isn’t available on Fitbit Versa Lite Edition or Fitbit Versa 4,” and presumably the Sense 2 not being mentioned is a mistake. Meanwhile, it was telling that the Charge 5 did not offer specialized Spotify controls after previous generations and the original Sense did.

Besides the lack of on-device storage, it’s not clear that you can even control audio playing on your phone. The manual for both the Sense 2 and Versa 4 do not mention anything about play/pause music controls or connecting Bluetooth headphones to your watch. Hopefully, this is something that’s added in a future update.

The lack of these features does somewhat hamper the Sense 2 and Versa 4’s standing as smartwatches, especially since there’s no mention of Google Assistant support to date, just Alexa. Of course, you do get on-wrist payments, Google Maps, notifications, the ability to respond to texts, and the ability to answer calls. 

The removal of these features reflects how Fitbit is focusing the Sense 2 and Versa 4 (coming this week) on health and fitness capabilities with some smartwatch-esque features that perform well. However, any loss of functionality is always unfortunate and makes the new watches less of a straightforward next-generation successor. It also makes the upgrade path to a Pixel Watch more obvious.

More on Fitbit:

• Source: New Fitbit Charge 6 will look like the Charge 5
• Fitbit Irregular Heart Rhythm Notifications expand to over 20 new countries in Europe and beyond
• New ‘Made for Fitbit’ accessory line includes Pixel charging stand for Sense 2, Versa 4, & Charge 5