Fitness trackers have their own place in the tech industry. Wearable tech has come quite far from where we started, and every smartwatch in the market comes with fitness tracking features like step counting and a heart-rate monitor. However, Fitness trackers have their own simplicity and are still popular among fitness-minded users as going for a run or working out with a chunky smartwatch tied to your wrist can get irritating. Fitness trackers offer a more limited functionality over smartwatches as they are more focused on the fitness part of the usability. However, not all fitness trackers can be trusted for accuracy of the vitals, quality of the product, and more importantly, data storage practices. Fitbit is said to be the market leader in terms of fitness trackers as it is the brand that started off the category and made it popular among the public. Now, however, we are seeing more and more unconventional brands make their way into the market, in order to offer a wider range of products. One such brand (not so unconventional given its fitness-centric marketing) is Titan-owned Fastrack. Fastrack’s Reflex 3.0 was launched earlier this year in the Indian market for a price of Rs 2,199. I have spent quite some time with the Fastrack Reflex 3.0, and this is what I feel:
Right off the bat, the Fastrack Reflex 3.0 is designed like your conventional fitness tracker, with a rectangular 1-inch TFT touch sensitive display. The fitness tracker comes with multiple features like a heart rate sensor, step counter, sleep tracking, several workout modes, breathing assist, and more. In terms of design, it comes with a basic rectangular display with a silicone wrist strap. There is a dotted-pattern on the bottom edge of the display, which is carried on in a braided-type pattern on the strap. The strap also has a “Fastrack” branding on the top edge, and there is a logo right on the clip which straps on the fitness tracker on your wrist. In terms of design, it looks like any other fitness tracker – a safe approach from Fastrack. One big design flaw with the Fastrack Reflex 3.0 is that it does not show where the Home button is. The Home button does exist right below the display, but there is no marking to tell that it does indeed exist.
The display on the Fastrack Reflex 3.0 is a TFT display and is bright enough to be used in all kinds of environments. The touch on the display is not the best we have seen, as it takes the wrong feedback quite often. While it is something that can be annoying in the initial stages since we are used to very nice and responsive touch panels on gadgets in 2021, it is something that one will get used to after a certain amount of time using the product.
In terms of features, the Fastrack Reflex 3.0 comes with many features like 24×7 heart rate monitoring, step counter, sleep tracking, multiple workout modes, and more. The heart rate monitor on the Fastrack Reflex 3.0 is quite accurate. We compared the results to an ECG machine in a hospital, and it showed similar results in terms of the person’s heart rate. The step counter is also accurate on the Fastrack Reflex 3.0, and gives users a decent idea as to how many steps they have walked during their day. Even workout modes on the Fastrack Reflex 3.0 help quite a bit as they tell users how much time they have worked out, how many calories they have burned, and what their average heart rate was during the work out – all of this, it shows with a certain level of accuracy. The Fastrack Reflex 3.0 also comes with IP68-rated so you can do all your workouts without having to worry about sweat damaging your device. There is also a breathing exercise that tells users to inhale and exhale slowly, in hopes of calming themselves.
While these basic features on the fitness tracker work quite well, many features are not at all accurate and just show random data at random times, without the user having made any input. The Sleep Tracker, for example, is not accurate at all. Throughout my month-long time with the Fastrack Reflex 3.0, I was not able to figure out how to track my sleep. At times, it randomly showed data in the “Sleep” section of the fitness tracker, so it was not exactly clear as to where it came from. Apart from this, another annoyance about the Fastrack Reflex 3.0 is that it doesn’t show notifications on the fitness band. As mentioned in the tracker’s details, it is supposed to show notifications. While it did show me notifications the first time I connected it to my phone and enabled notifications, it has not shown any since. The fitness tracker does show who is calling you, but that is all the notification you get after the initial usage, at least in our case.
The Fastrack Reflex 3.0 works via an app named Fastrack Reflex. The app is good and does make the process of using the very limited fitness tracker that little bit more seamless. The app allows users to connect and sync their fitness tracker to their smartphones, and track their vitals in a more detailed manner. The app also allows users to change settings, Watch Faces, and turn notifications on/off on their Fastrack Reflex 3.0.
To conclude, the Fastrack Reflex 3.0 is the most basic fitness tracker you can buy. Throughout my time with the band, the most used feature was the step-counter, which thankfully, is accurate. There are let-downs in many areas like touch sensitivity, sleep tracking, notifications, and the fact that there is nothing to indicate the presence of the home button. The Fastrack Reflex 3.0 is not the best fitness tracker in its price segment as it gives quite a limited user experience and doesn’t deliver on the claims in a smooth manner. My recommendation would be to look at options from Xiaomi, OnePlus, GoQii, and the likes within this price range, as these offer much more features and a more user-friendly experience.
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