The Fitbit Versa 4 is the smartwatch successor to the Versa 3, which launched back in 2020 and is the more affordable route to getting a mix of Fitbit’s latest fitness, health and smartwatch features in a watch design.

For the Versa 4, Fitbit has brought back the physical button, ushered in some new apps from owner Google, all while sticking pretty closely to what we got on the Versa 3.

So, does it all add up to one of the best smartwatches you can buy right now?

Pricing and competition

The Fitbit Versa 4 is available in just one size and comes in four colour options, with all versions priced at $199.95/£179.99. That’s roughly $10/£10 cheaper than picking up the Versa 3 directly from Fitbit’s own website.

It does make it considerably cheaper than picking up the Fitbit Sense 2 ($299.95/£269.99) or the Google Pixel Watch ($349/£339), which is powered by Fitbit and Google smarts.

It’s also more affordable than smartwatches like the Apple Watch SE ($279/£259) while a Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 sits at $299.99/£289, so is a pricier buy too.

Design and display

• Square design with rounded corners
• Physical button returns
• Same AMOLED screen as Versa 3

At first glance, the Versa 4 doesn’t look all that different from the Versa 3, but there is one thing that has changed and that’s the re-introduction of a physical button to that gently curved square aluminium watch case. That means you no longer have to press the sides of the case to quickly enter the main menu screens or manually wake up the display, as you did on the Versa 3. Sometimes buttons are good, and it’s good to see Fitbit has brought it back.

Elsewhere, it’s really more of the same here as what we got on the Versa 3. You’ve got one of Fitbit’s comfortable classic silicone bands that come in large and small sizes and can be easily clipped away from the case, with Fitbit offering a range of other band materials and looks. You can still go swimming with it as it carries a 5ATM (up to 50 metres depth) water resistant rating, but still only supports pool swim tracking.

There’s a 40mm AMOLED display once again that can be set to stay always on if you don’t want to use the raise-to-wake gesture support, but it is nicely responsive when you do. While it’s not the best in class AMOLED display, it’s still very clear, colourful and has those good, deep blacks you associate with an AMOLED screen. Visibility has been good indoors and outdoors and definitely excels when you’re glancing down at it indoors.

If you care about colours, it comes in graphite, platinum or copper rose-coloured aluminium cases. The graphite version with black strap we had to review definitely feels the most understated option to go for, but you do have some good colour options here with scope to mix up those band looks and make the Versa 4 feel a bit more unique and stylish.

Features

• Built-in GPS
• Google Maps and Google Wallet
• Step, sleep and heart rate tracking
• Alexa and Bluetooth calls

The Versa 4 gives you many of the features you’ll find on the Sense 2, just with some of the bigger health-focused options left out, and also grabs some smartwatch smarts from the Google Pixel Watch, which is very much considered part of the Fitbit family.

The big ones are arguably centred around the additions from Google with Google Maps and Google Wallet now preloaded, and aren’t available on the Versa 3. You do still get Fitbit Pay here, but the Fitbit AppGallery has otherwise been hugely scaled back with a lot of third party apps now gone. There are still an array of watch faces to download though.

On the health and fitness tracking front, you do still have built-in GPS to track outdoor exercise while onboard motion sensors can monitor daily step counts, enable sleep monitoring and better track indoor activities like pool swimming.

You’ve got Fitbit’s PurePulse optical heart rate sensor technology to track heart rate activity during the day and night and during exercise, while that sensor also helps power metrics like Active Zone Minutes and Cardio Fitness Scores for those that take that exercise time a little more seriously. It can also be used to set up irregular heart rate rhythms notifications, which means the Versa 4 does still have a touch of serious health-tracking edge to it.

There’s a skin temperature sensor and blood oxygen tracking supported here too, to deliver additional metrics that can offer general wellness insights, though aren’t designed for medical use.

Fitness and smartwatch performance

• Still a better fitness tracker than sports watch
• Third party apps and music support disappear
• Fitbit Premium needed for some metrics

If you’re looking at the Versa 4 from a smartwatch perspective, well, things have changed on that front quite drastically since the Versa 3.

You still have somewhere you can view your notifications in a pretty simplistic fashion, access the pretty useful Amazon Alexa integration and make calls over Bluetooth if that’s your thing. What you can’t do is use it to control music playing on your phone or upload audio to it either. As mentioned, the Fitbit AppGallery has been stripped back too, so the only high-profile apps available are from Google.

In terms of those Google apps, you’ve got Google Maps, Wallet, but oddly no Google Assistant, which did appear on the Versa 3. The Google Maps support requires you to download the dedicated app, then set up the support inside of the Fitbit companion app on your phone, which essentially grants the watch access to Google Maps there.

This means the experience of using it is pretty basic and mirrored from your phone, meaning it doesn’t really offer anything new, apart from the convenience of having it on your wrist.

The experience of using FitbitOS on the watch is fine, but feels a touch laggy in places when swiping through screens. The added button means there’s now a quicker way to get through to settings and your apps, while widgets to show off tracking stats and elements like weather are well optimised too. It does feel a tad disjointed compared to some operating systems though, including WearOS, which is what the Google Pixel Watch is of course packing.

For fitness monitoring, the Versa 4 still feels like a better fit for doing things like tracking steps, monitoring heart rate during the day and reliably tracking your sleep at night, rather than anything more in depth. The sports-tracking features simply aren’t on par with what you’ll get on an Apple Watch or Samsung Galaxy Watch, whether that’s the level of metrics, accuracy over longer periods of exercise, or feeling like something you’d want to use outside of a quick jog or dip in the pool.

Built-in GPS doesn’t match up to the performance of a similarly priced Garmin running watch, while heart-rate accuracy was quite far off a heart-rate monitor chest strap for more high-intensity exercise time.

Shifting the focus to the Versa 4’s wellness and health features and you aren’t getting the ECG sensor or EDA sensor included on the Sense 2 for deeper insights into your heart health and ability to handle stress. You do get guided breathing exercises to follow and the ability to log stress scores based on sleep data, exercise history and heart rate. You also have those irregular heart rate rhythm notifications as well, which thankfully I wasn’t notified of at any time during testing.

For the most detailed view of your data you do need to be signed up to Fitbit Premium, which costs just shy of $100/£100 a year or $9.99/£7.99 a month, to be able to do things like see deeper stress analytics, have the ability to detect snoring during bedtime and access the Daily Readiness score for those that want a better idea of when to exercise or take a rest day.

As far as how useful the stress features are, I’d say like a lot of Fitbit’s software features, it makes checking in on stress a very simple thing to do. It’s also driven by data that is reliably tracked on the whole, so probably not a bad indication of how you’re doing in that department.

Battery life

• 6+ days battery life
• One day battery from 12-minute charge
• 3 days in always-on display mode

Unlike an Apple Watch or a Samsung Galaxy Watch, the Fitbit Versa has very good staying power for a smartwatch. It might not offer Huawei Watch levels of stamina, but it has the ability to last a week between charges, which isn’t the case for a lot of top flight smartwatches.

I found that I could get a week as long as I wasn’t using the screen set to always-on. When you do that, the battery life drops below three days. That’s still a good showing though. This will also depend on how regularly you use features like GPS, because that will drain the battery much quicker compared to the continuous monitoring of metrics like heart rate, which seems to be done in a more efficient manner.

When you do get low on juice, Fitbit includes a handy fast-charging feature that will give you enough battery for a day’s worth of tracking by spending 12 minutes on the charging cradle – exactly the same one used on the Versa 3.

Verdict

The Fitbit Versa 4 does still feel like the best Fitbit fitness tracking watch, though its abilities on the smartwatch front have been notably scaled back compared to the Versa 3.

It’s still great for monitoring daily activity and sleep ,and the step into general wellness and stress monitoring are definite positives, along with delivering something that’s comfortable, customisable and offers good battery life.

If you can afford to spend a bit more money on something like the Apple Watch SE or the Samsung Galaxy Watch, those smartwatches will give you a much better balance in terms of sports, health and smartwatch features. You might need to sacrifice battery in return, but ultimately it’s hard to see what the future holds for the Versa 4 as a smartwatch when the Pixel Watch is grabbing the bigger features, and appears to hold more focus for Google than Fitbit’s own smartwatches.