Fitbit Inspire 3 review

Fitbit has updated one of its slim and attractively priced trackers for 2022. The Inspire 3 now comes with features like an always-on colour screen and blood oxygen tracking, yet costs less than its predecessor. 

It is more affordable for those in the UK where it’s £5 cheaper at £84.99. For those in the US and Europe, it remains at $99.95/€99.95 which is still good considering the upgrades. 

Still, there are cheaper options out there such as the Xiaomi Mi Band 7 and Honor Band 6 so can the Inspire 3 do enough to win your affection? 

Design & Build 

• Similar but improved 
• Touch sensitive buttons 
• Fully waterproof 

It’s perhaps no surprise that the Inspire 3 looks very similar to its predecessor, the Inspire 2. This is a fairly typical entry-level fitness tracker in terms of style. 

That is to say it’s got a tall and thin design where the screen is portrait rather than round or square like the Fitbit Versa 4 and Fitbit Sense 2.

One tweak to the design is that the strap fits to the main body more neatly. The flush design makes the device look a lot more stylish. Essentially, it’s a lot like the Fitbit Luxe. 

I tested out the Lilac Bliss silicone band, but you can also get Midnight Zen (black) or Morning Glow (orange) options. Other accessories are available separately such as a stainless steel mesh band ($69.95/59.99) or a clip ($19.95/£19.99) if you don’t want to or can’t wear it on your wrist – for example, when wearing boxing gloves. 

It’s a very comfortable and lightweight fitness tracker meaning I could wear it 24 hours a day without any discomfort. 

There are no physical buttons here as you can use the touch screen to navigate as well as the capacitive sensors on the side. These will wake or sleep the display or get you back to the main watch view no matter where you are in the interface. 

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

Oddly, you’ve got to touch both at the same time rather than say double tap one which I find a little awkward and double tapping the screen itself to wake it is apparently a no go. However, with the Inspire 3’s new always-on display you might not need those buttons much anyway (more on that later). 

The Inspire 3 has a water lock feature which isn’t to do with keeping water out – it is waterproof to 50m – but switches the buttons off so the water doesn’t activate them. 

Screen 

• Now in colour 
• Always-on option 
• Still small 

There are some good things about the screen and some not so good. On the plus side, things have moved – much like the Luxe – to a colour display and the Fitbit Inspire 3 offers an optional always-on display mode. 

No more having to wake up the display either by raising it or using those touch-sensitive buttons is a nice option, although it does have an impact on battery life. 

My main gripe here is that the display is so small. Fitbit doesn’t actually list a measurement in the specs for this device, but I’m not overly surprised as it doesn’t even take up 50% off the glass front. 

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

This makes things cramped, exacerbating the usual issue of these portrait screens where anything longer than the word ‘display’ needs to slowly scroll across the screen for you to read it. 

Compared to the larger screened Xiaomi Mi Band 7 and Honor Band 6 the Inspire 3 looks a bit silly and while I can live with it for basic functions, things like getting WhatsApp notifications or similar are essentially pointless as the screen can’t display them in a readable format. 

If you don’t mind these downsides then the screen does look nice and crisp and I found the ‘normal’ brightness setting to be perfectly good at all times of day in different conditions. Dim and Max are also available. 

Tracking & Features 

• Comprehensive tracking 
• Added SpO2 
• No GPS 
• iPhone and Android

As you would expect from Fitbit, the Inspire 3 is compatible with iPhone and Android. The range of tracking available on the tracker is excellent, and all the basics like steps, calories and distance are naturally taken care of. There’s also a wealth of other options including sleep, stress and more – although some need activating in the companion app to get going. 

One of those is ‘Zone Minutes’ which is a little confusing at first but tracks the amount of minutes you spend doing exercise with a certain heart rate. These are split into fat burn, cardio and peak. 

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

Tracking is generally automatic and the Inspire 3 can detect when you’re doing certain activities, but you can also start a session from the device itself if you wish. By default, the options are Walk, Run, Bike, Swim, Workout and Treadmill but you can reorganise these shortcuts from the app. 

Note that for GPS tracking, you’ll need to head out with your smartphone as the Inspire 3 still doesn’t have this built in – nor does it have NFC for contactless payments.

Instead, the major new feature is SpO2 tracking – aka blood oxygen level – which for a lot of users won’t mean a whole lot. A normal reading is 95-99% and mine seems to be unwavering at 96%. 

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

Enthusiast athletes will be more interested in SpO2 levels than the average consumer but I imagine they wouldn’t consider the entry-level Inspire 3 in the first place, so this feature is likely to be more useful for anyone with health issues that affect breathing and may help detect sleep apnea. 

Back to other tracking and you could spend hours in the companion app looking at all kinds of figures and metrics. There’s options to set weight goals (not that the Inspire 3 can weigh you) as well as diet and water. 

The Community section is where you can add friends and family and compete on step count, although it’s unclear what time period the figures are for. And the Discover tab has all kinds of things from challenges to reports to clock faces. 

Several features are locked behind the Fitbit Premium subscription. You get a 6-month free trial with the device but Fitbit used to offer a full year. 

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

Premium allows you to access lots of workouts, mindfulness sessions, guided programs and games as well as deeper information about your data such as a Sleep Profile which aims to help you understand your sleep patterns as well as injecting some fun by matching you with a sleep animal each month. You have to wear the tracker to bed for at least 14 days in a month for this, though.

It’s worth making use of the free trial but after that Premium will cost you a pretty hefty £7.99 per month or £79.99 annually. 

Battery Life 

• Up to 10 days 
• Less with always-on display 

The Inspire 2 brought with it double the battery life of its predecessor and the Inspire 3 can still hit that 10-day figure.  

In fact, in my testing, I found the fitness tracker was using less than 10% per day suggesting it can go longer. 

The downside here is that if you want to use the new always-on display feature, it will reduce the battery life significantly.

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

How much depends on factors like screen brightness and usage, but you will get around a third of the full potential. So, for most, it’ll be approximately three or four days.

Overall, it’s better than the Xiaomi Mi Band 7 for battery life but the Honor Band 6 is a better choice if this is high up your priority list. 

Charging is decent though, so might make you more likely to switch that screen to always-on because in just 15 minutes the Inspire 3 gained 32% and a further 34% after 30 minutes. That’s great but a puny charging cable that’s only slightly over 20cm in length is really frustrating.

Price & Availability 

The Fitbit Inspire 3 is available now for $99.95/£84.99/€99.95 making it the same price as the Inspire 2 in the US and Europe but slightly cheaper in the UK.

As well as buying direct (links above) you can get it from BestBuy, Lenovo and Amazon in the US. Meanwhile, UK buyers can head to Amazon, Argos and Currys.

As mentioned earlier, the Xiaomi Mi Band 7 and Honor Band 6 are key rivals and are available for around the £50/$50 mark so check them out as well as more options in our best fitness tracker chart.

Verdict

There’s a lot to like about the Fitbit Inspire 3 including the fact it’s cheaper than before – well, at least in the UK. 

Still, at the same price elsewhere it comes with a more stylish design similar to the Luxe that’s also comfortable enough to wear 24/7 with no issues. 

Improvements such as a colour display that can be always-on and SpO2 tracking are welcome, although the latter may not be of much use to many people. GPS would be a more useful upgrade but it’s typical to leave that out on cheaper devices. You have to spend nearly double to get GPS on the Fitbit Charge 5.

Tracking is well-rounded and Fitbit Premium is there for anyone wanting to dig deeper (and pay more). Battery life is solid, too, although the Inspire 3 will need more regular charging if you use the always-on feature. 

The Inspire 3 is an enjoyable fitness tracker but it would be easier to recommend if the screen was bigger and therefore more viable for things like notifications. It’s worth considering the aforementioned rivals from Xiaomi and Honor before you splash the cash.