Does Fitbit Sense have music?

Fitbit Sense has a limited music functionality on the watch. Fitbit Sense cannot store your own music content on the watch. However, it can stream playlists of Deezer and Pandora from the local device. You will need paid subscription of Deezer or Pandora to make this work. And, you will need to download music playlists or stations from Deezer or Pandora on to the Fitbit Sense watch. Fitbit Sense can also stream music from Spotify. For this to work successfully, you will need a paid subscription of the music streaming service, a paired phone and a good Internet connection.

Music on the Fitbit Sense seems so confusing. Fitbit Sense allows you to stream music from Spotify app, through the paired smart phone. With Deezer and Pandora, things are a little bit different. If you have a paid subscription, you can transfer music stations or playlists from these music streaming apps to your Fitbit Sense device locally. Remember, it comes with a 2.5 GB usable space on the Fitbit Sense device storage. With the pre-loaded Deezer and Pandora apps, you can stream music from your Fitbit Sense without the need of a smart phone.

In a nutshell, offline music is available on Fitbit Sense through paid subscriptions of Deezer and Pandora only.

Effectively, you need your phone and WI-FI connection to download music on to the Fitbit Sense watch. You can stream music from Deezer or Pandora directly on the watch. With Spotify, you will need your phone to stream music while you are on the run. Not the smartest of things to do while on a running tour? We agree. Fitbit Sense seems to have take a leap backwards, because on-device music storage for offline listening was a standard feature on the Ionic and Versa 2 smart watches. By restricting offline music playing to the Deezer and Pandora paid subscriptions, Fitbit seems to have done a great disservice to the users.

Lack of offline music seems like a purposeful omission on the Fitbit Sense. Some analysts are of the opinion that this could be on account of the massive battery drain that results out of offline music listening. Nobody knows, and things remain unclear because the Fitbit Sense comes with on-device storage of 4 GB. Almost 2.5 GB is available for user generated content. So, putting the music files on the Sense for offline music listening cannot be attributed to lack of device storage on the Fitbit Sense watch. Anyways, we look at ways by which you can get music content on your Fitbit Sense below.

While we are writing about the 3rd party music streaming apps, let us also be clear that Pandora app may not be universally available in the US. So, before buying a Fitbit Sense, do check the availability of the Pandora app in your State.

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Fitbit Sense and Spotify

Fitbit Sense will allow you to control music through Spotify app on your phone or computer. In other words, when you wish to listen to Spotify playlists, you can do so by controlling the device on which Spotify playlist exists. See the following description from the Fitbit Sense website-

Use the Spotify - Connect & Control app on Sense to control Spotify on your
phone, computer, or other Spotify Connect device. Navigate between playlists, like
songs, and switch between devices from your watch. Note that at this time, the
Spotify - Connect & Control app only controls music playing on your paired device,
so your device must remain nearby and connected to the internet. You need a
Spotify Premium subscription to use this app. For more information about Spotify
Premium, see spotify.com.

There is no scope of storing Spotify playlists on your Fitbit Sense device.

Fitbit and Deezer

Coming to Deezer, the Fitbit website states that you can download up to 3 play stations for offline playing. To download music on to the Sense watch, you will need paid subscription of Deezer and a WIFI connection to download music. With this downloaded music, you can listen to your Deezer playlists through the music stored on the Fitbit Sense watch.

Here is what we get from the Fitbit Sense website –

With the Deezer app on Sense, download your Deezer playlists and Flow
directly to your watch. Note that you need a paid subscription to Deezer and a WiFi connection to download music
from Fitbit website

Fitbit and Pandora App

Pandora app is another compatible app that works on the Fitbit Sense watch. You can download your play stations from Pandora on to the Fitbit Sense and use the Pandora app to listen this songs locally. To make this music arrangement work, you will need to take a paid subscription of the Pandora app. Also, it may be worth checking if the Pandora app is available for music streaming in your area.

Here is what we get from the Fitbit website –

With the Pandora app on Sense, download up to 3 of your most-played
Pandora stations or popular curated Workout stations directly to your watch. Note
that you need a paid subscription to Pandora and a Wi-Fi connection to download
stations.
from Fitbit website

Conclusion:

Fitbit Sense’s music feature seems to be shrouded in mystery. For safe assumption, we can say that offline music listening and music storage is possible on Fitbit Sense. This is made possible by using a paid subscription of Deezer or Pandora app. Spotify will only allow your phone to be used for streaming music to a Sense device.

And, it is a done thing that you need Bluetooth speakers or headsets to listen to music that is streaming through Deezer, Pandora or Spotify.

I hear many folks say that they will buy an Apple watch by paying a $100 more. The additional costs get recovered in less than 10 months, given the fact that Deezer and Pandora subscriptions are almost at $10 a month.

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Helen Kurt

Helen Kurt is a geeky nerd who loves to cover the wearables space. She has over 5 years of experience in the smartwatch domain. You can reach her on email at [email protected].