At $249, the Fitbit Sense 2 is admittedly more than twice the cost of the $99 Amazfit Active 2. But the former is getting up there in age, which means, you can easily find it on sale.
Price and case shape aside, the two devices share a lot of traits and features. Both the Fitbit Sense 2 and Amazfit Active 2 are sleek, reasonably lightweight wearables with bright and responsive touchscreens, onboard GPS, physical buttons and loads of wellness and fitness tracking tech. You also get a small smattering of smart features on either, along with support for both iPhones and Android handsets.
But which one is the more reliable fitness tracker? To find out, I tossed one on either wrist and set out for a walk around Seattle's Lake Washington, manually counting all my steps. Read on to find out the wearable that came closest to matching my actual step count total, along with analysis of other metrics like distance, elevation gain, heart rate, calories burned and battery used.
Fitbit Sense 2 vs. Amazfit Active 2: Walk test
For this walk test, I had the Amazfit Active 2 on my left wrist and the Fitbit Sense 2 on the right. For what it's worth, only the Fitbit app lets you specify whether you're wearing the watch on your dominant or non-dominant wrist.
As always, to keep track of steps, I counted each pace until I hit 100 before clicking my manual tally counter and starting over again at one. Another useful trick I use to stay on count: my left foot is always the odd count and my right the even. A pair of the best noise-canceling headphones also help me to concentrate.
As a control for distance, elevation gain and pace, I additionally logged my walk using Strava on my trusty iPhone 12 mini (as I always do for these comparisons).
With a little more than 3 miles and (apparently) the equivalent of 28 floors climbed, here's how the data from the Fitbit Sense 2 vs. Amazfit Active 2 compares.
Fitbit Sense 2 vs. Amazfit Active 2: Walk test results
I finished my walk with the sun shining brightly and scant a cloud in the sapphire blue sky. Both devices were within 200 paces of my actual step count, which is pretty good, but the Active 2 only overcounted by 117 while the Sense 2 added 187 steps to my count. Strava, meanwhile, beat both devices with a total step count of 6,046
The Amazfit's distance data matches Strava nicely while the Fitbit appears to have undercalculated my total distance by roughly 0.43 miles, which is not insignificant. This result is also a bit strange given that the Fitbit also logged a higher step count.
The Fitbit Sense 2 doesn't provide an elevation gain metric for your workouts, but it will tell you how many "floors" you climbed for the day. I only wore the Sense 2 for this walk test, which, according to Google, was the equivalent of 28 climbed floors. Google calculates one floor as ten feet, by the way.
While the Sense 2's elevation gain lines up nicely with Strava's, the Amazfit Active 2 once again seemingly overcalculated my total elevation by a noticeable margin. I say "once again" because, versus the Samsung Galaxy Fit3, the Active 2 logged 58 feet more than the control. And against the Apple Watch SE (2022), the Active 2 overcounted by 165 feet compared to the control.
Pace data is all over the place. Strava tends to have a faster pace than most wearables because the app aggressively pauses tracking anytime you stop moving. However, these results are about as wide-ranging as I've encountered. I notably stopped twice during this walk test, each for roughly 90 seconds to snap photos of the scenic views.
Heart rate data between the Sense 2 and Active 2 also looks funky. However, I'm inclined to trust Google's measurements more than Amazfit's on this one. First, 116 bpm is much closer to my average heart rate from prior walk tests of similar distance and elevation gain; the same goes for 165 bpm as my maximum.
Finally, the Active 2 depleted a little less battery than the Sense 2 over my hour (and change) walk but both wearables left me impressed given onboard GPS tends to be a major power-suck for any device.
Fitbit Sense 2 vs. Amazfit Active 2: And the winner is...
When comparing step count tracking accuracy between the Fitbit Sense 2 versus Amazfit Active 2, Amazfit beats Google, for this test at least. However, there are caveats. The Active 2's elevation data is way off from our control for the third test in a row, while the heart rate data is oddly low, something I also noted in the device's face-off with the Galaxy Fit3.
Both devices logged step counts higher than my actual total but still within a reasonable margin of error. However, the Sense 2 churned out strangely low distance and weirdly slow pace metrics, even if its elevation gain and heart rate data appear to be right on the money.
