Formally
unveiled a couple of days ago and immediately
put up for pre-order in the US, Fitbit's "most advanced health smartwatch" yet is only scheduled to begin shipping in late September. But early Fitbit Sense adopters may have to wait even longer for one of the product's main features to actually be enabled.
That's because the premium health-centric smartwatch follows in the footsteps of 2018's
Apple Watch Series 4 and last year's
Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 by debuting with dormant built-in ECG monitoring capabilities. For the life-saving technology to become active, Fitbit needs FDA clearance stateside, which can often take a really long time.
Obviously, one has to assume the wearable device manufacturer started the approval process way before officially announcing the Fitbit Sense, but the same could probably be said about the aforementioned
Galaxy Watch Active 2, whose
US owners remain unable of using the wrist-based ECG app.
While Fitbit initially kept things vague regarding ECG availability, the company quickly confirmed to the folks over at
Wareable that the feature is expected to be authorized both in the United States and European Union "this side of the holidays."