When we’re testing the legion of gadgets that comes across our desks here at Gizmodo, we want to be as thorough as possible before we pass our judgement. Everything from tablets, smartphones, laptops and watches get put through its paces in the lab before they go on the site, but sometimes, life comes up with tests we never even thought of doing. Take the new Fitbit Zip, for example.
The Zip is the little brother in the updated Fitbit family. It’s a device that counts your steps, measures the energy burned and estimates the distance you’ve travelled. It’s size of a 50-cent piece and it’s wrapped in a silicon holster that you can clip onto your belt or on your pocket.
I’ve been reviewing mine for a few weeks now, and when it came time to photograph it for the story, I couldn’t find it. A few days went by before I realised where it was. I found it in the clean washing basket after it accidentally went through my washing machine.
Shit. Water is almost always the Achille’s heel of gadgets, and I thought I’d gone and broken my first review product from Fitbit. That would be an awkward discussion.
To my surprise, however, the Fitbit Zip continues to work perfectly. No damage to the screen, it still counts steps perfectly and it measures just as well as it did before. It even smells nicer now.
I don’t recommend that anyone try it on purpose, because being waterproof isn’t exactly what it’s designed for, but if you do accidentally forget to unclip it from your pants before they’re washed, you might just be ok.