This is the Fitbit Charge for it looks a lot like the last Fitbit Charge but it's got GPS, GPS.
And that to me is a game changer.
The charge.
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For is just A tiny bit bulkier than the charge three, but overall as you can see it kept the same design which I'm totally okay with because looks wise, I was already sold on the charge three.
In fact it's kind of refreshing because footprint itself is a lot smaller than a lot of the other smart watches out there that I'm used to
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It's just minimalistic to a tee because it doesn't even have a button on the side or anything.
It's just got this haptic button that gives a little bit of feedback.
It takes some getting used to but overall I think you'll get the hang of it and it's totally worthwhile just to have that.
That sleek look.
I also like how easy it is to swap out the band's if you get bored with one.
I'm actually wearing the- The Special Edition won the SE.
So it comes with two different bands, this nice woven one and the traditional silicon one.
But it does cost $20 more than the traditional one.
So that's up to you to decide.
I also like that, it's really comfortable on the wrist, doesn't dig into my skin and It's almost comfortable enough to wear at the bed.
And I say that hesitantly because I don't usually like wearing anything on my wrist when I sleep.
But I made the exception and I will talk about that later.
First let me talk to you about the screen.
It is still in black and white.
But there are quite a few things you can do on it just because it is tactile, so it feels almost like a hybrid between a fitness tracker and a smartwatch.
And the only thing that I didn't like about the screen, actually, was that it's a little bit slow to respond when you are swiping back and forth through the apps.
And it's also tough to see in broad day light.
Right now, it's a little bit cloudy so I can see it just fine.
But when I'm out for a run and it's sunny, I really have to squint and honestly if I'm on a go I don't really wanna keep my eyes of the road.
So Those are my complaints about screen, overall it is I mean for what it is it is a tracker.
I think it's more than enough
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As a fitness tracker I feel like the charge three already covered the basics.
So you have plenty of different activities to choose from.
This one has 20 plus activities which include running, cycling, swimming because it is still waterproof, you name it and if your activity doesn't fall within any of these categories, you can always program it as just a workout because that's an option as well.
You just-.
Have to kind of pick and choose from the phone app to see which ones display as shortcuts on the charge for on your wrist.
You can even program it to track runs automatically, just by swiping up from the run exercise.
Now I gotta be honest with you until the charge for I didn't really consider this a device for serious athletes and I say serious athletes because I'm not really a serious athlete.
I just I like running and I want to be able to go for a run without my phone and have my device track me accurately.
That's where GPS comes in.
If you like cycling, if you like hiking, walking, running, swimming anything really, that involves the outdoors and you want to track your routes and that's important to you, and it finally arrived on this device.
Now I do realize that this is not the first and only Fitbit device to offer GPS, but until now This clunker was your only option and I, for one, was not willing to wear the Ionic for anything other than exercise.
This one totally different story.
I've gone on multiple runs now with my phone and without my phone and when I come back, I'm able to see my entire route on the app And I would say that it's pretty accurate considering it is a similar route that I have already done before.
You still can't store music on this device to take with you on your own.
But if you have a Spotify premium account, you can use it as a remote control which at least it's something.
It doesn't have volume control, but you can skip tracks and pause.
The other new fitness feature that I'm really excited about is the active zone minutes.
So a while ago, Fitbit added what was called the heart rate zones to the app.
So after a workout, you could go into the app, check out your workout and see in what zone you were in, at least as it relates to heart rate.
So you were either in fat burns Mode or in cardio or in peak.
So it was a nice way to see how hard you were working during each exercise.
The problem was that it was after the fact so there was nothing really keeping you honest during activity.
This is what the Charge four now does.
It now sends you alerts When you've reached a specific training zone.
So, say I'm out on a run, start out in fat burn zone, I escalate to cardio because my heart is pounding faster and I push myself and I get to my peak.
Turns out that I thought I was reaching my peak a lot more often than I was actually doing so because i really, really had to push myself to get that notification to pop up.
On the charge four which just tells me that I haven't been working hard enough or at least it's a motivation to work harder.
And whether or not that's actually gonna make me a better runner is TBD because I've only been wearing it for a few days, but it's pretty cool.
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The one down side of having GPS on the charge four is that it gobbles up your battery So Fitbit says that you can get up to seven days on the charge four the same as the charge three, but I probably won't even get to day four without having to charge it again.
Now there is a workaround and you can disable GPS PS I would recommend disabling it when you're not in exercise mode, but that requires some discipline and remembering to actually manually turn it off.
And if you do intend to use this to track your sleep, I would definitely recommend getting the most out of that battery life.
I already confessed that I am not really interested in tracking my sleep, or at least I wasn't before I made the exception and I gotta say, I'm Pretty pleasantly surprised with the results that I got.
So let me explain, I am a new mother.
I have a six-year-old baby and a toddler.
And I thought I was getting terrible sleep, because I'd get woken up at odd hours of the Nice.
I wasn't really excited to track my sleep and have an app tell me that my sleep sucks because I already know that.
Imagine my surprise but I opened that app and I get a score of 85.
That's well above a passing grade in my book.
So I was hesitant at first but the cool thing is that you can actually look into all the information that it's using to come up with a score.
That includes the obvious which is the duration of your sleep, the time that you spent awake in my case feeding the baby, but it also shows you your stages of sleep.
So When you were in deep sleep, when you were in light sleep, and if you have a Premium account, this is the Fitbit Premium account that gives you more wellness insight and coaching.
Then you can also even see your heart rate and blood oxygen variations during the night.
I would definitely recommend looking into this.
If you suspect that you have some kind of sleep Issue like sleep apnea that might actually show up with this kind of data.
The only thing that I'd be worried about with all this data is that it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
So say for example, I think I got a great night's sleep and then I opened the app and my score is crappy.
Well, I'd be more inclined to feel tired that day.
Obviously, it hasn't happened to me yet, but.
Something that I'd be curious about.
And it's not just a health slash fitness tracker.
It's actually got a lot of smartwatch features in there as well including mobile payments.
And now it includes mobile payments across the board before you had to buy the special edition version to get that NFC.
Now you can actually program Fitbit wallets And be able to use it to pay in any terminal this NFC and it also mirrors all your phone notifications.
So say you get text alerts, Whatsapp messages, emails, slack alerts.
A lot of the stuff that you get on your phone you can view on the device.
And if you have an Android phone, you can actually program quick replies to be able to reply right from your wrist.
Unfortunately that's not available on the iPhone.
And the charge for now includes an agenda app to remind you that you got nothing else going on during this quarantine.
And it also includes timer and alarm and all the other apps that the charges three had.
Which is a lot considering that this is not a smartwatch.
But if you think about it, the hardcore is not that much cheaper than an actual smartwatch like the [UNKNOWN] too.
So this one's Is $170 the regular one is 150.
Well, the Versa two is $200.
But I would argue that price alone is not reason enough to get the charge for you'd get the charge Because it offers everything that Fitbit does best in a much smaller package, which I like.
And you don't have to sacrifice form for function because now it includes that BBs.
And I gotta say I'm fat
