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| Image 1. Here's the device in it's original packaging. |
Product Overview:
The Fitbit Charge HR is an activity tracker that retails for $150. With a little research, you might find this item for anywhere from $20-$25 less than the retail price, especially if you can find it on sale somewhere. A great place to start is Amazon, which is where I bought my device. Being the price conscious consumer I am, I was able purchase it for less than the retail price. It comes in three sizes to fit everyone's wrist and five different colors to suit at least most people's taste for style.
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| Image 2. A look at the Charge HR out of the box. |
The Charge HR falls in Fitbit's product line as a mid-range product. Simpler products that don't measure heart rate are available for a lower price and on the opposite end of the scale are Fitbit's smart watches that track much more than the Charge HR. As an activity tracker, it measures time, steps, distance, floors climbed, calories burned, and active minutes. In addition to this, the charge HR measures continuous heart rate and monitors sleep. All of these activities can be seen through Fitbit's mobile app and online tools that they provide, and this is where you'll review the stats it records for you, as you can only review the current day's stats on the unit itself. The mobile app & online site is also where you can set preferences (set which watch face you like, order in which the stats appear, etc) and change units (miles vs kilometers) on the device.
Additionally, the Charge HR can receive notifications from your smartphone. I have not explored how to set up this feature on the Charge HR and have no desire to, so I will not be focusing on it at all with this review.
Likes:
The biggest thing I like about this device is it's value. I compared many activity tracking devices prior to my purchase basing what I wanted as far as features on the device compared to price. One of the biggest feature that I personally was looking for was a device which recorded stairs climbed. As a runner this feature is importance because I will sometimes use stair climbing as a substitute/cross training method instead of actual running. My research found only a few devices that would record stairs climbed. Couple that with the fact I also wanted to track/record heart rate, and suddenly the choices are severely limited. From my research, if you are looking for a device that records a lot of data and is at a competitive price, the Charge HR is probably one of your better bets.
Overall, the fit of the Charge HR is a positive. Although not super slim, the device is not that thick when compared to most of its competitors and it is not obtrusive when wearing it. I do mention a bit more on wearing the device later in my dislikes and miscellaneous sections. So far it seems to be a very well made product with little complaint on the durability of the device.
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| Image 3. The device at it's thickest point is ~3/8" thick. Not obtrusive while wearing it though. |
Another, key item I really like with Fitbit in general is their mobile app/online tools. I find the interface of their software not just useful but very intuitive for the user. As with any manufacturer's activity tracker, the mobile/online tool is where you'll be viewing the history of what the device is recording and if those suck, well then it's easy for users to be frustrated and not like the product(s). Fitbit does a great job with their software though and I've read others who have echoed similar.
Lastly, battery life has been great so far. On a full charge the Charge HR is supposed to last 5 days, varying slightly depending on how heavy you workout and use Exercise Mode. Having the device 2 weeks now I have only had to charge it 2 or 3 times so far since the initial charging of the device. I feel an average of five days is pretty good, as some reviews of comparable devices need charging more often.
Dislikes:
So far one of the main items that frustrates me is the sleep monitoring feature of the device. This is one of reasons I bought the device in the first place, so for right now I still not liking the accuracy of the device. With the old Fitbit One I used to own, that device I thought had a more intuitive system. For the One, you would press and hold the lone button on the device and it would start in sleep mode. Press the button again when you awake to end sleep mode. Simple right? Well with the Charge HR, it is supposed to know automatically when you go to bed—however so far I haven't found that to be the case. What I have found is that if you're inactive just prior to going to bed then there's a chance the device will falsely use the incorrect start time for your sleep. And I've had this happen on multiple occasions now. There is a way to correct it by going into the mobile app and editing your sleep start time manually after the device syncs with the app, but honestly I find this cumbersome and feel there should be another way to more accurately declare a sleep start time. This device only has one button on it as well and pressing and holding it starts the Exercise Mode instead.
Another key dislike so far is the distance recordings. I have continuously found the device to come up short on distance when compared (while walking) to my pedometer and (while running) compared to my Garmin 305 GPS running watch. As test for distance, in just a walk in my neighborhood, my Fitbit showed 0.61 miles while my pedometer showed 0.74 miles, for a 0.13 difference. I think that seems rather high in just a short walk. That difference in distance is probably around the distance of 2 football fields. During a work day, where I often walk quite far, the differences in distances is more pronounced. For instance, during a 12hr shift recently my pedometer measured 10.7 miles while my Fitbit only recorded 5.7 miles. Part of the difference I know stems from wrist position. Having your wrist in a fixed position, as I often do at work while pushing a wheelchair or stretcher accounts for some of the difference. However, I have seen several times when holding my arm up like you would to read your watch and keeping it there, the device still counts off my steps—so I'm still a bit baffled by when its recording my steps (and thus distance) and when its not counting my steps. Running gives me similar issues as it fall short for distance compared to my Garmin, showing 5.5 miles for a run my Garmin shows 6 miles, and showing 8.5 miles for a run where my Garmin shows 10 miles. Obviously my arm is moving the entire time while running so I don't have the static arm position argument as I do for walking when discuss distance differences. There is an option in the online tools to manually enter a stride length this device, which is what I want to try to see if the results are more comparable. I remember changing from the default with my old Fitbit One and it I did see a marked difference in the distances it recorded. For my pedometer, I had to manually input my stride length for it to calculate distance. I think better results will follow once I do this.
I do have a minor dislike with wearing the device—specifically putting on the device. The small piece of rubber that's on the wrap-around part of the band just seems to be too big (see image 4) When trying to put device the on, it seems really hard to get the start of the excess band underneath that small plastic piece and keep everything secure. Conversely taking off the device seems to be difficult too because of this same situation. Other than that issue, the fit is fine.
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| Image 4. That small piece hanging down is just long enough that getting the other part of the band under it is tough! |
Miscellaneous:
So here's just where I put some other tidbits of info that didn't seem to fit in my prior sections.
I'm putting my advice on heart rate in this section since I'm still somewhat unsure of my thoughts on it. On the good side, I think the Charge HR does a good job of recording resting heart rate. I've found it to be inline with what I know my resting heart rate to be and also compared with what my Garmin 305 shows when using a chest strap. When recording heart rate while exercising though, the water gets a little more murky. During a 6 mile trail run I compared the heart rate of the two device around a dozen times. They varied anywhere from 3 to 15 beats per minutes while running and 15-20 right after my run. In the grand scheme of things I guess that's really not that bad but it's the 15-20 beats per minute difference post run that bugged me. I'll have a few more words on heart rate in my summary at the end of this article.
The other item it records that I'm still torn on is stairs climbed. Again this seems to be affected by what you're wrist is doing while your climbing stairs (ie: swinging vs holding onto a handrail.) In a test of climbing 7 flights of stairs I got various results. In running up these 7 flights of stairs, if with the side I was wearing the device I was using the handrail to help pull me up the stairs, it only recorded one flight—pretty disappointing!!! However with running in a different stairwell where I would use the handrail with the arm I wasn't wearing the device on, it would record either 6 or 7 flights of stairs—a lot better! While just walking up the stairs and not using the handrails, the device recorded 8 flights of stairs—close, but yet again different! This I find simply frustrating. It's close—but only as long as your arm is swinging like in a normal walking motion is what I've found to be true. And with running and using Exercise Mode—well that's anyone's guess! On a 10 mile trail run it recorded just under 70 flights of stairs. So while a.) I didn't climb one actual stair, and b.) there was some degree of elevation gain and loss on this run, I can't imagine that I climbed the equivalent of nearly 70 flights of stairs. The MapMyHike app on my phone that I also used to record the run showed a net elevation gain of 496ft. I'd have to do some research on height gained per flight of stairs, perhaps the math works out. One thing I also don't know is the accuracy of the elevation gain on the MapMyHike app. Personally I'm not sure I believe the accuracy of that either. Overall regarding stairs climbed, it is going to give you a fairly accurate count when you walk stairs, which is what 99% of consumers will be doing. Me on the other hand, I'm in the other 1% who does something else like run stairs and then partially obsess over the accuracy of it when it doesn't seem to match—so take this section for what it's worth.
Next, while I like the device and gaining data about myself, I simply get tired of wearing it at times! It's not that the device is that heavy or bulky, but I just get tired of it being on my wrist sometimes. I think part of it is having it tightness of the device. Wear it too loose and heart rate will either not display or won't be very accurate. Wear it too tight and it feels restrictive. While I have found the notch on the wrist band that best falls in the middle of these two, after continuously wearing the device for over a day, I just need to take it off for awhile each day. Again, I like it a lot, but I just haven't gotten use to it being on my wrist constantly.
One other piece of advice I'd offer is to take the device off and wipe off any sweat if you're sweating from any workouts. From other reviews I read, this is advisable as sweat can decrease the life of the device if in fact any would penetrate the device. Having sweat on a few runs so far while wearing this device I can attest to sweat being on the device post workout and it is something that I myself will have to get in the habit of doing.
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| Image 5. The underneath of the Charge HR. Suggestion: wipe off any post-workout sweat from this section. |
The Final Word:
In summary, even with its minor faults, I really like the Charge HR. I feel it has a great value like I stated initially, and that's what I like the most about this device. The Charge HR records all the metrics that I wanted it to, and I was able to get it at an affordable price. I feel that once I look into the preferences for this device a bit more, especially the sleep tracking and step/distance preferences, I will learn how to set the device to reading more accurately. And with that added accuracy, I will achieve a better value.
If you don't need or aren't interested in heart rate, then you can get a cheaper device that still records everything else. What you should do is make a list of what you want in an activity tracker and what price you're willing to pay. Then research device until you find what fits in those categories. It might take a little time and work but in the end you will be happier with your purchase. What you really want in any activity tracking is something that will ultimately motivate you to move more! As I wrote above, there's going to be some inaccuracies, not just with this device, but with every device. But if it helps you to be more active and become healthier then it's positive. If you're frustrated by the inaccuracies, dive deeper into the manual or others reviews of the product and see if setting can be changed to make the device work better. Just have fun with it.
I hope you found this review helpful and feel free to leave a comment on my post so I can improve and maybe it will inspire me to post future tech reviews. Thank you!
