Fitbit Charge Product Review

Fitbit Charge Product Review

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This Fitbit Charge product review will go over my honest opinion of what I liked and disliked about the Fitbit Charge.

This was the very first step/fitness tracker that I actually purchased for myself and didn’t get for free.

I bought it because the free one I received from work quit functioning after a few years of use.  I wanted something a little more high tech, so I bought the Fitbit Charge.

To be fair, I bought it several years ago and I believe I paid roughly $100 for it, maybe a little more.

When I received it, it came in a pretty cool box with very simple instructions on how to set it up and get it working.  I plugged it in right away to give it a good charge and then I created my Fitbit account.

I wore my Fitbit most days, though there were a few stints that I didn’t wear it…or any watch or tracker at all.  I do that sometimes, it has nothing to do with the product.

After having the Fitbit Charge for a few years, I decided to increase my activity levels and committed to losing weight.  With that, I wanted a tracker that would monitor my heart rate so that I could teach myself how it feels when I’m in the fat burning zone.

The Fitbit Charge didn’t track your heart rate at that time.  That was the only reason I upgraded.

 

What I Liked

There were several things I liked about the Fitbit Charge:

• Clasp – The clasp was real simple and easy to fasten for arthritic hands that have trouble maneuvering things.
• Display – The display automatically showed when you moved your wrist toward your line of sight and then went dark when you weren’t looking at it in order to save the charge.
• Fitbit App – With the tracker came access to the Fitbit website and mobile app which gives you a dashboard where you can track your progress on several different things such as:
  • Steps
  • Floors climbed
  • Heartrate
  • Hours of sleep
  • Water consumed
  • Calories consumed
  • Active Minutes
  • Pounds lost/to lose
• Size – It wasn’t a bulky watch that felt heavy on my wrist.  It was light in weight.
• Step Tracking – The step tracking feature seemed to me to be accurate.  If it missed any of my steps, it didn’t miss enough to notice.

 

What I Disliked

To be fair, my Fitbit Charge product review should also report what I didn’t like about it, right?  There were several things I disliked about the Fitbit Charge:

• Accuracy – While I personally did not notice inaccurate step tracking, the Sloth reported that it wasn’t tracking all of her steps after I gave it to her.  One thing to note though is that she reported wearing it on her ankle instead of her wrist since it came off so easily.  So I don’t know if the inaccurate tracking was due to not using as designed or inefficiency of the tool.
• Charge Cable – The cable to charge the thing was so incredibly short and flimsy that it was highly difficult to get it fully charged.  I ended up having to jerry rig a holder onto the side of my computer within 2 inches of the port to hold the Fitbit while it charged because the charging cable was only 3 inches long and disconnected easily from the Fitbit.
• Charge Time – The thing needed to be charged often and took a long time to get to a full charge.  While charging, you either couldn’t move or couldn’t track your movement.  For those that are active often, that’s a problem.
• Clasp – Yeah… I know.  I liked it because it was easy to fasten.  But I also disliked it because it was easy to fasten…or unfasten.  It unclasped pretty often, any time I caught my wrist on something.  This made it easy to lose and frustrating to continuously have to put it back on.
• Heartrate Tracker – Basically, it didn’t have one.  I wanted one.  That’s why I gave this one away and upgraded.

 

Summary

Good…but not good enough!

So, the Fitbit Charge was a nice step up from the free tracker that attached to my shoelaces.  It had some really great features that the old tracker didn’t have and I love the Fitbit website and mobile app addition to my life that came with my first Fitbit.

But the Fitbit Charge also had some problems with stable charging and lack of tracking.  It left a lot to be desired.

I do not regret this purchase.  It was the cheapest version available which was all I could afford at the time and it brought a lot of new capabilities into my life for my fitness journey.  No complaints there.  I just got to a point where I needed an upgrade.  So I gave away my Fitbit Charge and upgraded to the Fitbit Blaze.

Happy stepping!

~Ki