Fitbit Charge 5 Review
Fitbit Charge 5 was released in September 2021 and is Fitbit’s newest and most advanced activity tracker band. The Fitbit Charge 5 is not a smartwatch but still offers all-important smart functions like calendar, call and text notifications, and contactless payments via Fitbit Pay.
PROS
- Compatible with Android and iOS
- Onboard GPS
- Accurate heart-rate monitoring
- Displays calls and text messages notifications
- Contactless payment
- Good battery life
- Activity tracking
- Sleek, slim and light
CONS
- No music storage
- Can’t make or respond to calls
- Limited on-screen workout data
- Display not as big as that of a watch (eg. Fitbit Sense)
New Features of Fitbit Charge 5
The Fitbit Charge 5 is a fitness-friendly wearable device that provides accurate readings during varieties of finiteness activities. Fitbit Charge 5 improves on the existing Fitbit Charge 4, and here are some of the new features that make the Fitbit Charge 5 a better fitness tracker:
- Electrodermal activity
- Mindfulness session
- Fitbit premium
- Daily readiness score
- Luxurious design
- Upgraded display
- Comfortability
Electrodermal activity: The Fitbit Charge 5 comes with an ECG app and EDA that helps track your fitness activities. It helps to check irregular heartbeats during workout sessions. (Arterial Filtration). The EDA test’s function is to look for sweat secretion, denoting stress.
Mindfulness session: The Fitbit charge 5’s mindfulness session library provides fitness enthusiasts with the ability to lower their stress. It offers them varying exercise lengths suitable for their daily exercise activities.
Fitbit Premium: The Fitbit charge 5’s premium provides fitness enthusiasts with six-month membership to the service. Although there are differences in mileage, users can still expect different features such as guided programs such as fitness sleep and diet. Users also enjoy various workouts, personal stats for fitness, and more.
Daily readiness score: This new feature from the Fitbit company helps fitness enthusiasts tailor their general wellness, activities, and workouts. This works by assigning users a simple score performance of their activities, such as sleep, heart rate, and activities. Perfect for premium users, the daily readiness feature recommends more intense activities, depending on how high the score is.
Luxurious design: The Fitbit Charge 5 has a luxurious design compared to its predecessors. Thanks to the introduction of the new stainless steel body, which makes it more durable than the charge 4’s plastic body.
Upgraded display: There is no doubt about the upgraded display of the Fitbit Charge 5 compared to its predecessor. This remains one of the most noticeable features of the new fitness tracker watch. The AMOLED display makes it cleared to read information than the charge 4’s monochrome memory-in-pixel screen.
Comfortability: Fitbit Charge 5 provide maximum comfort for fitness enthusiasts when they wear the watch compared to the charge. With the stainless-steel body, wearers enjoy a painless fitness experience.
Best Overall Features of Fitbit Charge 5
Charge 5 High Resolution Display
The Fitbit Charge 5 comes with a greater resolution display, providing users with a clearer display of notifications when they connect it to their smartphone. This makes reading easier even when they find themselves in the darkest places. Users can see a snippet of different notifications such as WhatsApp, messages, and other alters. You can tap on these notifications or dismiss them.
Fitbit Contactless Payment
Apart from tracking your fitness activities, the Fitbit Charge 5 offers users contact-less payments method via Fitbit Pay. This works perfectly with different banks in the U.S. Therefore; you don’t have to bother hitting the grocery stores with your wallet.
Easy to Read Display
The Fitbit charge 5 has got you covered when accessing its information, even on the sunniest day. This is possible due to its AMOLED display, menacing that pure blacks surround the more colorful elements. This makes reading easier.
Charge 5 is Made of Stainless Steel
Different from its predecessor’s plastic body, the Fitbit Charge 5 comes with a stainless body, making it more suitable for not just fitness activities but goes for your smart dress. This makes it look good, fitting perfectly on the wrist.
Fitbit Charge 5 Accuracy
The Fitbit charge 5 has got what it takes when it comes to accuracy in readings. Apart from correctly taking your workout sessions into accurate readings, the daily readiness score feature will encourage you to spend more time working out and scoring yourself.
Fitbit Charge 5 Workouts
With more than 20 different workouts, fitness enthusiasts can choose from them to achieve their fitness aim. Users can access five workout modes at a time. It allows wearers to choose by jumping into the Fitbit mobile app. Users can also change the order in which they are displayed.
For a complete list of workouts available on Fitbit Charge 5 and other Fitbit trackers, check out our article about Exercise Modes by Sports Watch.
Fitbit Charge 5 Battery Life
Nobody wants to keep repeatedly charging before or after starting your workout sessions. As a result, Fitbit charge 5 provides an extended battery life of up to 7 hours.
Fitbit Smart Wake
You can program Smart Wake, an alarm that will wake you during a lighter stage of sleep.
Fitbit Charge 5 Specifications
- 7-day battery life
- Color Options
- EDA and ECGs
- Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, and NFC
- Water-resistant up to 50m (5ATM)
- Splash, rain, and sweat-proof
- Sensors (accelerometer, optical heat, etc.)
- Premium subscription ($)
- Stainless steel with smooth silicone band
- Improved screen and display
- Enhanced accuracy
- Sleep-tracking
Fitbit Charge 5 Review
The Fitbit Charge 5 design remains one of the most significant changes as it comes with an OLED screen, making it two times brighter than its predecessors. The AMOLED touchscreen also provides a better display of information. The bigger screen also provides a better display for clearer and larger metrics.
Fitbit Charge 5 comes with excellent activity tracking metrics. Users can set their choice of goals for workouts regarding distance, calories burned, or even time. Fitbit charge 5 displays how users progress during these activities towards their goals.
The activity tracker helps monitor the time an individual spends on each target zone of heart rate. It also helps track the progress of an individual on their journey to the goal of 150 minutes every week.
The device’s SPO2 pulse oximeter sensor helps you understand your sleep pattern even in a better way. It helps to see the overall time you spend while sleeping and your sleep score from the previous night. For premium users, they can access their sleep score and stages and even activate a smart alarm to wake them, including the REM sleep cycle.
The free six-month premium subscription allows users to enjoy a wide range of features, such as the daily readiness score. This feature is designed to indicate if you should rest from workouts on a specific day or not. Thanks to the ECG sensor that helps check and monitor the heart rhythm, which helps find out if you need to see your doctor for a thorough checkup. (Don’t mistake this for a diagnostic tool)
The battery life lasts as long as a week and can go on recording your workout sessions without charging it frequently. Even when you are on GPS, it can last up to five hours.
Variations and Options for Fitbit Charge 5
There are variations and options with the Fitbit Charge 5. However, the fitness tracking device comes in three different colors: steel blue/ platinum stainless steel, black/ graphite stainless steel, and Lunar white/ soft gold stainless steel.
The Fitbit Charge 5 also comes in the same weight and dimensions, which causes 36.7mm x 22.7mm x 11.22mm (this is just the sensor unit, excluding the band length). The Fitbit Charge 5 weighs 28g.
Verdict
The Fitbit Charge 5 offers very good value for money in terms of health features and workout tracking. Fitness features include 20+ workout profiles, an in-built GPS, 50 meters water resistance, heart rate monitoring, VO2 max measurement, active minutes and zones, calculation of a recovery score, step count, calories burnt, etc.
The Charge 5’s daily readiness score helps users interpret when their body is ready for more exercise, and when it needs more rest.
Unfortunately, you won’t be able to store music on the Fitbit band or take calls from your wrist.
And whilst it’s significantly cheaper than the Fitbit Sense, the Fitbit Charge 5 will also track your sleep quality, with features that detect breathing rate and sleep stages, and provide you with health, fitness and stress indicators through oxygen saturation measurements, electrodermal activity scans, an inbuilt electrocardiogram, skin temperature tracking, and more.
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