Fitbit has evolved its line of fitness trackers from simple motion activated step trackers to devices that are a lot more complete. The Fitbit Charge has emerged as the middle ground in these trackers, with the form of a band, but functions are get closer to sports watches.
The Fitbit Charge 4 make the big step in adding GPS, the missing piece of the puzzle that really prevented the Charge being the complete standalone solution; previously you’d need your phone for accurate location data – not so with the Charge 4.
We’ve spent a little time with the new Fitbit and these are our initial thoughts while we’re working up a full review.
Design
- Two strap sizes in box
- 1.57-inch touchscreen display
- Black or rosewood colours
- Water resistant
The Fitbit Charge 4 has the same overall design as the Fitbit Charge 3. That gives you a central tracker unit, with the heart rate sensors on the back and the front occupied by the display. There’s a capacitive button on the side and a touchscreen on the top.
There are two strap sizes (small and large) in the box and it’s incredibly easy to change these. You just have to press the button to release the strap and off you go. The Charge 4 will be available in a number of colours – black, rosewood – and the straps can be changed to suit your preference, with a range of accessory straps available.
The advantage of a fitness band design is that it’s a lot less bulky than a traditional watch. For many, that’s the appeal – it’s slimmer, lighter, easier to sleep in and less intrusive. Some, naturally will prefer the larger display of a regular watch, but there’s still a huge amount of interest in this more compact design.
The Fitbit Charge 4 is water resistant to 50m, meaning it’s safe to get wet, be that through sweat, swimming or just in the shower. It’s safe to wash and Fitbit recommends that you rinse it off occasionally to keep the band clean.
Core functions and features
- Heart rate, 3-axis motion sensor
- GPS and alitmeter
- NFC for Fitbit Pay
The Fitbit Charge 4 packs in everything that was previously available on Special Edition devices, meaning that you get Fitbit Pay on this this device thanks to the integrated NFC chip. The only downside is that Fitbit Pay isn’t as widely supported by banks as Google or Apple Pay, so you might want to open an account specifically to use with your Fitbit device. That’s no hardship though.
The Charge 4 has a full range of motion trackers, allowing it track those traditional steps, as well as automatically detect when you’re exercising. The motion sensors work with the heart rate tracker for sleep tracking and the Charge 4 will give you a breakdown of your sleep stages so you can see just how much rest you got – and give you a Sleep Score to help you easily keep track of rest.
The biggest function of the heart rate sensor is in keeping abreast of your activity. It’s used to assess your resting heart rate as a baseline and then to track your heart rate through exercises, either that it automatically senses or that your manually track, with support for major activities like running, biking and swimming – extending to pilates, yoga, weights and others that you can add as shortcuts to your device via the app.
Heart rate zones are reported, giving you feedback on the intensity and progress of your exercise, as you’d get from any other sports watch. Building on these functions is one of the new additions to Fitbit, called Active Zone Minutes.
Active Zone Minutes takes your age, your resting heart rate and uses your heart rate to assess your activity and award you points for it. The idea is to evolve beyond steps as a measure of activity – because while 10,000 steps might be a great target for a sedentary person, for any normally active person it’s an easy target to hit – and might not actually have any real fitness gains.
Instead, Active Zone Minutes (AZM) will look to reward you for higher heart rates. This is where running up the escalator, vacuum cleaning the whole house, going for a run, or doing a HIIT workout at home all counts – and where steps would make no sense at all. The aim is to hit 150 AZM a week (and World Health Organisation and UK NHS recommended level) and the Charge 4 will help you get there.
The addition of GPS to the Fitbit Charge 4 also supercharges your exercise. This, in addition to the altimeter, means you can accurately keep track of your exercise route, speed and elevation change. Above everything else, it’s the addition of GPS that evolves the Charge 4 into a more accomplished sports device and makes the biggest difference over previous Charge devices.
Performance and battery life
- 7 day battery life
We’ve always like Fitbit’s approach to things. Above any other platform, Fitbit has an approachability: it’s not too geeky, the information is nicely displayed in the Fitbit app and there’s plenty to explain what it all means and represents. That’s great for those interested in fitness, without necessarily considering themselves to be athletes.
We’ve only had the Fitbit Charge 4 for a couple of times and we’ve taken it running and cycling, getting back comparative figures similar to Garmin wearables we’ve tested it alongside – the Garmin Forerunner 35 (a natural rival) and the Fenix 6 (a fully-featured sports watch). We can’t fully access the accuracy of the Fitbit Charge 4 yet, but things are looking good so far.
We’ve also put it through one sleep cycle so far which looks accurate enough. The first thing we really appreciated is how unobtrusive it is to sleep in compared to a watch.
Fitbit says that the battery in the Charge 4 will last for 7 days, but we’ll see how that lasts with a range of activities recorded. We’d expect active GPS tracking to put a larger demand on it and we suspect that if you’re tracking daily activities you’re not going to get that full week of life from it.
The Charge 4 charges with a contact charger that clips to the back of the band.
Smart functions includes Spotify
- Smartphone notifications
- Customisation through the app
- Spotify control
Fitbit has supported a range of smartphone notifications for some time and those notifications continue on the Charge 4. You can control these function from the app on your phone, which really does play a huge part in living with the Fitbit Charge 4.
The Charge 4 introduces Spotify control, but this doesn’t extend to offering online music support. What it will do – once you have linked your Spotify account – is allow you to control Spotify music on your devices. That’s not just your smartphone, we’ve found that it will recognise other devices like Amazon Echo or Roku and let you play on those through Spotify Connect. That’s not immediately useful for runners, it does mean you can control music easily during home workouts from your wrist.
While the Fitbit itself will give you some of your data, syncing with your phone really turns up the real results. It’s via that app that the important data gathered by the Charge 4 is collated and packaged up. For example, on waking in the morning your Fitbit won’t say too much, but sync with your phone and the app can tell you everything about how you slept.
Fortunately, the app is one of the best out there and although we use a wide range of devices and services, Fitbit is often the easiest to use and easiest to interpret.