Renders of the Fitbit Charge 5
Fitbit
A few months ago, I reviewed the Fitbit Luxe, a petite fitness band that prioritized style as much as tracking exercises. I personally enjoyed using its tiny size, but I can understand why many industry peers thought the screen was too small. To them, the Luxe was a bit style over substance.
And so the new Fitbit Charge 5 is here for the more mainstream crowd. It takes elements from the Luxe, and behaves similarly, except it has a much larger screen.
Fitbit Charge 5 has a larger 1.04-inch OLED screen.
Ben Sin
The Charge 5 having more in common with the Luxe means it’s got a major hardware upgrade over the Fitbit Charge 4 too, because the latter was a plasticky device with a relatively dim LCD screen. The Charge 5 now offers an OLED display with a metal casing.
The $180 Charge 5 also brings over many of the health features previously exclusive to the $300 Fitbit Sense smartwatches, such as an electrodermal activity and electrocardiogram sensors, which respectively track the body’s response to stress, and irregular heart rhythm.
Sensors on the back of the Fitbit Charge 5.
Fitbit
The bands are removable—and thus interchangeable, and Fitbit sells many other varieties. The actual tracker is small—1.44 x 0.9 x 0.44 inches—and weighs 0.98oz/27.7g.
A single charge can power the Fitbit Charge 5 for a week, this is an improvement over previous Fitbit devices I’ve tested. Charging is done via a proprietary charger, however. (I really wish fitness bands and smartwatches would all switch to USB-C).
The Charge 5 has built-in GPS and NFC so you can use it to track without bringing the phone, or make digital payments via Fitbit Pay.
I’ve long raved about Fitbit’s fitness tracking, including the most comprehensive and smart sleep tracking I’ve seen, and the Charge 5 keeps that trend going. It’s a smart enough tracker to not get tricked into counting false steps (this is when a tracker thinks I’m walking and log steps when I’m merely swinging my arms while standing still, or worse—when I’m biking or riding a scooter).
The Charge 5 can automatically recognize some workouts, and has 20 built-in exercise modes for weightlifting, running, and swimming—yes the Charge 5 is waterproof.
Fitbit removed any sort of buttons from the tracker this year (previous Charges had either a clicky button or a touch capacitive side panel) so all interaction with the device is via the touchscreen—this is absolutely fine, because the screen is large, bright and vibrant, and responsive.
The Charge 5’s casing is also more rounded than previous generations, which had slightly pointy corners. Overall the tracker feels more like a piece of jewelry than before—if you go for a nicer band than the generic black rubbery one I got.
Fitbit Charge 5.
Ben Sin
To turn on the screen, you can either raise your arms to chest level, tilt your wrist towards your face, or tap on the screen, all three options work well. There’s also an option to keep the display “always on,” although doing so will shave battery life down to “just” five days (still quite good).
When connected to a phone, the …….