Fitbit, the fitness band maker has introduced its fitness tracking device named Charge 3 and it’s the flagship device launched in India at a price of Rs 13,999. The Fitbit Charge 3 has loads of features related to the fitness tracking and activities and this is by far one of the most compressive fitness trackers available in the market. The Fitbit Charge 3 offers all the basic fitness tracking along with a touch display, real-time heart rate monitoring, swim tracking, and a lot more. Here’s our review of the Fitbit Charge 3 below.
What’s In The Box
- Fitbit Charge 3
- Classic Wristbands (small & large)
- USB Charging Cable
- User Manuals
Fitbit Charge 3 Specifications
- Display: Touchscreen, Grayscale OLED
- Connectivity & Sensors: Bluetooth 4.0, 3-axis accelerometer, Optical heart rate monitor, Altimeter, Vibration motor, Relative SpO2 sensor, NFC
- Storage: 7 days of detailed motion data, saves daily totals for the last 30 days, stores heart rate data at one-second and five-second intervals
- Battery: Li-Po, 7 days Battery life
- Charging Time (0-100%): About 2 hours
Design, Build, & Ergonomics
As far as the design goes, the Fitbit Charge 3 offers a very lightweight design with the body made from aerospace grade aluminum. The Charge 3 has an OLED display which has been upgraded from its predecessor, it employs a Grayscale OLED touch display protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3.
The left side has a touch key with haptic feedback that is used to navigate the device. The straps are rubberized and have diamond textures on it, it comes in both small and large sizes. Removing them is just as easy as a push of a button, you need to push the button beside the strap to remove them.
The Fitbit Charge 3 is very comfortable and can be worn over long periods, it is water resistant with up to 50 meters, hence, you can take it to the swim without worrying. The device also features Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC as connectivity options used to pair with your smartphone.
Software & Features
One of the most exciting things about the Fitbit is its software interface. Speaking of the software and the interface of the app, the Fitbit offers a well-detailed data of your daily activities, the Fitbit saves 7 days of detailed motion data, daily totals for the last 30 days, and stores heart rate data at one-second on exercise more and five-second intervals for all others.
The Dashboard shows a good summary of your steps count, distance traveled, calorie burnt, real-time heart rate monitoring, sleep cycle, and a lot more activities like how much weight you lost and how much you are active in a day. Here’s a screenshot showing you the Fitbit app interface.
Swiping from the top shows the incoming notifications from your smartphone. Swiping from the bottom shows the current day tracking activities like steps count, heart rate, distance traveled, calorie meter and more. Swiping from the right side to the left side shows you more options, Exercise, Relax, Timer, Alarms, Weather, and device Settings.
Fitbit Charge 3 also shows you the notifications your phone shows, once you pair with a smartphone and enable the notifications, you will be receiving them on the Charge 3 for instance, you can check emails, messages, calls and so on.
That’s not it, you can choose the apps you wish to receive notifications from, you can also reply from the tracker using the pre-configured responses. Receiving the notifications needs to be constantly connected to the phone and eventually consumes the battery life. You can disable this feature if you want to extend the battery life.
The sleep tracking shows you as much information of your sleep activity, not only it shows the total time of the sleep, but how much you had spent time in each stage of sleep i.e. deep sleep, light & REM sleep. Take a look at the sleep tracking shared in the screenshot below.
Battery Life
Talking about the battery life, the Fitbit Charge 3 has a decent battery life, our unit lasted about 7 days on a single charge. It takes less than 2 hours to charge the battery fully from 0% to 100%. It can be charged via a USB cable clip-op charger that uses a 3-pin connector. You can extend the battery life even more by disabling the all-day sync, and notifications on the device.
Verdict
Fitbit Charge 3 should meet most of your daily fitness tracking needs if not all, no wonder if you are walking, jogging, monitoring your heart rates, tracking your sleep, and other related activities. For the price it holds, it’s not cheap unless you are a fitness enthusiast who wants everything to be tracked. There are various cheaper alternatives available if you find, the Samsung Gear Fit2 has loads of similar features with a lower price tag, it also has a built-in GPS while the Fitbit Charge 3 misses out on it.
