Fitbit Charge 4 Review | Engadget

Finding the right way with GPS

It’s puzzling to learn that the Ionic has been the only Fitbit device with GPS since it was introduced in 2017. None of the Versa smartwatches have it, and the Charge 3 didn’t have one either. Charge 4 corrects this dazzling monitoring: the built-in GPS automatically tracks your location when an outdoor activity (running, walking, etc.) begins. It took the GPS about 30 to 45 seconds to take my location around my Long Island home. However, I didn’t have to wait, because Fitbit allows you to start a workout from the Charge 4 screen while the GPS signals your exact location.

Running was a perfect experience from start to finish: the GPS never left my location and the device did not overheat. The resulting route maps were accurate, and I appreciated that Fitbit added “heat maps” for the heart rate and pace data. The route lines change color based on your heart rate intensity and how fast you were running at the time. These overlays give you a better idea of ​​when you were working harder.

And yet, I couldn’t help but feel like I was missing something with the Charge 4’s lack of on-board music storage. Unlike some smart watches with both features, you need your phone with you to listen to music while you train. Including only GPS or just music storage makes you feel incomplete, and unfortunately, many portable device companies commit this sin on mid-tier devices. The decision is even more confusing when you consider that Charge 4 also has Fitbit Pay, allowing users to leave their wallets at home and pay with NFC. Users have two good reasons to leave their smartphones at home when they exercise, but most won’t take the step because they need to exercise with music (or simply prefer to exercise with their phones in case they need to make a call).

But it’s worth noting that the Charge 4 has Some music chops: Spotify Premium users can control playback from the touch screen. There’s even a dedicated app included. But Spotify users are the only ones who get this luxury. If you’re an Apple Music subscriber or if you like listening to Audible while running, there’s nothing here for you. Every time I raised my wrist to pause the audiobook I was listening to, I was frustrated at not finding controls available to me.

A new emphasis on active minutes

During workouts, Charge 4 beeps lightly when it detects spikes in heart rate. This ties in with Fitbit’s new exercise metric, hotspot minutes, which keeps track of how much time you spend in each high heart rate zone. This information will tell you if you reach the recommended 150 minutes of moderate activity, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity, per week recommended by the American Heart Association. If the minutes in the hotspot are familiar to you, it’s because Apple, Google, and Garmin handheld devices track similar data.

You’ll know which heart rate zone you’re in by the amount of buzzing: one fat-burning hum, two for cardio, and three for peak. The Charge 4 vibrated often during my runs, mainly because I spend part of the time walking hard and the rest of the time really jogging. Although occasionally annoying, the buzz motivated me to try harder to stay in that higher heart rate zone longer.

Functional hardware

Hot spot minutes wouldn’t be possible without a heart rate monitor, which has Charge 4. It’s the same pulse-tracking technology found on other Fitbit devices, and works just as well here.

The rest of the exercise band is almost indistinguishable from the Charge 3, with its thumb-sized module, OLED touchscreen, and left-side inductive button. This makes it an outdated design (Charge 3 came out in 2018), but that can happen when the feature is pre-fashion. It has interchangeable bands, so there is a possibility to fix things with woven and leather accessories.

The Charge 4 is designed to be worn all day and all night, and the force with which you press the heart rate monitor and GPS will have a major impact on the band’s battery life. Fitbit estimates that the band lasts up to seven days with regular use, or up to five hours while using the GPS. Unless you’re going to be hiking hard, you probably won’t use GPS for five hours straight, but occasional use of GPS will continue to drain your battery faster than normal. My Charge 4 dropped to 20 percent after 3 days of all-day and overnight use, which included two-hour long GPS workouts and one hour of non-GPS exercise.

New Features

Fitbit added a few more things to Charge 4, and many revolve around sleep. First, Charge 4 finally has a Sleep Mode that turns off notifications and disables the screen so you don’t accidentally wake up to a malicious text alert. It’s a simple scheduling feature, but it’s one that people will use on a daily basis (and it’s conveniently accessible directly from the device, not just the mobile app). Many other portable devices have something like this, but Fitbit is seriously starting to implement. Better late than never, right?

Even more interesting is the new Estimated Oxygen Variation table populated with data from the SpO2 monitor. These sensors are relatively new to portable devices, and have only become a handful of devices in recent years. They calculate your blood oxygen saturation levels and can be helpful in detecting signs of disorders like sleep apnea. Fitbit started including SpO2 monitors on select devices when the Ionic smartwatch debuted, but the sensors have not been active until now.

The graph of estimated oxygen variation is found on the Fitbit mobile app’s nightly sleep data page, which shows through a line graph how much blood oxygen saturation varies during the night. Since it is normal to have some variations, your line is likely to be sharp, but it should remain within the “low variation” range. If you start to see consistent peaks in the “high variance” range, it may be an indication that you are not getting enough oxygen while sleeping. That information can be helpful in showing your doctor if you think you may be suffering from sleep apnea or another similar problem. I’m delighted that users are finally able to see the SpO2 sensors in action – it’s been too long a wait, and while most users won’t see dramatically different results every night, it’s better than seeing nothing at all.

An additional feature that is coming soon to Charge 4 is Smart Wake, which will wake you up with slight vibrations at “the optimal time” depending on the resting zone you are in and the 30-minute time interval you specify. This is one of those smartwatch features that the Ionic and Versa have that Fitbit is coming to the Charge 4 (and a feature that other wearable devices have had for some time). While a smart alarm feature like this won’t replace a real ringer or a smartphone tone (especially when need be active at a certain time), is a good backup option.

Competition

Fitbit isn’t the only laptop company that didn’t have many, if any, fitness bands with built-in GPS. The closest competition for the Charge 4 is the $ 169 Garmin Vivosport, which is the only fitness band in its line with an integrated GPS (although many of its smartwatches have this feature). In addition to being $ 20 less, the Charge 4 has some advantages: it has interchangeable bands, Fitbit Pay and Spotify connectivity. On the other hand, the Vivosport has better battery life with GPS enabled (eight hours to five from Fitbit), built-in controls for general audio playback, and compatibility with the Garmin LiveTrack feature.

But what is common between these two fitness bands is their limited “smart watch” capabilities. This means that they both have only a few built-in apps, and they are often not as intuitive to use as you would get in a full smart watch. Smaller, lower-quality displays on exercise bands make it more difficult, for example, to set a timer to keep track of your dinner cooking in the oven. You can do it, but it’s not as easy as if you had a smart watch. Fitness trackers sacrifice themselves in these areas because they are primarily for fitness tracking. (Obviously.)

Wrap

I immediately thought of the Fitbit Surge when Charge 4 was announced. It was, at the time, the most capable fitness band the company had ever made. Yes, it was ugly. Yes, it was awkward. But it left an obvious gap in the Fitbit lineup when it was suspended. Now, the Charge 4 is here to fill that gap and give users a way to get GPS on board without spending $ 200 on a smart watch.

Fortunately, Fitbit didn’t mess with the good of Charge 3 by making this band updated, but it’s disappointing that long-standing issues haven’t been addressed. I wish the design of the Charge 4 wasn’t so bland and I wish it had audio controls that weren’t limited to Spotify. It’s also less than ideal, to say the least, that Fitbit devices still don’t integrate with Apple Health or Google Fit. The latter may come soon (and certainly sooner than the former), but we’re still expecting a feature that’s pretty basic. However, Charge 4 is one of the easiest (and most affordable) ways to get GPS on an exercise band that’s just as good at tracking exercise as it is at tracking daily movement and sleep.