Fitbit Charge 4 Advanced Fitness Tracker with GPS, Swim
Fitbit Charge 4 Advanced Fitness Tracker with GPS, Swim Tracking & Up To 7 Day Battery
| Weight: | 0.25 Kilograms |
| Size: | one |
| Dimensions: | 24.7 x 2.88 x 1.25 cm; 30 Grams |
| Brand: | Fitbit |
| Model: | Charge 4 |
| Colour: | Rosewood |
| Batteries Included: | 1 Lithium Polymer batteries required. (included) |
| Manufacture: | Fitbit |
| Age: | Youth |
| Department: | Unisex |
| Dimensions: | 24.7 x 2.88 x 1.25 cm; 30 Grams |
| Size: | one |
First health tracker I purchased, and quite expensive for what it was, but I bought it for it’s GPS capability, which was reasonably accurate. However, the sleep tracker was patchy to say the least, despite wearing it as recommended, it would restart during the night if I moved in my sleep.
It finally failed this morning as I was getting dressed and found it halfway up my sleeve- you can see why in the photo. So, all-in-all rather disappointing for the outlay, and the app. -although the basic version is free- is an expensive upgrade.
Overall, the Fitbit Charge 4 Advanced Fitness Tracker with GPS is a top-notch wearable for fitness enthusiasts who want a reliable, feature-packed device to track their progress accurately. Its GPS functionality, Active Zone Minutes, heart rate monitoring, and seamless app integration have significantly improved my fitness routines and overall well-being. The Fitbit Charge 4 has proven to be an invaluable companion on my fitness journey, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to take their workouts to the next level.
I bought this about 15 months ago and it has worked well. Both the device and the app on my ipad are easy to use and the information provided is relevant. Functionally it has given me no problems. It is customisable to a degree (I did not buy the pro version of the app).
I have two niggles:
1) the strap broke a bit too easily just as it came out of warranty and I have been supergluing it back on at regular intervals since (it would probably be less frequent if I bothered to cleaned off the old glue first)
2) it is really hard to read in bright sunlight – especially the data at the bottom of the screen, below the clock face (which is what I am usually interested in).
Watch has a habit of displaying on the screen even though it is set not to do so, Also, it frequently vibrates when it is not supposed to do so. Apart from these two minor issues it’s fine.
This is the 3rd step tracker watch I’ve bought. This is by far the best. It tracks steps, sleep, oxygen in blood, and heart bpm to name a few of the features.
I was hesitant to pay 80 in case it was a waste of money like the last 2 I bought but at the end of the day you get what you pay for. It really is worth every penny.
If you’re considering buying a 30 step tracker don’t! Pay the extra and get a far better device.
Easy to read clock face, accurate, simple stylish design and very easy to pair with my Android phone via Bluetooth.
I am really pleased with it and highly recommend
I had problems with this disconnecting from the app a few times and it-was a major faff and very frustrating to re-connect. When its working properly i am quite happy with it as it can be customised to my height and step length etc. Makes me aware of how lazy I can be sometimes which is no bad thing.
There is nothing wrong with the actual fitbit so I have now had to buy a new strap that houses the entire fitbit.
Seems like this is a common issue and honestly I would expect better from such a big company
One of the more accurate smart fitness devises we have tried and battery lasts a good amount of time.
I have been in touch with Fitbit, and they are sending me a replacement even though the watch is over year old.
One thing i like about it is that it is lightweight and i dont even realise im wearing it half the time lol. However mine did come with a scratch across the screen which obviously doesnt go away, but that doesn’t bother me much, other than that the product is good i mean all fitbits are generally good.
This is the 4th fit bit we have purchased as its comfortable to wear, easy to read (watch display is bright) and I lreally love the app information. Incentivises activity and helps track so many things, sleep, resting heart beat, food intake etc. They have generally been very reliable, charge lasts well and I much prefer to wear and use than my apple watch. I bought it though despite reservations about the longevity of the straps. This one though seems improved, more robust so fingers crossed. For the money think its good value
generally good and i love that the app has built in meditations. I’ve been having issues with my heart after receiving my covid jab and this has helped me keep an eye on my heart rate and spo2 so i can have extra ammo for the doctor in addition to blood pressure/ecgs etc so they can try and figure out what’s wrong with me.
I’m not trying to monitor my weight so haven’t bothered looking at calorie burning or counting or whatever so can’t comment on that.
Because I have multiple long-lasting physical problems (whiplash, costochondritis, torn SI ligament) on top of my jab messing me up, my sleep and anxiety levels have been really badly affected for the last 6 months and this has been helping me try and regain some peace and control over that and ease back into exercise without triggering my heart so i can take steps to getting my life back on some sort of track.
The silicone strap is absolutely revolting so that got replaced immediately which isn’t a problem.
The main issues I have with it is that quite often the spo2 doesn’t register which is annoying because the main reason I got this device over it’s cheaper brother which seems to have more accurate sleep monitoring is because I wanted that SpO2 measurement. The other thing that bugs me is it undercounts the stairs and WAY overcounts my steps. I can go up and down the stairs a dozen times and it will log 4 if i’m lucky. However if i brush my teeth or type it seems to think i’ve run a marathon and I almost always wake up to about 100 steps logged despite not being a sleepwalker or a fidgeter.
The app is pretty easy to use i’m sure there are ways they could make it more intuitive but once you learn your way round it’s fine.
I’d say this is probably good for people for an all over view of their levels but i’d take it with a pinch of salt in terms of accuracy and not get yourself tied up in too many knots about it.
I originally purchased a Heroband but didn’t think it was tracking accurately so splashed out on a fit bit.
Cons. Can be a little uncomfortable to wear – I don’t really notice it until I knock it then it rubs against my skin and can pinch. Doesn’t measure blood pressure like the heroband (but maybe not a con see below). Doesn’t show steps per hour but linked to the heath app I can get that information. A little hard to read / colour would be nice but you get that with the later version. Some basic instructions when first receiving it would have been helpful as well as it took me over an hour and a live chat to fitbit to resolve simple set up.
Pros. Appears to be more accurate on the step count and will log all sleep and show deep vs light a lot easier. Like that it links to the health app and my fitness pal and calculates your calorie deficit. The best thing for me which the heroband wasn’t doing is recording my heart rate during exercise. Heroband took a moment to ‘catch up’ which meant it wasn’t recording my peak heart rate but fit bit does this and tells you when you are in fat burning mode. The ph notifications also meant I didn’t miss an important call on my phone.
Have used it for aqua and it held up perfectly, continuing to measure everything and it automatically recognised I was swimming and gave me my calories. Every day I’m dining more and more features and stats that I didn’t realise it had.
Also really like the GPS auto feature which means when I go for walks it maps it.
Overall I am glad I spent more for the fitbit as it gives me everything I want plus more – except blood pressure but apparently that cant be 100% accurate without an arm or wrist cuff anyway.
The battery life after 4 days is at 35% but given that its monitoring constantly and I keep checking it I’m OK with that so far. Will just need to remember to charge it when I’m not doing anything i.e. watching TV.
Bought this Fitbit for my wife and I thought I would give it a month before I gave a review just to see how it was working out.
I was a little bit wary of buying this model after reading some of the reviews and also my wife’s previous experience of Fitbit reliability when she owned a Fitbit One. That model only lasted about 18 months before it packed up.
Fortunately this Fitbit Charge 4 worked straight out of the box, in fact there was not even the need to charge it up first, it came fully charged. The bonus for my wife was that even though she had deleted the Fitbit app when the Fitbit One died, when she re-downloaded the app again it still remembered her details (some might be worried about big brother surveillance here) all she had to do was delete the fb1.
Although my wife likes the inspirational and motivational part of using the Fitbit app, she didn’t feel she wanted another expensive fitness tracker if they don’t seem to last that long so after the fb1 died she bought a cheap wrist watch style fitness tracker from Letscom (23 at the time). This model was ok but had lots of limitations, the main one being that you couldn’t see the screen in all but the cloudiest days, so as a time piece it was pretty useless. Again this watch only lasted a year before it broke (one of the pins for charging snapped off) but again if you are only paying 23 then it’s not the end of the world.
So she decided to go back to a Fitbit. The Fitbit charge 4 has a good screen where she can see the time in daylight, however the symbols for the different exercises are too small to read unless she has her reading glasses. It’s easy to charge up (and less likely to get damaged in doing so) with a charge lasting about two or three days. My wife hasn’t found or used a lot of the features due to the lack of instructions (GPS etc) and the inspirational and motivational parts of the app aren’t so good (she can’t find the “Walking through a USA National Park” feature).
The sleep tracker says she has an average score for someone of her age, she now feels sorry for the rest of the women of her age because she doesn’t feel that her sleep pattern is that good.
To sum up: the Fitbit charge 4 is quite good and is easy to wear and use. We just think it’s a bit expensive for what it is, especially as you don’t know how long it is going to last before it needs replacing.
In addition to the GPS, I also mainly use this to track calories, steps and sleep.
Calories first…
Again, I think this gives a rough approximation of energy used, but considering the fact that the Charge 4 has no idea of my body composition it should always be taken with a pinch of salt. I also question the accuracy of the HR monitor when engaging in intense exercise. My calorie burns for things like walks and dance workouts (where I’m nowhere near out of breath) seem to me to rate a lot higher than I’d expect, whereas a spin class with phases of maximum effort that leave me gasping for air don’t burn as much as I would have anticipated. I suspect, as I’ve read in other reviews, the Charge 4 can’t manage to keep up with rapid spikes in heart rate, and therefore struggles to analyse very high levels of energy output. Or maybe I just should have been walking all this time instead of doing spin. Who knows? Still, it gives me a guideline and is a motivator. And also at least provides me with the horrifying reality of a sedentary day when compared with how much I eat.
Steps…
Again, take with a pinch of salt. Maybe a spoonful. As I read with pretty much all fitness trackers, the Charge 4 will tell you you’ve taken steps before you got up in the morning, and of course it counts exercise movement as steps too. Why wouldn’t it? If it could discern between the two that would be crazily sophisticated. Again, you can get a rough idea, and I just tell myself to subtract about 3000 just to be sure.
Sleep…
I find this really interesting and I must say I think it’s fairly accurate in terms of periods of time spent awake in the night. I couldn’t comment on the deep/light/REM stages as I obviously have no idea what’s going on. I like the benchmark averages for people of my age, and mostly I am scared that I almost never get 8 hours.
I don’t use the community or reminder aspects of the Charge 4. I like it as an analytical tool but don’t want it to rule my life, nor do I want to get messages or control Spotify from it, so I can’t comment on any of these things.
My gut instinct is that if I hadn’t been bothered about GPS (which I rarely use) I would have been happy enough with the HR Inspire as well. That said, I don’t regret the purchase and I think it’s basically given me the things I was looking for.
Oh, you probably want to know about appearance and comfort. Honestly, I think it’s less attractive than the Inspire, but as a person with abnormally skinny wrists I don’t think it looks too ridiculously bulky. The strap is comfortable (you’re supposed to tighten it before starting exercise so I’ve just learned which setting to default to) and after a couple of months the strap doesn’t look particularly worn/dirty/greasy/stained. I keep meaning to buy another one for during the day, to save the original one for sweaty exercise, but haven’t been bothered yet so I guess that tells you it’s comfortable and looks fine.
Having recently had a pacemaker fitted I thought it might be an idea to get something like this and as I can’t justify the price of an iWatch this seemed to be a good alternative. It measures things like heart beats per minute; calories burned; distance travelled, steps taken; sleep patterns and blood oxygen measured. Which are fine if those are the things that you want to keep track of, and the stats seem to be accurate – up to point! The most inaccurate stat is one that I found the least useful and that is how many flights of stairs you go up in the course of the day! Why would you want to know this? As long as it records steps taken then you don’t really need to know how high you are!
There is an altimeter built in but like most of these small, inexpensive bits of kit it is totally inaccurate and many of the posts put on the comments section of the Dashboard would hold this to be true. For instance, mine would register going up and down stairs perhaps 6-8 times when, in fact, the number would be around 15-16, and the opposite would occur also!
However, the biggest problem I found was due to the Tracker’s design. On the back of the Tracker there are what look like 4 sensors (some of which emit coloured light) and 3 contacts that are used to recharge the device. The sensors are contained in a “bulge” on the back next to the skin and the contacts are in what I can only describe as a small “pit” at the end of the row of sensors. With a snug fit on the wrist so that the sensors can do their work the bulge presses into the skin but because of the pressure generated by this action, skin is pressed up into the pit! After wearing this for some time when I took it off I found that the skin under the sensors was turning Red and a small lump was formed by the skin being pressed into the pit.
I advised Fitbit of this and they said that they were concerned about this and I could return the Tracker for a full refund if I was not happy. I said I would persevere with it but 3-4 days later the irritation on my skin was getting worse so I have now finally returned it! My skin is still not back to normal but it is slowly getting there!
I am not saying that this would happen to everybody and if the spec of the Charge 4 is what you are looking for then give it a try, at this price you can’t lose, as long as you accept its’ limitations – check the spec carefully to see if it does, indeed, give you what you want; those with sensitive skin, however, might also want to take that into account!
I am a first time FitBit user, and have had my Rosewood Charge 4 for about a month now. I am overall very happy with my purchase.
First, the positives:
– it has made a real difference to my motivation to exercise and meditate more regularly. N.B. I use it for cardio circuits and strength training. I have not yet tested the GPS properly on a run.
– heart rate analysis in general is great, especially during exercise. The different heart rate zones (fat burn, cardio, peak) are useful indicators. I cannot however comment on how accurate this is, as I have not used it in conjunction with a heart rate monitor.
– sleep analysis is great. The sleep score and bedtime reminders have made me a lot more strict about getting to bed on time.
– SmartWake alarm feature has made a real difference to how well rested I feel when I wake up. I no longer rely on my phone alarm, and instead wake up gently at my lightest stage of sleep which is great.
– Battery life is amazing. Once charge lasts me at least 5-7 days.
– No issues with syncing so far (although a different story when it comes to text/WhatsApp notifications – see below).
The negatives:
– The screen display sometimes doesn’t light up when you tilt the watch towards you. It often takes a more exaggerated gesture / button press to light it up.
– Text/WhatsApp notifications are EXTREMELY temperamental. Multiple times a week I find that my FitBit has not synced to display my phone notifications, and find a message on the app stating “Notification service not running. A phone restart is required to re-enable notifications on your tracker”. What’s even more frustrating is that a restart doesn’t resolve this issue. Instead, the only solution appears to be going into my phone settings, clearing data for the FitBit app, and then logging into the app again and enabling notifications. I think this is a wider issue with FitBit compatibility with Android phones, and is not Charge 4-specific. I am currently using a Huawei P20 Pro.
– The Spotify feature occasionally disconnects and unlikely to be of much use. It’s more like having a remote on your wrist – useful if you’re playing Spotify from your phone without your phone nearby and want to pause/skip a track. The only real use I’ve found for this feature is when I’m listening to music in the shower!
– The Charge 4’s strap is quite bulky on smaller wrists and the rubber is pretty inflexible (see picture). My wrists are very small – around 5ish inches – and this means there is a lot of space left when I tighten the strap as far as it can go (for me, the third hole from the smallest). I bought a woven strap separately to try and remedy this, and it does look better but hasn’t completely resolved the issue due to the width of the device and strap connectors. If this likely to bother you, get a different FitBit watch.
– The rubber on the Charge 4 strap does wear slightly with use (giving it a grey-ish tint).
None of the above are dealbreakers though. If you’re a first time fitness tracker user you are likely to still be very happy with your purchase!
Apart from that there really isnt much of a change from previous versions in terms of functionality. Steps work ok and theres a bit more flexibility on the app – the sleep function is useful and for me seems to work better than the 2 ever did – but apart from that no real surprises. Theres no option to have an always on display, one of the top requested software updates – personally I dont find it a problem but for some users I can see why it would be an issue. (Update – latest firmware update has implemented a longer display time option so Fitbit does listen and added one star) Battery life is pretty good and I charge up about every three days (and its quick anyway)
Charge 4 uses the same strap system as 3 so you can use the old straps or keep as backups – the strap system is definitely an improvement over 2.
The really annoying thing and what you need to check is fitbit pay – unless you bank with one well known UK bank none of the others is supported – unless you happen to bank with ones that no-one else has heard of. The list as of June 2020 doesnt have banks such as Barclays, Firstdirect, Halifax etc – so if you do bank with them fitbit pay just isnt available. The fitbit forum has been full of posts from UK users for a couple of years now asking for their bank to be added – Fitbit just ignores them (aka ‘under consideration’) or asks people to contact their bank to request it (yep that is really going to work isnt it). Compare the USA list of supported banks to the UK one and you can see where Fitbits priorities are. Very frustrating and not good enough. If cars were sold like this you would think the salesman was a bit dodgy – somehow tech gets away with it.
So overall its sort of ok, but frustrating that some changes could be made that would definitely make this a winner – and this could be done with the existing hardware, either by software changes or more importantly Fitbit doing their bit to make changes happen faster. Until then I would suggest other competitors are worth looking at before you decide.
To begin with it was not straight forward to set up and like all fitbits it is not good if your internet bandwidth is low especially as all support is online! There is no way to manually set the time (which I have found an issue when travelling through different time zones in the past)
It took a while to get the charger working (no smiley face) initially but I think it is just because the battery was so low to start with.
The charging cable is uselessly short especially as a lot of the set up needs to be done whilst plugged in which resulted in my crouched on the floor under the side table! The charger is a much better design than previous models as you do not have to remove the strap and it has a clip to lock the watch into place, which is great once you get it working!
Over the course of the first week there were daily firmware updates which were a bit annoying but I do now have the advertised functions ( I didn’t use Spotify, payment or any of the premium features and I did miss being able to control the music stored on my phone ( I am old fashioned that way)).
The itself strap comes with 2 alternative sizes which is useful but only one has the band to keep the free end in which is a bit of an oversight. the strap itself is very plastic-y and not very comfortable. A softer silicone material would be nicer, but I suspect this will be more hardwearing. The strap attachment mechanism is much stronger than previous models.
The display is black and white and it is very difficult to read in direct sunlight especially as the default display time is so low (the auto hibernate kicks in after about 5 secs which isn’t enough time for my eyes to adjust to the display) and there is no always on option or ability to delay the auto hibernate. The wake action of raising your wrist needs to be done quite firmly and often fails. (It was a pain when trying to take the photo!
The screen itself is an ok size and the swipe/ button functionality take a bit to get used to. I found all the buzzing a little annoying and difficult to stop an activity once it was in progress as it would keep going through a loop of pausing then telling me to press to finish but when I did I got the DND/sleep mode options. I think it just takes a bit of getting used to.
So on to some of the functionality…
Workouts
The fitbit has inbuilt GPS so there is no need to take your phone and do not get the same connectivity loss. It auto detects workouts and you can track six activities on the device, but you can edit in the app/dashboard for example I can change the outdoor activity to horseback riding but it didn’t do anything to modify the stats which would have been nice. If you do autodetect though GPS is not turned on, so you won’t get a map. Various activities log different data but I was quite happy with the heartrate zones, energy burned distance & elevation. GPS does drain the battery
As well as counting steps you record Active Zone Minutes which basically ranks your activity so that a higher intensity workout in the cardio heart rate zone is worth double a lower intensity work out with heart rate in the fat burning zone. It has a daily target of 22 an average of 7 days divided by 150 minutes of weekly exercise. You can customize all your targets in the app.
Sleep & O2- Fitbit gives you an overall score for your sleep, showing awake, light REM and deep sleep periods. I tend to find the less deep sleep I get the more tired I am, and it all seems to be at the start of the night! It estimated my O2 fluctuations, but I am not sure for me this is especially useful, I think the just like to play with the sensor!
Female tracking and food and water intake I just can’t be bothered with as its too much data input for me and my fluid comes not just from water! I did try to use it to log alcohol consumption though as it made me think about how much and when!
Notifications can be enabled for calls and text messages, calendar updates but not WhatsApp messages ????
Overall it does what it says on the tin and has a reasonably easy interface. Battery life and screen needs improvement but am I happy? YES!
I found, as others had on the internet, that my Charge 3 was becoming increasingly frustrating and pretty useless when calculating my running and cycling distances. Growing ever frustrated, I switched to the Charge 4 on hearing Fitbit had introduced an in-built GPS, in the hope of having relatively accurate data.
On these grounds, I am not disappointed. The GPS is really very good, particularly for what you pay. Having tested in on a number of different runs and cycles, predominately in woodland, I’ve found that it’s very accurate (particularly in comparison to the Charge 3).
I’m not so bothered about the Spotify or pay features (if you’re UK-based), which I know others are grumbling about. In my opinion, if you want these sorts of features, you should look for a smartwatch. I find these sorts pretty gimmicky / useless if you’re looking for a fitness tracker which isn’t designed to be a smartwatch.
I’ve also not had the technical issues which some seem to have.
The battery is definitely nowhere near as good as the Charge 3. I suspect this is because of the GPS – which they DO advertise. I’ve noticed I’m having to plug in my Charge 4 twice at least twice as frequently as the Charge 3 (going for at least 3 runs and 2 cycles with GPS per week). This can be a little jarring if you’re used to the battery of a Charge 3, but considering the size of the device with GPS running, I think people are being too harsh on the battery life.
All-in-all, I’m pleased with the device. Fundamentally, it’s not going to let you run or cycle for 4+ hours using GPS (particularly in GPS challenging scenarios). If this is a problem for you, look elsewhere, but be aware you’re not going to find a device which is as slim and powerful. I’d recommend this device if you’re looking for a slimline activity tracker which is GPS enabled, it reads your heart-rate, has a sleep-tracker and connects to a clever app. The price and quality seem to be near-unrivalled in the field, so I really do think there have been some overly strong criticisms of this device.