Fitbit - Charge 2

Still using my charge 2 since 2015-16 and I love it. The app wasn’t updating properly a while ago but since I switched from Pixel 7 to iphone 16 in March everything is smoother than ever (I know it’s weird, a google phone supposed to work better right?). The only issue is its battery dies in a day (used to go a whole week) but I guess it’s expected after about 10 years of use. I charge it quickly for 5-10 mins when I am in the shower in the morning and voila, good for another day!

I got my charge 2 in 2018 and I wore it for about 2 years then, stopped for a few years and put it back on April 2023 and it’s been going strong ever since. Although now it has a crack in the screen 🥲

I had a Fitbit charge 2 for about 6 years and loved it until google took over and screwed up the compatibility and syncing. I now have a garmin fenix 7. MASSIVE step up. The battery doesn’t last as long, I use to get a week with 8hrs of tracking, now I’m charging every couple of days but that could be because I have all the bells and whistles turned on which aren’t needed. If you’re a data nerd and want more info than you ever thought was possible, then seriously look at garmin. I just have the free topo maps on it at the moment and pay no subscription. And quality seems good enough to navigate by. I haven’t tried it out in the bush yet, but to be honest i wouldn’t rely on it for navigating and would stick with map and compass or phone app where I can zoom in and out so much easier. It is geared towards running, but hiking, alpine are all options in there as activities. I love that it’s ocean proof too and can even track sailing.

I've been thinking about this too. After eight years, my Fitbit Charge 2 finally stopped working. Based on recent reviews, I’m considering switching to a Garmin, but I’m still unsure. I primarily want features for heart rate and sleep monitoring.

What Fitbit are you wearing? I am wearing a Sense. I tried a Sense 2 but was disappointed to learn it doesn't track my laps so gave it to my husband. Am back to Sense. Wondering what other Fitbit tracks laps? My Charge 2, 4 both died in a couple of years and they both tracked laps for me.

My mom bought me a charge 2, in 2018. I used it for a very long time. I even crazy glued the band, when it kept coming off. I loved it. It broke for good, eventually and I was able to obtain another charge 2. I have lost a lot of weight and I think I can probably open my options for other models, at this point - I had been using the charge 2 with an XL band, which seems to be difficult to obtain. I may try one of the modern charges, if I can get it to fit. But I absolutely love Fitbit. It changed my life. I hope the newer models are as simple. Time, date, steps. Keep it simple on the home screen. If I want miles and heart rate, I can shuffle through for it

I started with the flex, then went to the Church to charge four and I’m at a charge five. I loved my flex and would’ve stayed with it, but I lost it out in a field. I then bought a charge 2 and about two years later I found my flex in the field. I lost it.

Only ever used an Apple Watch, had a Fitbit charge 2 before that but that always needed phone to be connected for GPS etc. I think the Apple Watch is very accurate

My dad and I have the charge 4s since release 5yrs ago and have no issues. Prior to that we had charge 2s, again no issues but I just bought the upgrade as a gift. I was going to get charge 6 but theoretically charge 7 news may be released in the next month, in which case I'll likely get those. Surprised so many have had such bad experiences tbh

I just got the Garmin Forerunner 165, still testing the various features. Have been using multiple Fitbit Charge devices (charge hr, charge 2, charge 4) for past few years. I gotta say that the Garmin watch looks like a serious health monitoring device compared to my Fitbits. The plethora of information it provides is awesome. I do hear that sleep monitoring is quite bad on all Garmins but apart for that, the Heart rate is tracking is quite good, gps is accurate. I am super impressed with how accurately it measures the number of floors ascended and descended, quite useless metric, but still love the pin point accuracy. Personally I have never wanted notifications on my watch, i carry my phone all the time so I can easily manage notifications there, also it's a pain keeping bluetooth on all the time on phone to receive notifications on the watch. So, if you need a health tracking device, Garmin watches are the ways to go. I can't talk much about Samsung, since I haven't used them. Also check out youtube reviews by - The Quantified Scientist. It may help you find a suitable device.

For the fitness trackers yes, but don't get any non-Pixel-Watch Fitbit watch. I use the Charge 6, the 2 and 4 before that. Never had any issues.

I love my Charge 6. Started a few years ago with a Charge 2 and have worked my way up. I don't have premium. I like that I can read it without my glasses and it tracks exactly what I want it to track.

I started with a Fitbit Charge 2 and an now on a Charge 6. I really love them. I only want to track my exercise and heart rate.

I've had the charge 2, charge 4, charge 5, and charge 6. All died in 2 years or less- and because I either wore it in the ocean, pool, or shower.  For the charge 6, I also purchased a 3rd party warranty and so am getting money refunded to me.  I'm in the same boat of not wanting to go back. The only reason I stayed with fitbit so long is because of the smart wake feature. I've lived without it for almost 2 months now- but I have 8 bands and 3 chargers. I feel I'm invested in Fitbit, but their brand is dead, and all resources are going to the Google watch now. 

I was hoping to get some feedback on this. I have a Charge 2 which I don’t hate but I can’t get to keep track of workouts like it used to (is that user error or no longer a functionality post Google). I got an Apple SE delivered yesterday so I guess I’m going that route but open to feedback. I think I mainly want to see what workouts I’ve done over the last few weeks.

Obviously no fitness tracker is truly BIFL, but I'm assuming you're after something made well that will last. I've worn a fitbit since around 2017 and have always liked them. That they will go a full week without charging which is important to me, I've always ruled out an apple watch for that reason. My first one (Charge 2) lasted 5 years before it broke (physical damage, I smashed the screen). The second one (Charge 5) lasted 18 months before it wouldn't turn on and was replaced under warranty, that replacement lasted about the same and was replaced under warranty with my current one, a Charge 6. It's a great watch, but after two Charge 5 failures I worry about how well they are made. If this one fails I wouldn't buy another unless it lasts several more years, which is what I would expect from any watch.

I've been using Fitbit for over ten years. Both my HR 2 and HR 4 are functioning well. The massive nutritional database is a wonder, monitoring total daily fat consumption. (saturated and trans fats), cholesterol, total carbs including a daily collection of dietary fiber and sugars, a compilation of total protein consumed and total of seven or eight different necessary vitamins. I had heard that as soon as Google took over this was abandoned as too time consuming to maintain, but because of complaints from longtime users of this database some of the information was restored. The source of all this data comes from nutritional information available about various food products which are required to show it on their packaging. If Google has indeed deep-sixed this, is the information accessible anywhere else?

I recently got a Garmin Vivosmart 5 to replace my Fitbit Charge I had for many years. Can’t believe I just made the switch, personally, the Garmin blows the Fitbit out of the water!

Garmin swim 2. Gives you pretty accurate yards that you can see while swimming. My Fitbit charge wouldn’t show distance until I stopped and synchronized with my phone after. Also, wet touchscreen on the Fitbit is useless.

Ya, I went through 2 fitbit charges before giving up and buying a pixel watch.

I like my Inspire a lot. I had issues with the last Charge I had but the Inspire has been great (I’m over the two year mark! My charges didn’t last much more than 2 years). The battery life is much better too. I’ve read articles that Fitbit app is being replaced on all android phones. To me this could imply a major refresh. If true - I’d say it’s a perfect time to get in!

I use a Fitbit charge but I take it off during rolling. There is someone at my class that uses a whoop with a bicep strap and he likes it. I asked if it ever slips or causes any problem and he said no. He's been using for training for 2 years now.

My wife and I had six different charge devices over the years. They all die just after the warranty! I really like the product but they don't last. Incidentally, the last one I bought I got the two year warranty. The product died after the first year and was replaced and then the replacement died 3 months after the warranty. Unless you want to buy one every year or so... don't but the fitbit Charge.

I don't believe you're going to find anything that fits those requirements. Heart rate monitoring while swimming is very difficult and only the most expensive garmins would I trust that it's being accurate. My recommendation would be a Fitbit Charge, I think that's going to be the best bet, it meets all of your other requirements and will track heart rate outside of the pool.

This. I was a long time Fitbit user with several Charges and a Versa. Switched to Garmin after Fitbit started to go downhill. My Garmin vivoactive 5 has been a great experience and I haven't looked back.

Honestly for the price point I would not get a fit bit. I had a charge and versa 2 or 3. The product wasn't great. The features struggled to work outside the basic health tracking and after a 2.5 years it was getting finicky about charging. I got a Samsung galaxy 6 instead. It was about the same price as a versa. All the advertised features work consistently without a fight. It is a much better product. Like you said they're phasing out the fit bit so if I were you I would go with the same brand watch as your phone for ease of use or something like a Garmin.

I’ve been using Fitbit for years. I’m currently on my second Versa Lite (had to buy a 2nd on eBay). I upgraded a few years ago to a Charge something, but the music controls didn’t work, so I returned and turned back to the Lite. It’s starting to require more frequent charging, which is a bummer. I’m starting to consider other options, but everything seems to have such a short battery life!

I had a Charge before actually (before the screen died and Google said tough luck). It was good for daily HR but I found every kind of activity tracking was really poor unless you had GPS on, and then it chewed through the battery like crazy.

you are probably right and tends to be the end result. You are generally better off sticking with the more well known brands. Ignoring blood pressure your cheapest option for what you want is fitbit charge - but does include a screen - but reasonably small.

fitness bands I feel are more for health based reasons as generally their hr and gps isn't great for activity (fitness bands are like amzfit band, huawei band, fitbit charge etc). They have started to increase smart functionality and are getting closerto a smartwatch. Smartwatches are more for either companion to your phone (enabling phone features on your watch) - wear os on android or apple watch on iPhone - they can replicate a lot of what the fitness watches offer but its via 3rd party - so not an complete eco system. Then you get yoru fitness brands - garmin, coros, polar and suunto - where their focus is health, fitness and training metrics and analytics - the bonus of these wattches is long battery life and sport specific metrics. And there are the others which are a sort of cross between wear os/apple watch and the fitness watches - huawei , amazfit, xiaomi etc (and loads of chineese branded watches in this category) - these watches can provide great value for money, however health, fitness and training metrics can be much more hit and miss than the fitness watches. As to which is best for you would depend on your focus and what you want a smartwatch to do - yours post seem to be all health based - its worth noting that no watch is a medical device and while some components may have a form of medical approval (fda etc be advised that the type of medical approval sign off doesn't make them a medical device its just confirming they can provide to a specific level - which isn't necessary a medical level that hospitals etc can use). From a health perspective any all of these watches can work for you including fitness bands - just depend on the level of detail and what features you want. Personally I would suggest a fitbit charge for you or alternatively the pixel watch 3 (assuming you have an android). Why fitbit - they give a fair amount of depth to their health metrics and they provide an easy to understand level of insight to their data (note if you want stress detail and sleep score detail you will need a sub). PS - this will provide you with most of the stuff you wanted plus up to 7 day battery life. If you wanted all those features (except blood pressure) in a very classy package you could look at a withings - however I feel they are a bit hit and miss on some of their results, and while you do get a cut out screen note you will have to consume most of your data with the app. So why would you get a watch for health features: Sleep - I pefer one that focuses on recovery as duration is generally fairly accurate for most, sleep stages to a degree is a waste of time (no watch can accurate distinguish between light & rem - even sleep clinics struggle) - thus how a sleep aids your body in recharging makes sense to me - this is a focus for oura, garmin, whoop, polar and to a degree fitbit - garmin is the best at incorporating sleep into other features. Stress - the impact to your body's ANS - can be useful driver with other metrics to show how your body is reacting to various inputs (i.e. high stress during sleep can suggest you coming down with an illness/injury/over training - incorporating this into other metrics like training readiness can help you reduce training and instead maybe take a recovery day enabling your body to recover/have more energy to fight an illness - effectively reducing the chance of injury/illness. This is great summary by garmin of what each health metric is and what it offers and why you might want to track it. Not all garmins have all these features but most do, and most of the other watches have similar features but not to the same level of detail. [https://www.garmin.com/en-GB/garmin-technology/health-science/](https://www.garmin.com/en-GB/garmin-technology/health-science/)

I have used a Fitbit Charge as my smartwatch for years. I think I'm on my third one and I only need to charge it about once a week. And with this latest one I got, it now has navigation and texting, two things I was missing in the past. It's smaller than even the 41mm Pixel and has everything I need. I'm with you ... just can't give up the battery life for a pixel watch.

Fitbit is fitness tracker. All the other options you mentioned are way more expensive smart watches. I still think Fitbit is good for general health tracking. Plus I really like sleep tracking and found Fitbit Charge comfortable to wear in bed compared to watches.

Why not just stick with the Fitbit Charge? My Fitbit also measured the little things. But it also picked up on too much. Garmin prefers to count little steps as "accidents" such as typing on a keyboard. If you are using it to win a challenge, then Fitbit might be better for you. But if you want it for running or workout suggestions, then Garmin is better.

Yes I left Fitbit when they got rid of Fitbit Bingo :(

Before I got more seriously into running, I really liked my Fitbit Charge. The best thing about it is that it would detect my activities automatically. So it knew if I went for a walk, went for a run, went for a bike ride, without having to tell it that's what I was doing. It counted my steps and tracked my heart rate 24/7, and it would tell me how many minutes I spent in each heart rate zone every day/week. With Coros, it doesn't track much at all unless you tell it you're about to do a workout. So I think Coros watches are best for analyzing workouts and training for events like races, FitBit is better as a general fitness tracker.

I wear a Fitbit charge cause it's under 100 bucks on sale and it gets rated as pretty reliable/ accurate. I agree with what you are saying and agree they have been consistently downgrading the app.

I use a withing pad under the mattress to capture sleep date and also a fitbit charge watch. I have sleep apnea too.

I've been using one for the better part of 2 months now. Same use situation kinda. I use it for time, timers, and sleep tracking. I had a fitbit charge before it that was great until it died. I wasn't going to drop another $100-140 for a watch to last a little over a year again. The watch pro 2 is awesome if you are willing to accept it's compromises. On the latest firmware, it duplicates notifications for me. It can and will disconnect from your phone if you go out of range or close the companion app. It likes for you to leave that in the background and have the connection notification in your notification shade (on Android at least, I am unsure of iPhone behavior). Neither of those are that big of a deal to me. What annoys me is when you set timers; you cannot leave the timer screen. The crown can accidentally stop the timer if it catches on clothes while you're moving around. I wear long sleeve rash guards at work and when it's raining; the wet rash guard sleeves will interact with the touchscreen and stop my timers, because again you can't leave the timer screen. I've already given feedback about how I'd love to have them modify the timer software's behavior. You *should* be able to send it to the background and go to the home screen. But as of right now it isn't designed that way. I've found a few screens where it remains on 24 hr time despite me setting it for 12 hr. Basically, it's got issues that can be patched with updates. I charge it once a week (a full 7 days). The battery life is AMAZING. I've only found one review that accurately describes the watch pro 2. It's a middle ground between fitness tracker and smartwatch. My Fitbit did not let me customize anything besides a watchface; it didn't do phone calls. It did last as long between charges. With the watch pro 2 you can have 4 "widget" screens in addition to the watchface. They have 4 spots per screen and they have widgets for each corner or a larger widget that takes two spaces (top or bottom). It has a "app menu" for anything you can't find a widget for. I don't regret buying mine. For the price point it's phenomenal.

I’m not familiar enough with Garmin+ to know. Honestly kind of a newcomer. Had a Fitbit charge for many years.

You have to remember that Fitbits are manufactured and sold by the hundreds of thousands. It's inevitable that some small number of people are going to have a problem with theirs. It's no different for any other consumer electronics product. You always play the odds when you buy any tech, but odds are that yours will work as advertised. The Fitbit brand has taken a lot of heat since Google bought it. But considering the competition, I'm not surprised that Tom continues to rate it high. I've been very happy with the three Charge models I've bought since 2016.

Fitbit charge with a sweatband over it to prevent scratches

I had 3 Charge’s that all died in less than 18 months. This last time, instead of buying a new Charge 6, I bought a Garmin VivoActive 5. The size takes a bit of getting used to, but I’m happy to have broken up with FitBit for good.

Good fitting running shoes! I have a pair of Saucony Hurricane 24s that I like, but they're a bit pricey (looks like around $150 when I Google them but they were a gift so I'm not entirely certain) Prior to those I had a pair of New Balances, just a basic clearance pair of running shoes, and they were also very comfortable. Ideally get yourself 2 pairs of different brands/models so you can rotate which is good both for your feet/ankles etc and for the longevity of your shoes. Also, a high quality sports bra! I have some Shefit bras that I really like, they're great high support sports bras, a couple of cons though: They're not super extended sizing, I wear a 2x traditionally and I'm in their biggest size. It is adjustable though, so I think I could still fit if I was a 3x, but probably not beyond that. They're also pretty pricey, though they do often have some less popular colors on clearance. I'm also a big fan of Nike sports bras, and if you wear plus sizes, check Ross! They frequently have Nike sports bras in plus sizes (and probably in other sizes too, but I don't check bc I don't wear them lol) the options are a bit more limited, but it's great if you need enough bras to get between laundry days and don't wanna drop $400 on fancy sports bras all at once. You don't need a fitness watch, but they can be nice and motivating, I'd recommend starting using Strava, then if you decide you want more features you can start shopping around for fitness watches. I personally have a Garmin Forerunner 55 and I love it, I've also had a lot of fitbits and I don't recommend them. I've used the Fitbit charges, and all of them have malfunctioned within a year. The forerunner is a little pricey but it's comparable to a lot of Fitbit models price wise, and they frequently go on sale around holidays! You can shell out for a better model of Garmin but imo it isn't worth it until you're a little more advanced! I almost never find myself wishing I had a model with more features, tbh. I also am a strong supporter of thick authentic socks. I have some thick Nike and Columbia socks (also from Ross) and they're a life saver, nothing is a motivation killer like having blisters all up on the backs of your ankles. As for a running vest, I personally think they're super useful, since women's clothes so rarely have decent pockets. I like to have my keys and phone and I don't wear my glasses but need them with me, plus an inhaler, it can be a lot for just your pockets, but it depends how long/far you want to run and how much you plan on bringing with you. If you expect to be running over an hour I would recommend fueling and having water with you, and then a best would be beneficial. But it's really a personal preference when you wanna get one. The best thing you can have is a community of support behind you, and a GOOD WARMUP AND COOL DOWN ROUTINE! It's very important to prevent injury!