I've bought off brand ones and they never hold up. I've been wearing the HR/Charge one's for years. 2 years ago my husband bought all our kids their own. One's a runner, one has anxiety, the other is working on military. Heart rate monitor is sleep tracker is the biggest thing for all of them. Quality holds up, customer service is pretty good.
My experience with the Charge line of Fitbits has been mostly positive. I bought my original Charge HR nearly 10 years ago (May 2016), and have only had to upgrade twice. The HR lasted 2-1/2 years. I replaced it with a Charge 3 in November 2018, then a Charge 5 in October 2021. The Charge 5 is now 4-1/2 years old and still going strong.
I briefly considered switching to Garmin until I saw all the reports about its poor sleep tracking. Just my opinion, but I've concluded for now that switching away from Charge is premature. I'm going to hang in as long as I can, hoping first to hear more from Google about its commitment to trackers. Plus, I've got 10 years of historical data built up in my Fitbit records.
Also, my opinion again, but it seems to me that the tracker market generally is overdue for a significant technological leap. New devices, new features, new brands? Things in the tracker market have been pretty static lately, wouldn't you say? A mature market? I doubt it.
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.
Had a Fitbit but got fed up with their refusal to show eg. the past month, rather than just the calendar month. It means that if its a Monday or 1st of the month, you get graphs with one point on, and cant view short-term trends/progress.
So I moved to Garmin, and Polar. On non-subscription, comparing Fitbit HR, Venu2 and Polar Unite (all budget models) I found:
Fitbit - best for its sleep analysis graph, and viewing long-term trends. Basic activity data, but not enough if you are training seriously. Poor charging and battery life.
Garmin - best for activity analysis, excellent range of data and well presented but not v.detailed sleep breakdown. Lots of extra linked facilities. Good battery length and charging.
Polar - phenomenal for sleep analysis EXCEPT it's not good at recognising time spent awake in middle of night. Rotary graphs are a bit weird. 2 day battery as I keep HR & HRV on. Website page as well as app, for extra data analysis.
But most concerning is the fact that they don't agree, not even vaguely, leaving me to wonder whether the whole thing is a con! For example, last night's REM, in order as above: 1h 5min , 29min, 1h 37min.
And today's energy usage so far: 955 Cal, 1,008 Cal, 1139 Cal.
So which should I believe? Are they making money out of fictitious data?
Had a Fitbit but got fed up with their refusal to show eg. the past month, rather than just the calendar month. It means that if its a Monday or 1st of the month, you get graphs with one point on, and cant view short-term trends/progress.
So I moved to Garmin, and Polar. On non-subscription, comparing Fitbit HR, Venu2 and Polar Unite (all budget models) I found:
Fitbit - best for its sleep analysis graph, and viewing long-term trends. Basic activity data, but not enough if you are training seriously. Poor charging and battery life.
Garmin - best for activity analysis, excellent range of data and well presented but not v.detailed sleep breakdown. Lots of extra linked facilities. Good battery length and charging.
Polar - phenomenal for sleep analysis EXCEPT it's not good at recognising time spent awake in middle of night. Rotary graphs are a bit weird. 2 day battery as I keep HR & HRV on. Website page as well as app, for extra data analysis.
But most concerning is the fact that they don't agree, not even vaguely, leaving me to wonder whether the whole thing is a con! For example, last night's REM, in order as above: 1h 5min , 29min, 1h 37min.
And today's energy usage so far: 955 Cal, 1,008 Cal, 1139 Cal.
So which should I believe? Are they making money out of fictitious data?
Yes water messes with the sensor apparently but wouldn't they be the same on every watch?
Software is improving, I'm really liking the preview on many aspects.
As I said, asides from YouTube music and
Maps which are constantly broken (infuriating really as I bought the charge for this reason) it's pretty good
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.
Agapeima
