Review: Fitbit Charge 5

In the years since Fitbit first released the Fitbit Tracker—a tiny, clothespin-like pedometer that debuted in 2008—the company has tried a lot of tactics to stay at the forefront of the field that it helped create. It added music, integration with trackers like Tile, and a partnership with Deepak Chopra. Eventually Google bought the company.

But even as Fitbit faced stiff competition from the Apple Watch, its trackers have always won me over. They’re attractive, affordable, easy to use, and simple. I’m not a competitive powerlifter, and I don’t want to drop below 15 percent body fat; I also don’t want to get addicted to, or ruled by my fitness tracker. I just want a device that will tell the time, gently nudge me toward slightly healthier behavior, and let me ignore it the rest of the time.

This sweet spot is where Fitbit excels. The Charge 4 was my favorite fitness tracker for most people, and even without being able to test its most touted new feature—the new Daily Readiness score, which I am very excited to write about—the Charge 5 still fits the bill. It’s attractive and simple and has all the features you need and none you don’t.

Photograph: Fitbit

Last year’s Charge 4 has a starker look, with sharper edges and a black bezel. In contrast, the Charge 5 is softer and more organic, with curved edges on its gold bezel (and no “fitbit” inscribed on it anywhere, thank God). As always, it's offered in a huge variety of colors and has lots of accessories. If you’re an active person, I suggest immediately swapping out the standard solid silicone strap for the perforated sport strap or nylon band. The Charge 5 is wide enough that sweat may collect underneath the standard silicone strap and irritate your skin.

It has a beautifully crisp, full-color AMOLED screen that's wider, 10 percent bigger, and twice as bright as the Charge 4 display—the perfect size if you want an unobtrusive tracker and not a smartwatch wannabe. I’ve tried smaller Fitbits, like the Inspire 2 and the Luxe, but their screens and induction-touch buttons were too wonky and unresponsive. Thankfully, the Charge 5 dumped that pesky touch button on the bezel. The screen is also wide enough that it immediately registers my sweaty taps rather than forcing me to peck at the screen to try to end a run, as I did with the Luxe.

You also have the option to set the display to always-on, though that will significantly reduce the battery life. With multiple tracked activities per day, the Charge 5’s battery lasted about a week. The accelerometer seems to have improved as well; the screen lit up with even the most minor flick of my wrist, so I didn't need the always-on feature.

Like the Charge 4, the 5 has onboard GPS to accurately track your pace and distance for outdoor activities. However, unlike many other GPS-enabled fitness trackers, it also has connected GPS. Onboard GPS is useful if you don’t want to carry your phone, but I usually take my phone with me on outdoor runs. I was startled by how quickly the Charge 5 pinpointed my location with connected GPS as compared to Coros or Garmin watches that occasionally leave me tapping my foot at my front door.

The Charge 5 also has a bevy of other features that Fitbit has introduced in recent years, which include smart alarms to determine when you’re at a good point in your sleep cycle to start an alarm, ECGs for heart-rate monitoring, an EDA scan app to measure your response to stress, sleep analysis tools with an SpO₂ monitor that tracks your blood oxygen level at night, and Zone Minutes (explained more in this review), which notify you when you enter peak “zones” of fat burning and such during your workouts—personalized to your cardiovascular fitness and age.

If I have one complaint, it's that the Charge 5 kept telling me to slow down my cardio because I tend to push the peak zone a lot. No, Charge 5! I’m out here to blast the psychic pain away! I wanna go fast!

Photograph: Fitbit

A lot of new wearable innovations center around software, rather than hardware. Earlier this year, Fitbit announced that its next premium trackers would use Google’s WearOS. That has yet to materialize, although Fitbit debuted Google Fast Pair in the Charge 5. Like an Apple Watch, you can now hold your Charge 5 near an Android phone and the app will pop up for fast pairing. I have an iPhone and wasn’t able to test this; however, tapping on the Fitbit app and adding a device wasn’t particularly hard.

I will be sad if Fitbit goes all in on Google. Fitbit’s stand-alone app is one of the most attractive and easy to use you can find, and the metrics it provides are accurate and useful (if, annoyingly, paywalled inside a Fitbit Premium subscription).

Earlier this year, Fitbit announced that it would include a Daily Readiness score in the app. It’s a comprehensive metric that will take into account your recent activity, heart rate variability (HRV), and sleep to determine how hard you should push yourself that day. The concept is similar to the Garmin Body Battery metric or the, er, Readiness Score on the Oura Ring.

I wasn’t able to test Daily Readiness, because Fitbit hasn’t rolled it out yet, but it’s worth noting here that Fitbit, like Garmin, compares your fitness to other Fitbit users like you in the app. If that data doesn’t interest you, and you’d rather compare your performance to your past self, an Oura Ring or Whoop band will take your baseline measurements and probably be more useful.

You can check similar measurements already, even without Daily Readiness. When I checked my cardio fitness in the app, I saw that Fitbit rates me as being in excellent shape for women of similar age and weight. Garmin rates me as being in decent shape, but not great. Compared to Whoop users, I’m barely alive.

A good Fitbit, like this one, is for people who want to be healthier without thinking about it too much or making it the focus of their lives. I work full time and have two small children. The Charge 5 might not be the best choice for someone aiming to set a personal record in a marathon, but the experience of using it is fun and largely frictionless. That's what most people really need in a fitness tracker.

After all, perfect is the enemy of good. A fitness tracker doesn't need to be entirely comprehensive as long as using it isn't difficult, anxiety-producing, or discouraging, and the Charge 5 is definitely not that.