Fitbit Charge HR

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TerryJackson61
TerryJackson61 Posts: 733 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Ist it worth the extra money to get the HR version?

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  • ew_david
    ew_david Posts: 3,473 Member
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    There are so many different opinions on this, but I'll give you my experience. I had the Charge HR and it seemed to work as designed for me. It never overestimated anything. I guess I probably didn't need the HR part because I don't do a lot of cardio where knowing my HR would be beneficial. Overall, it was an okay device, but I don't like things on my wrist and that thing was huge on me. I have other feelings about it, but I'll just leave it at that.
  • lovinglife876
    lovinglife876 Posts: 3 Member
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    I have had the HR for over a year, I LOVE IT! I would not want to be without it, honestly, love it.
  • captmiddy
    captmiddy Posts: 147 Member
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    It really depends no your fitness habits. For people who use a treadmill or want step counts while shopping, it may not be very useful. I have a step counter in my watch and I wear a FitBit One. On days where I go hiking without any restricting things in my arms, the two are very close in step count. But if I go shopping and push a cart around several stores I have had days where my watch shows 500 steps and my FitBit shows 4000 steps. And if I am on my treadmill desk, the difference is even worse, I can easily hit 15000 steps on my FitBit while only showing about 300 steps on my watch. Since the motion of your upper body is important to wrist based devices like these, things that do not follow in the normal pattern of walking/running do not count accurately. For me, I found a FitBit One is the best option and if you want a HR type device consider getting a low cost watch with an HR reader in it or an actual HR sensor you where around your chest.

    That said, I am a big fan of the FitBit products, I have owned 3 now, a Zip and two Ones (the second one replaced the first after its battery stopped lasting more then 3 days and wasn't sending warnings when it was getting low). I really considered their higher end wrist devices but based on my usage, it was unlikely this was going to be good. I was able to test this both with my watch and with a Withings device I had that also had a wrist band.
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
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    captmiddy wrote: »
    It really depends no your fitness habits. For people who use a treadmill or want step counts while shopping, it may not be very useful. I have a step counter in my watch and I wear a FitBit One. On days where I go hiking without any restricting things in my arms, the two are very close in step count. But if I go shopping and push a cart around several stores I have had days where my watch shows 500 steps and my FitBit shows 4000 steps. And if I am on my treadmill desk, the difference is even worse, I can easily hit 15000 steps on my FitBit while only showing about 300 steps on my watch. Since the motion of your upper body is important to wrist based devices like these, things that do not follow in the normal pattern of walking/running do not count accurately. For me, I found a FitBit One is the best option and if you want a HR type device consider getting a low cost watch with an HR reader in it or an actual HR sensor you where around your chest.

    That said, I am a big fan of the FitBit products, I have owned 3 now, a Zip and two Ones (the second one replaced the first after its battery stopped lasting more then 3 days and wasn't sending warnings when it was getting low). I really considered their higher end wrist devices but based on my usage, it was unlikely this was going to be good. I was able to test this both with my watch and with a Withings device I had that also had a wrist band.

    I put mine somewhere else when I do the treadmill desk. and it counts pretty well.
  • rubrink
    rubrink Posts: 43 Member
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    My experience (and this is pretty universally shared) is the HR works really well for running (and probably walking), but it's terribly inaccurate for most everything else exercise wise. But I do like it
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
    edited January 2016
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    TerryJackson61 wrote: »
    Ist it worth the extra money to get the HR version?

    The only useful data point, given that it's a low end device with no correlation to any other data sources, is Resting Heart Rate

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