Review Fitbit Charge 3 watch: Suitable for health monitoring

Fitbit Charge 3 is probably one of the company's best fitness tracking watches. It can track physical activity, check daily routines and add challenging activities.

The Charge 3 watch price is quite reasonable ($ 150) with the feature set almost complete. It has heart rate measurement, sleep tracking, 50m water resistance, a display large enough for phone notifications, weather monitoring. The watch can be used for about 7 days after each charge.

Although Fitbit Charge 3 is advertised as fully functional, it still lacks the following basic elements:

1. No built-in GPS (it will use the GPS system on your phone)
2. Unable to save music and control music playback remotely
3. There is no app store
4. There is no watch face shop

If you are looking for a daily fitness tracking watch, a notification display and a smartwatch feature, Fitbit Charge 3 is a good choice. Just like every other manufacturer when embarking on a sports watch, Fitbit also equips its watch with all the features necessary to track physical activity. This time, Charge 3 has improved heart rate sensor. However, if you decide to buy or not, Fitbit Versa is probably still more choice thanks to the collection of watch faces, apps, larger display screens and many other functions that Charge 3 does not.

Design: Too good for a health monitoring device

The OLED touch screen of Charge 3 is larger than the previous Charge 2 version. The screen is just enough to display time, steps, heart rate on the same watch face. Users can easily look and swipe up to see physical activity data (standing time, sleep, walking, climbing stairs .), in which the swipe down is to view notifications. Fitbit's application allows separate control of notifications of individual applications.

The watch is also easy to wear, but not every strap is comfortable. The Charge 3 strap also uses a special exclusive connection, but it is not as difficult to use as the Fitbit Versa's strap.

Track regular physical activity

If talking about regular tracking, the Charge 3 is the device that works perfectly. It collects data and shows it right on the display screen or in the Fitbit app on the phone. However, when you start practicing, setting up a watch can be quite frustrating. If you want Charge 3 to switch to the fitness tracking mode, you first have to open the Exercise app, then a series of repetitions to set up. To stop, you have to press the button on the side of the watch twice, then touch the 'finish' icon. This setting is really cumbersome and takes a lot of time when you want to start practicing.

During practice, the Charge 3 screen only displays three pieces of information at a time. To view more, you need to touch the screen to change the data. The bigger, longer screen will hold more details, but you can't adjust it. The Charge 3 watch lacks a remote control function, which means you won't be able to play / pause or transfer songs from your device.

A few things to note

Not many watch faces and apps are a big minus. Although Charge 3 also has a few useful apps, the joy that is on the watch's behalf is not really discouraging.

Failure to store music on Fitbit Charge means that you have to stick to your phone when you want to practice and listen to music at the same time.

Quick reply is only available on Android, not supported on iPhone. A new software update allows you to send instant messages from the watch, but not for long. Charge 3 can answer phones, connect to wireless headsets via Bluetooth.

Water resistance is suitable for swimming activities. Perhaps this is the best feature on Fitbit's Charge watches.

Again a proprietary charger. Fitbit has never used the same charger for two different devices of the company and this is really annoying. Ideally, you should keep your watch charger as carefully as possible.

Battery life a week longer than the Versa line. This is a pretty good battery option for a Fitbit watch.