All right, i bought the fitbit charge 4 back on april 18th of 2020. From amazon.com. Now i paid 162.32 after texas taxes to buy the fitbit charge 4., but feel free to look around and see if you can get it for a cheaper price. So to make this simple, the fitbit charge 4 has become quite a big part of my fitness journey. In the past i’d say six ish months, just because i almost never take it off because it is extremely comfortable. Now i love to track the walks. I take with my dogs and since we’re doing the work from home, and i am doing just customer support all from home on the desk behind me. It is a stand up desk, but that doesn’t mean i’m that active i’m just standing there. I do love to take my lunch breaks, which i get an hour for so i walk my dogs during my lunches, as well as i usually take them out right before dinner after work. So i love to just put on the walk and track it to see how far i go with them, as well as how many steps we may have taken. It’S also helped me kind of learn the neighborhood in terms of how long it takes me to get around certain areas just in case. Maybe i only have like 10 minutes to take for a walk before dinner starts, so i kind of can map out a better route for myself to make sure i’m back in time.
So i mentioned gps and i did some more testing and here is a test. I ran to see if the accuracy has improved at all and what i think about it in terms of you doing your cardio with it. So for the first walk around the neighborhood, i walked 1.17 miles. It took me 18 minutes and 25 seconds. I took 2 ‘3 steps now for my second walk. I walked 1.15 miles which took me 19 minutes and 30 seconds kind of weird, as i actually uh took me longer to go a shorter distance, but it took me more steps at 2400, so that’s only seven more steps with a little less distance, uh calculated on The device but just know this was also done walking my dog, so my dogs do stop here and there i tried not to really move around while they were stopped in position, but it could be a reason as to why i was getting slightly different numbers throughout. I also was passing people, so sometimes i’d go a little bit into the road and back so it could affect the numbers slightly, but just know that’s pretty close overall, i think in terms of getting decent numbers and accuracy through gps on the same path walk just In opposite directions, so for my last test i decided to run the same exact path, the original direction, so it’s the same one. I done it on the first attempt and with this one that run was 1.
06 miles tracked via gps, took me eight minutes and only 1 236 steps. The steps being cut in half makes perfect sense, as you’re taking longer strides for the same amount of distance. However, the 1.06 miles is about a tenth of a mile difference, um than my other ones, so that’s kind of where i’m seeing a problem with it, like i shouldn’t, be getting a tenth of a mile difference for something that’s only a mile in length. I think maybe the running couldn’t calculate it as easily. I put up some images here. You can see in my walks it’s much more jaggedy than i think i could track a little bit more in terms of exactly where i went because it’s slower, but with the runs, i think, it’s trying to catch up to my positioning as i’m going along making It a more straight line throughout and making the distance just a little bit shorter, so that’s, something i noticed and as to why it could be a shorter distance um, but just know you have to watch out for that when using the gps. So for walks it looks like it’s pretty spot on, but then, if you’re doing a run, you might find that’s a little off here and there so now we’re going to jump into what i don’t like about the fitbit charge 4. going with the cons. First. This time so my first con and the one that made it number one on my list, i believe in my last video review – is that the spotify is a joke.
There’S, still no updates in adding any uh songs or playlists onto the device. Just like you can with the ioniq and pandora, and i think that should be something that look into adding into any device that you get moving forward i’m trying to get rid of taking a phone around with me because it sits in my pocket. I don’t care to buy an armband um or anything like that. So six of my pockets, i can listen to music or podcasts while doing my cardio based activity. So please look into adding that into your next iteration of this device. Next con is that getting gps set up when you go for a walk runner. Other activity can take one to three minutes. I’Ve found to actually have a connect to the gps and satellite connection. I don’t know why, but i’ll sit there literally on the sidewalk, with my dogs for like one to two minutes, especially in this test. I was literally trying to start the exact same position and at the exact same position, so i’m, just standing there for, like a whole i’d say i’d say it took me like two minutes on average before it actually connects, and i can hit play and get going. So that is an annoying thing, so make sure that before you start you hit play so that it can search and connect before you actually get outside, and then you can hit and start and be ready to go.
So i started like again one to three minutes before you actually want to start your run. That way it connects on time also. It does feel like i’m charging, the battery for the fitbit charge 4. Quite a bit. However, i am using the gps, a lot which has been known to drag down the battery pretty quickly so just know if you are using it for a lot of your walks or runs, you may have to charge it a bit more. So my last probably four to five days, which is within the realm of what they say in the advertising. So i can’t like knock it too hard on this, but i wish it did last, maybe like a whole week, while using the gps as well and hopefully they’re able to get a bit better of a battery in the next version. One bigger con i found, but doesn’t happen too often. Luckily, is that maybe, once a month i run to an issue where i just get a straight black screen on the fitbit charge forward that i cannot get out of until the battery dies, or i hard to reset the fitbit itself for hard resetting. I believe you hold the button down for eight minutes. I really just hold it down until i feel another beep and that basically just resets the device and that allows it to turn back on is pretty annoying the only other way to get to restarts. If the battery dies, then you recharge it.
Otherwise, if you’re charging it back up, i just can never get the screen to show up again. So that is one big annoyance i have seen come up, but again, it’s pretty infrequent, which is good. An improvement i like to see in the next iteration is that i love to be able to set up interval times directly on the fitbit charge, 4 itself versus having to set up in the app first and then sync it over. I don’t know why they decided to do it this way. I really wish that they had just set it up right in the device, so i could say like do one minute workout with a two minute rest that would make it much easier, so things like jump roping, i love to do interval sets, but i can’t really Do that very well, because i have to bring my phone with me: go into the app set. The workout interval set the rest interval and then sync, it wait for it to sync make sure it goes through then use it. You have to do that for every single change i can’t even save different versions. I literally have to do that for every single different timing. I want to do so that’s very annoying and i hope they make improvements for that in the next one. Also, the updates you receive when doing your cardio thing so say: you’re like running when you’re near the end of a run.
Sometimes your watch will notify you that you reached a cardio or fat burning zone, and this can make it think it makes me think. Sometimes. I’M done with my run so i’ll pause it and then i’ll end. It thinking i’m actually done with the run why i actually have like a tenth of a mile to go. This doesn’t always happen, but you go into different zones when you’re running um, depending on like how hard the run is. Maybe it’s like really hard uphill. All of a sudden you go into a different zone and it’ll tell you that now you’re in a fat burning zone now you’re in a cardio zone and by doing that it kind of messes me up. So i wish that they didn’t have this right off the bat, and that is easier to turn off. I think you can turn off the actual settings, but if you can make sure that you go in and turn this off, because it is more annoying than helpful to actually know when you’re in a cardio or fat burning zone because simply you’re just running, i really Don’T care to get the information, so i just don’t think this should be even put in at all and my last one just turn off all the other notifications. They’Re all very annoying. I don’t know why i need to get as many notifications as my phone gets on, my watch it’s just more annoying more distracting.
I recommend just turning them off that’s a personal preference, but that is just a con for me and how many notifications you can get because you can set up like text notifications, calendar notifications, uh, email, notifications, pretty much any kind of notification you can like set up On this as well and it’s, just super annoying so just turn them off now what i do like about the fitbit charge 4 after six months, it’s very, very, very, very comfortable um. I almost never take this thing off unless i have to charge it and it’s gone through a lot of beating. I mean i’ve taken it camping with me. It’S gone under water swimming uh. Rivers it’s got a lot of dust on it. It can go through uh showers with soap um like a lot of different things. It can take quite a beating and it’s still going strong today looks pretty much brand new, so i have no complaints with it in terms of comfort and durability. The device is also pretty straightforward, so the ui and how you use it to the user experience is pretty easy to use. I mean you just turn on you just flip between different items. You want go to your workout, you select it play and you’re good to go and then from there. It just sends it to your app on your phone and everything is simply tracked. So there’s nothing really hard to use it once you get it all set up again.
The main problem i have is that interval set up on the device, but really everything else other than that is very easy to just kind of go for it and you’re ready to track all of your activities throughout the day. Sleep as well heart rate. All these things get tracked seamlessly without you doing very much. Also. I found that syncing with the fitbit app, which is one of my favorite fitness apps so far, is that it’s very, very good with my pixel 3.? So i am using the pixel 3 here as the device that i use for tracking pretty much everything, including having the fitbit app on here um. So when syncing, all i do is again, i just track the device or the workout on my device and then it just sends it over as soon as i open the app it tries to resync it, and i just have it so, every time i open it, It resyncs, but just know it’s very, very, very seamless and i’ve had no problems with this so far so that’s about it. I do have some improvements i’d like to see in the next one, but this one will do for now i’m going to keep it until. I see the next good device come out. I may look into other devices for next year as well to test against it, but just know for now i will be using it up until i see something i think is better to purchase and test moving forward, and that is it on my six month.
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