Fitbit Charge HR review.

First I have to apologize: I wrote this review months ago (back in October - I'm trying to edit to make it slightly more accurate but if it seems a little off, it's because it's a bit old) and totally forgot to post it up. I still feel the same way as I did when I first wrote this, though, and I've added a note at the bottom.

This review might be a bit late because I don’t know if you can still buy the Charge HR’s, or if you can just get the Charge HR 2’s now, so this will be a review on Fitbits as a whole. I got a Fitbit Charge HR for Christmas in 2015 and I feel like I can finally give a review on it now that I’ve had it for over year, dealt with customer service over several different issues, and used it daily. 

Let me say that I like my Fitbit, and I like the information it gives me. It’s interesting knowing how I sleep (or how it *thinks* I sleep; sometimes I find that a bit inaccurate), I’ve wanted to know my heart rate from the beginning, and knowing how many steps or miles I walk in a day was great. It helped me keep track of my goal to log in 1000 active miles in 2016. The app is pretty user friendly, easy for people like me to get (sometimes it takes me a few tries to grasp it all) and I was concerned about that because I don’t have an iPhone (or a smart phone in general, just a 5th generation iPod touch). I like knowing all the information it can give me. It’d say it goes for any Fitbit that you may have. So things like that are great. Is it 100% accurate? Well, no. I get quite a bit of steps in when I’m sitting on the couch knitting. ;) The other day I was stretching my hands overhead and standing in one place and all of a sudden I felt that vibration against my wrist that I had met my 10k step goal, just by stretching. I’m not sure how accurate the heart rate monitor is, and I know that soon after Christmas there was that whole big thing about Fitbit being sued and not being accurate. That never bothered me. It gives me a general idea, which I like. I can track my workouts, it helps keep me accountable. Rest days make me feel like a lazy sloth because I’m not meeting that goal (which hurts and helps someone like me, which I’ve touched base on in previous issues about Fat Girl Mentality and the possible fact that maybe I went about getting healthy all wrong) so, that could be a pro or a con depending on how you look at it.

So while I do like the device. I like it when it is WORKING. I’ve had a lot of issues with my Fitbit breaking and falling apart. I wash it as per the directions on their website, I don’t shower with it on. I take it off immediately after a sweaty workout and wipe the sweat off of it. It KILLED me to walk up the 4 flights of stairs to go down the water slide and not have all those darn steps count because it would probably get wet and therefore ruined. I’m not hard on it at all, that I think at least. I work out with it on, obviously, I mean it’s called FITbit, I take it off when I shower, clean it, sleep with it on and I am currently on my 3rd replacement since Christmas. In my experience my Fitbit Charge HR has lasted approximately six to twelve weeks before falling apart. The side button falling off, air bubbles getting in the band, etc. Customer service was great the first couple of times and replaced it for free, but this last time (with still two months left in the one year warranty) it’s been absolutely deplorable. Constantly telling me about the new Fitbit’s, the color I originally had being unavailable (I had one in teal and it’s been phased out as they go on to the Charge HR 2, so I was only able to choose between two colors), getting told one thing from one Customer Service Representative, but then getting told something completely different from another one, asking a question and being ignored over four times before finally I started getting snippy to get my question answered. It’s so frustrating. I get that you they made a new Fitbit and it’s considered an upgrade to what I had, but my Charge HR isn’t even a year old yet, I’m on my 4th one (3rd replacement) and I honestly believe that something that was $149 should last longer than 6-12 weeks. 

Do I recommend the Charge HR or Fitbit in general? Well, I’m not sure. Some people I know have never had an issue with their Fitbits and love them. Some have never had their Fitbit break but just don’t like the device. Others are like me: they like the device, but it’s constantly breaking. And now that I’m getting the runaround from Fitbit’s customer service, mixed together with the fact that I’ve had a terrible experience with these things breaking, I have no idea what to say. I honestly don’t. I love the device when it works. I love the device when I call customer service and can get customer service, not a constant feeling that I’m stupid and that they want me to drop another $149 on their new device. Why should I do that when this device obviously didn’t work well for me, especially when I’m really getting the runaround and I’m just not pleased with the customer service? It’s all a big question mark.

I’m not sure how long this new replacement will last. Frankly, I am not confident that it’ll last longer than 6-12 weeks because that has been my experience. In the mean time, I’m going to look at all the different fitness trackers I can find (anyone have any suggestions where I might find real people reviews on this, by the way?) and decide, because I like the idea of a fitness tracker, even if it does kind of make me wonder if it’s the best for me. Do I recommend the Fitbit? If you don’t get a defective one, sure. ;)

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Okay, so back to the present again, that last replacement is barely holding on. Just this week I had an issue where it stopped working. It's been superglued together twice. It lasted exactly four months, to the date before falling off. I glued it back together with E6000, and that help hold it together for another month or so. The band is now separating and it has major syncing issues. I've been looking in to Garmin trackers, which seem really interesting, but I'm still not 100% sure. I don't want to lose all those Fitbit badges I've earned over the years, I'm familiar with the Fitbit app, and I have no idea of the Charge 2 is a good step up or not. Phew! Why am I so addicted to the tracker?!