Was getting the Charge 5 worth it for you?

[akatsushi]

Hi! I pre-ordered the Charge 5 a few days ago since my inspire 2 got moisture in it and died on me.. some issues I had with the inspire 2 were it falsely counting steps and workouts, like it would say it detected 20 minutes of swimming when I wasn't.

How accurate does the Charge 5 seem to any of you who have gotten it? I'm personally really excited to get mine, I know it will be a big step up from the inspire 2, but I also wonder how much of a step up?

[nik0mahs]

I do not like my Charge 5 as I do not use the features on it compared to my Charge 2. I miss the stair count feature and find many of the Charge 5 enhancements useless.  Also there have been syncing issues with the Charge 5 that I never experienced with the Charge 2. The water-resistant feature is nice along with the color screen but overall not worth the money. I will consider alternatives when I replace the Charge 5.

** I only bought the Charge 5 as my Charge 2 screen was cracked....... big mistake.

[SunsetRunner]

I recently purchased a charge 5. It's now in a dresser drawer. Sleep tracking was non-existent. Step count way off. Heart rate during workout unreliable. I've read all of the suggested fixes and tried them to no avail. This device was not cheap, but the performance sure seems like it should be. 

[Cllecr]

My charge 5 seems accurate enough but I'm not happy with the unused new features replacing many of the most useful that I had on my charge 4 (weather,  agenda, ....)  I used a friend's Versa for awhile and appreciated all the 3rd party apps that could be added.

[finsternis]

I've had my Charge 5 for about three days. I'm going to be honest here, I'm thinking of returning it to the store. There's way too many issues that make it no better than training with just my phone.

- Dynamic GPS didn't work during my run. I need accurate readings because I train for competition. Therefore the Fitbit app is useless for me to track my runs, and continuing to use the watch is highly dependent on it syncing readings to my other apps

- Step count is generally wayyy overestimated (a day when I worked from home and did almost nothing for sports, it counted as over 3k steps)

- Activity data isn't synced properly to my connected app, MyFitnessPal. Even if the step count and sports activity readings were accurate, they're useless to me if I can't add the corresponding calorie consumption to my daily expenditure.

- But wait! There's more. When I added in manually my calorie balance from my running day to MyFitnessPal so I could balance my calorie intake with my expenditure, the Fitbit app synced it *back to itself* creating a bigger calorie deficit than actual. For Pete's sake, man!

All this and the lack of settings to fix the syncing, detecting the slightest hand movement as random sports, lack of support (hence the posting on this forum where company representatives are blatantly absent) makes me feel like I just bought an expensive fancy watch. I was expecting more value and less headaches for my money.

[Kris227]

I have had a number of trackers before this, both fitbit and non-. They all seem to have the characteristic of "they work or they don't". This one came from ebay from a person who seemed to have a few used charge 5's and had a 100% rating so I gave it a shot figuring they probably came from fitbit as returns for various reasons. So far it has worked perfectly (came with non-OEM charger). It immediately updated and has since worked fine. I only need it for tracking steps (very close to 2 other non-fitbit trackers I had been using and had checked for distance),and sleep (seems accurate as to number of times I wake up, and rem with memory of dream. Charges in an hour or 2 and lasts a week or so. I use the default display. I did not get a screen protector. I have never scratched a screen.

 - I put 1/2 of a butterfly suture/closure/bandaid thing over the contacts while wearing it. A previous one reddened my skin a bit and I just wanted to be sure.Probably depends on individual and sweat level.

 - I do NOT use GPS - I set GPS to phone. I do not wear in shower or get wet (personal opinion here: I think folks that do are idi**s). I finally turned off the vibrator to save battery but that seemed to work just fine for goals and messages.

 - I did find that wearing it while using a TENS unit on my other wrist caused the screen to become pretty much dysfunctional. Time, changing the display, and finally a reset cured it, but I think time was the biggest factor. Talking maybe an hour max.

So! Works for me! Hope yours works for you!

My phone is android Moto One 5G Ace on 12. Never loses BT connection.