Is anyone satisfied with their Charge 3?

[kariweighsin]

I received my Charge 3 for Christmas and couldn’t wait to get it out of the box. Christmas Day I noticed I had over 7K steps and to say I was shocked would be an understatement since I didn’t start wearing the device until around 11AM and the steps had registered by 7PM and the only movement at that time was basting a turkey in the oven, driving to my destination, setting food on the table and moving from the dining room to the family room. 🙄

Yesterday, I was out running errands and noticed by about 3PM I’d racked up over 8K steps. Majority of my day consisted of sitting at the car dealership and browsing around Michaels and Target. If I’d had on my Versa, I know I would have only had about 3K - 5K steps which for me would have been accurate because it was a very lazy day. 

I’ve searched the forum (and topics) and have noticed so many posts expressing their dissatisfaction with the Charge 3 due to the inaccuracies which has me wondering if anyone is actually satisfied with their unit. I’ve had the zip, Charge, Charge 2, Flex 2, Ionic and Versa so I’m thinking I just ended up with a faulty unit (in defense of Fitbit, I purchased my unit at Target and when I opened the box I noticed how everything just fell out, almost as if it was a returned unit) and am considering swapping it out for another. 

[Stella_Nemesis]

My fitbit seems to be fine. I have records about 1500 steps, when I spend a day at home. And usual 8000-12000 steps are corresponding with activity and my previous numbers on other trackers.
But i don't use car.

[kariweighsin]

Thanks for your reply! I’m thinking I just managed to get a bad unit, which is understandable because I’ve never had this issue with any other Fitbit device. 😊

[BillGoesFaster]

The charge3 is an awful tracker. It is not that it doesn’t track steps. When you walk it is great. It is just that it adds steps, when driving or riding a motorcycle, (and includes the altitude you climb when driving as floors!!!) 

as a heart rate tool it is pretty decent.

it is a great object which i like

as a tracker tho it couldn’t be worse. Flex2 was not probe to the same errors.

also when you try to record a run or walk with it using phone gps, you are wassting your time. What a crock. Fitbit is having a laugh.

[BillGoesFaster]

For a device whose main function is to track steps, the charge 3 is simply non-functional.

Two main problems:

1. Recording a walk or run as an exercise using the Bluetooth link to phone gps is unreliable in the extreme. If it links at all it turns off after a few meters/minutes.

2. It tracks distance and altitude covered in a vehicle and converts to steps. 

Utter nonsense. What is also offensive is the fact that Ditbit moderators seem to have edited most of the comments under “experience with charge 3” to be positive. i know several people with this unit and none are convinced that they are accurate.

i would love this to work as it is a very nice product to own/wear. But come on Fitbit, the point of tracking data is so we can make decisions based on it. And for that it has to be meaningful.

[kariweighsin]

I noticed the added steps while driving and I would have been fine if it added a couple but was disappointed with the number it did add (a couple hundred) so I had to manually log driving as an activity which is a huge step back. I did count my steps as I walked and it was spot on the first time and the second time it missed a large chunk of steps. I feel it could be worse as a tracker but I think it’s already there from what I’m hearing and experiencing. 

[SunsetRunner]

got mine for christmas and cant even get it to set up, let alone track anything. im returning it today to try for a refund, otherwise i have a useless £130 bracelet. never again.

[kariweighsin]

Same thing happened to me. Took less than 15 minutes out the box to get everything going but from that point on it was a nightmare and took a couple hours to even be able to use the device. I understand several people were receiving them as gifts so the site and app were probably overwhelmed but I had to delete the app twice, unpair from my bluetooth probably 10 times and reset the device even more than that. But, I’m guessing that was a sign that I should have paid more attention to. 

[SunsetRunner]

Hi i got my charge 3 in october for my birthday over all im happy with it just wish i could delete notifacations and messages in the APP

[21Speed]

Simple answer - NO!  I am not satisfied with this Charge 3. 

Without a doubt , it was a horrible purchase.  I bought it to count steps - it cannot do that accurately.  I thought the sleep feature was neat - until sync stopped working no matter how times I try all the suggested "fixes".  I really shouldn't have to spend a couple of hours per week installing, uninstalling, updating and rebooting a state of art device. Now it won't hold a charge a longer than 2 days! At this point, it is simply a very expensive and very ugly watch.  My next fix is to smash it with a hammer and go buy a Garmin.

[Heather-S]

I love mine.  I've owned 6 different Fitbit products over the years and never had any issues with any of them.  

[RobCutler]

So far it's a big NO. This is my first Fitbit and I think it is going to have to go back. The steps seem a lot higher than my old sony tracker and as for the heart rate, that is just a joke. When I'm sitting down doing nothing it is reading over 100bpm! I've counted my pulse and it's around 60 bpm. I was really hoping this thing was going to be good. Also there doesn't seem to be any way to link to google fit or is this just me?

[kariweighsin]

Maybe they’ll consider that one day but I’m sure it would be a lot of work with the different carries and phones. 😊

[RobCutler]

My 3/4 year old sony smartband didn't have any problems doing it. Given me experience with fitbit I do wonder if Google wont allow integration.

[kariweighsin]

I’ve decided to just return mine because it’s too much of a hassle at this point. In all of the Fitbit devices I’ve owned, this is by far the worst. Sadly, the only reason I purchased is because my Versa has a scratch right down the middle of the face. Doesn’t interfere with performance it’s just more of a nuisance.

Fitbit customer service was useless when I reached out to them (which was a first because they’ve always been helpful) and suggested I take it back to the store (Target) I purchased it from. Guess I’ll just buy a new Versa now and be happy (hopefully). 

[CristiM]

I also have the Charge3, it is set as "always connected" (constantly communicating with my phone), I am relatively active (15-20k steps/day) and my battery lasts for about 5-6 days before it needs recharging. So I guess you have a problem with your unit. The same with the sync, if you follow the recommendation and turn on "always connected" and "keep alive widget" it should sync without problems (with the expense of more phone battery consumption).

Regarding steps, I am driving my car daily and never saw the tracker to count steps or floors while driving. And the accuracy, you know that since it's mounted on your hand (not leg) it is giving you just an estimate of steps based on various calculations on heart rate and the other sensors, correlated with data from test subjects. So you cannot expect any fit tracker placed on your wrist to be deadly precise about your steps, but it shouldn't matter as long as you don't want to use it to measure actual distance. Because fitness wise your body is doing a similar effort as a step if you just stand still with your legs and are active with your hands so much that the tracker, based on your heart rate, counts a step.

(Sry if my English or line of thoughts are hard to follow, I was doing my best as it is not my native language 😛 )

[sinkcar]

I had some issues with accuracy right after my android app updated and then my fitbit software updated.  The unit was going wacko all day but I restarted it and now it works great. I love it. I previously had an Alta HR which worked fine although the heart rate was usually a bit higher than it should have been. But I wanted the convenience of all the info available on the charge 3 screen as well as being more visible when outside. Again, I Love mine.

[kariweighsin]

If you don’t mind me asking, did you have any issues before the update with accuracy?

[kariweighsin]

Originally, I was going to return it but I decided to swap it out for another charge 3. I’ll test that one over the next couple days and return on Saturday if it still isn’t accurate. 

[Directions]

I like mine. However the most recent update has taken out the only face I used - which displaced steps and heart rate at the same time. Now that's impossible and I don't like that.