Skip to main content
Customer Review
Reviewed in Canada on September 20, 2023
My previous device was a Mi Band, so this was a pricey upgrade. Before buying this band I recommend watching guy on Youtube called The Quantified Scientist. TLDR this band is not accurate enough to track every claimed vital sign it supports in a useful way. However this is as accurate as you can get if you can't use Apple Watch or don't want to get a smart watch with a day of battery life.
What I like about Charge 5:
- Battery Life: without always-on display lasts about a week, charges quickly.
- Heart Tracking: reliably collects information throughout day and night, graph could be viewed in app, shows resting heart rate on the watch to track your overall fitness shape.
- Display: bright, high contrast, responsive, can be used in sunlight.
- Notifications: Very well spaced, can even preview an email without having to check my phone.
- Step Tracking: no concerns
- Interface: intuitive, can quickly examine most stats
- Sleep Tracking: sleep time is accurate most of the time, detects automatically.
- Customization: good choice of third-party straps.
- Design: minimalistic and compact, fits very naturally opposite to bulky smartwatches.
What holds it back:
- NFC: does not support many Canadian Banks, does not support Google Wallet integration for transit passes (renders feature useless)
- Workout Tracking: lack of automatic activity type detection, not much insights, not many modes.
- ECG/EDA: hard to use sensors that require holding sides of the tracker for a long period of time. Frequently causes heartbeat sensor to lose contact with skin which renders last 30s-3minutes of data useless
- No Music Storage/Controls.
- Weak vibration: not enough for an alarm to wake me up
- Paid Subscription to view and track stats, not justified for what it provides
- Small set of features overall, lack of integrations and customizations
Overall, if you are looking for a wearable device that will track your daily activities and sleep with decent accuracy, will let you keep track of your notifications and goals in a compact package with good battery life and bright screen, Charge 5 should be suited for you. For its price however, it should offer much more to stand out against comparable devices and to be a product I could recommend for anyone.
What I like about Charge 5:
- Battery Life: without always-on display lasts about a week, charges quickly.
- Heart Tracking: reliably collects information throughout day and night, graph could be viewed in app, shows resting heart rate on the watch to track your overall fitness shape.
- Display: bright, high contrast, responsive, can be used in sunlight.
- Notifications: Very well spaced, can even preview an email without having to check my phone.
- Step Tracking: no concerns
- Interface: intuitive, can quickly examine most stats
- Sleep Tracking: sleep time is accurate most of the time, detects automatically.
- Customization: good choice of third-party straps.
- Design: minimalistic and compact, fits very naturally opposite to bulky smartwatches.
What holds it back:
- NFC: does not support many Canadian Banks, does not support Google Wallet integration for transit passes (renders feature useless)
- Workout Tracking: lack of automatic activity type detection, not much insights, not many modes.
- ECG/EDA: hard to use sensors that require holding sides of the tracker for a long period of time. Frequently causes heartbeat sensor to lose contact with skin which renders last 30s-3minutes of data useless
- No Music Storage/Controls.
- Weak vibration: not enough for an alarm to wake me up
- Paid Subscription to view and track stats, not justified for what it provides
- Small set of features overall, lack of integrations and customizations
Overall, if you are looking for a wearable device that will track your daily activities and sleep with decent accuracy, will let you keep track of your notifications and goals in a compact package with good battery life and bright screen, Charge 5 should be suited for you. For its price however, it should offer much more to stand out against comparable devices and to be a product I could recommend for anyone.
My previous device was a Mi Band, so this was a pricey upgrade. Before buying this band I recommend watching guy on Youtube called The Quantified Scientist. TLDR this band is not accurate enough to track every claimed vital sign it supports in a useful way. However this is as accurate as you can get if you can't use Apple Watch or don't want to get a smart watch with a day of battery life.
What I like about Charge 5:
- Battery Life: without always-on display lasts about a week, charges quickly.
- Heart Tracking: reliably collects information throughout day and night, graph could be viewed in app, shows resting heart rate on the watch to track your overall fitness shape.
- Display: bright, high contrast, responsive, can be used in sunlight.
- Notifications: Very well spaced, can even preview an email without having to check my phone.
- Step Tracking: no concerns
- Interface: intuitive, can quickly examine most stats
- Sleep Tracking: sleep time is accurate most of the time, detects automatically.
- Customization: good choice of third-party straps.
- Design: minimalistic and compact, fits very naturally opposite to bulky smartwatches.
What holds it back:
- NFC: does not support many Canadian Banks, does not support Google Wallet integration for transit passes (renders feature useless)
- Workout Tracking: lack of automatic activity type detection, not much insights, not many modes.
- ECG/EDA: hard to use sensors that require holding sides of the tracker for a long period of time. Frequently causes heartbeat sensor to lose contact with skin which renders last 30s-3minutes of data useless
- No Music Storage/Controls.
- Weak vibration: not enough for an alarm to wake me up
- Paid Subscription to view and track stats, not justified for what it provides
- Small set of features overall, lack of integrations and customizations
Overall, if you are looking for a wearable device that will track your daily activities and sleep with decent accuracy, will let you keep track of your notifications and goals in a compact package with good battery life and bright screen, Charge 5 should be suited for you. For its price however, it should offer much more to stand out against comparable devices and to be a product I could recommend for anyone.
What I like about Charge 5:
- Battery Life: without always-on display lasts about a week, charges quickly.
- Heart Tracking: reliably collects information throughout day and night, graph could be viewed in app, shows resting heart rate on the watch to track your overall fitness shape.
- Display: bright, high contrast, responsive, can be used in sunlight.
- Notifications: Very well spaced, can even preview an email without having to check my phone.
- Step Tracking: no concerns
- Interface: intuitive, can quickly examine most stats
- Sleep Tracking: sleep time is accurate most of the time, detects automatically.
- Customization: good choice of third-party straps.
- Design: minimalistic and compact, fits very naturally opposite to bulky smartwatches.
What holds it back:
- NFC: does not support many Canadian Banks, does not support Google Wallet integration for transit passes (renders feature useless)
- Workout Tracking: lack of automatic activity type detection, not much insights, not many modes.
- ECG/EDA: hard to use sensors that require holding sides of the tracker for a long period of time. Frequently causes heartbeat sensor to lose contact with skin which renders last 30s-3minutes of data useless
- No Music Storage/Controls.
- Weak vibration: not enough for an alarm to wake me up
- Paid Subscription to view and track stats, not justified for what it provides
- Small set of features overall, lack of integrations and customizations
Overall, if you are looking for a wearable device that will track your daily activities and sleep with decent accuracy, will let you keep track of your notifications and goals in a compact package with good battery life and bright screen, Charge 5 should be suited for you. For its price however, it should offer much more to stand out against comparable devices and to be a product I could recommend for anyone.
Images in this review
