Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsNot a real improvement on the 5
Reviewed in Canada on November 17, 2023
Update: There was no reply when I tried contacting Fitbit support about any of my products, so I'm returning this.
I purchased a Charge 5 earlier this year & had been very happy with it. Most important to me was the logging heartrate monitor, which works very well. A big bonus was the sleep logging, which also works very well. The Charge 6 still does these things well, but I can't see a reason to justify recommending it over the 5 (both go on discount, & the 5 is generally cheaper).
I'd also been glad to see that the 5 monitors SpO2 while asleep. Unfortunately, it won't do this while the person wearing it is awake (why they don't think that's an important enough feature to add, I don't know), and my hope that the 6 might support this was unfounded -- it appears to have the same drawback.
I've never owned a "smart watch" & the 5 was my first-ever fitness tracker. I wasn't expecting to have to own a current smartphone (I'd been using an old iPhone 4S for years, but it was too old to work with the Fitbit app, so I had to buy a new Android phone that supports it) just in order to use the thing (it literally will not do anything other than ask you to register it with your app if you don't have it connected to a proper smartphone w/ the app running). It was a good excuse for me to update my phone (something I'd needed to do for a while, but might be something to think about -- could be a dealbreaker for some) & the added functionality of it allowing for app notifications was huge. I didn't think I could get a vibration on my wrist every time I got a message, or for an event I had scheduled to be reminded of, etc. That added a lot of convenience to my life.
Now the huge downside -- Google effectively broke the software over the last few months. They bought Fitbit, overhauled the app & account system, pushed some firmware updates that are kind of janky, and now there are lots of people with non-working Charge 5s. Some are bricked -- I was lucky enough that my Charge 5 kept working, but my app notifications stopped functioning correctly. I've spent weeks going through their troubleshooting guides, doing things that are recommended to fix it, to no avail. I can no longer get notifications on my Charge 5 that I was able to just a couple of short months ago, & I paid ~$150 (Canadian dollars) for maybe 7 months of use before this functionality broke.
I saw the Charge 6 on sale for ~$150 (Canadian dollars) & I thought that "perhaps the app notification issue is just on the 5 -- if I try this new model, maybe I'll have that feature back." No such luck. It's still broken, and checking the forum, I see that many others have had the same problem for months across both models. It doesn't sound like Google's got too much of a priority on fixing it (why, I don't know), as the last time they posted anything about firmware was back in July. There are very few offers for technical support to the users, which is frustrating, given the size & profits of the company.
I will try posting about the issues on their forum & seeing if they can't help me sort it out on at least my end, but if that does not work, I will be returning the 6 and sticking with my 5. The few changes (YouTube Music, Google Maps directions, a screen magnifier, connecting to supported exercise machines) are not anything that I would use, and I don't think it's worth another ~$150 on top of the ~$150 I already spent this year to keep trying to use the features that they broke (and don't seem to be in a rush to fix). If you're in the market for a *new* fitness tracker, I'd say go ahead and get this one if it's on sale lower than the 5, but, as of right now, I cannot recommend it as an upgrade to Charge 5 users or as a new tracker to anyone who would be paying full price for it. If I choose to upgrade, I'm considering the Sense, instead (the Charge is already the best of their tracker lineup, a 7 probably won't be around for a very long time, the 6 just doesn't seem considerably different than the 5, & the Versa seems to have less features).