Smaller than the Fitbit Charge 4, the new Charge 5 has managed to cut down on the thickness while adding features that you would otherwise normally see in smartwatches. The fitness tracker is expanding its scope to include stress monitoring and not just physical strength for a more holistic approach. Since the introduction of Fitbit Premium, this is the most integrated it has been with their Charge lineup with the new features available on the Charge 5. Inherently, the Fitbit Charge 5 has every fitness feature on the Fitbit Sense at an even lesser price. SEE: Honor Band 6 vs Xiaomi Mi Band 6: How do they compare?
EDA
Simply put as electrodermal activity, this is the measurement of the changes in skin electric conductivity due to the change in sweat secretion. In a similar fashion as the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 measuring BIA, the Charge 5 sends out the undetectable current through your skin. The smartwatch is then able to detect variability in the skin conductance which is reflective of the changes in the sweat gland activity. As mentioned earlier, Fitbit Premium is also heavily linked to the features on this device in order to get the best out of it. This makes it able to offer more insight stress, exercise readiness and others better. For the first time on a Fitbit fitness tracker you can track stress in order to improve not only physical health but also mental health. It also has a design that comes in handy when it comes to receiving electrical signals from the skin. This comes important for both EDA and ECG measurements for the aforementioned reason. Read More: Apple Watch Series 7: Big Display, New Features, Price
ECG
Another aspect of the Fitbit Charge 5 that is new and even more so not common on fitness trackers in general is ECG. Besides the small form factor in fitness trackers, ECG is mostly found in smartwatch rather. However, the Fitbit Charge 5 is able to measure ECG in order to get a more robust reading of the heart and in combination with other health features to build a detailed profile of the user’s physical wellbeing. By giving a more in depth picture of how your heart performs, it helps serve you more as a fitness tracker. This is new in the fitness tracker category and the Fitbit Charge 5 is definitely one of the pioneers of ECG in a fitness tracker. This is present while the fitness tracker also retaining GPS and other features. All of this helps you get more out of the Fitbit Premium with the array of sensors supply more information about your health for better insights and personalized content.
Stress Monitoring and Daily Readiness Score
Fitbit is one of the leaders when it comes to fitness trackers and that is because it is able to offer useful features for its fitness-cenric users. That being said, the Fitbit Charge 5 takes things further with daily readiness scores to offer you insights on how ready your body is ready for exercising and also a stress management score as well to let you know how prepared you are for the day. Not only do you get a score each morning but also a breakdown of how it was calculated based off different metrics received from your body. In order to give you a score on how exercise ready your body is, the Fitbit Charge 5 takes into account your level of activity, accumulated sleep over the past few days and heart rate variability during deep sleep. In addition, you also get recommendations on what to do if your score is low as well as when your score is high. Either way you even get more content with Fitbit Premium that guides you on how to maintain good fitness levels and manage stress.
Conclusion
There is a considerable number of significant upgrades on the Charge 5 from inside out that makes it functionally and visually better than its predecessor. This makes the Fitbit Charge 5 the most feature rich fitness tracker yet. Priced at $180, you can hardly complain that it doesn’t offer value with all the features on it.
