Fitbit Charge 5 Vs Fitbit Charge 4

Fitbit Charge 5 is the latest fitness tracker of Fitbit. It follows the Fitbit Charge 4 fitness tracker and comes with additional features and an option to get a premium subscription of services and features through Fitbit premium. We look at differentiators between the Fitbit Charge 5 and Fitbit Charge 4. This should help you in making a decision about updating from Charge 4 to Charge 5 fitness tracker.

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Display and casing- Fitbit Charge 5 vs Fitbit Charge 4

Fitbit Charge 5 has an AMOLED display, which compares favorably against the Mono display on the Fitbit Charge 4.
Improved display quality and screen resolution of Fitbit Charge 5 can be testified by the higher pixel density of 326 ppi. This is more than 50 percent higher than the pixel density of 189 PPI of a Fitbit Charge 4 tracker.
Fitbit Charge 5 also has an aluminium body; Charge 4 has a plastic body. The casing of Fitbit Charge 5 is studier that the predecessor model of Charge 4.
Fitbit Charge 5 is thinner than a Fitbit Charge 4. It is 11.2 mm thick, and a Charge 4 is 12.5 mm thick.
Fitbit Charge 5 weighs marginally lower at 28 g. Fitbit Charge 4 weighs 30 g.
Maximum operating temperature for a Fitbit Charge 5 is 45 Celsius. Fitbit Charge has the maximum temperature limit of 40 Celsius. The increase in maximum temperature operatability on Fitbit Charge 5 expands the fitness tracker to many hot climate regions and countries.
Fitbit Charge 5 has an ‘Always on Display’. An ‘Always on Display’ means that you do not have to move your wrist to see the tracker’s screen. It can work on the AOD mode and show the screen contents without any intervention from your side. ‘Always on Display’ is unavailable on a Fitbit Charge 4.

In terms of device specifications, and display, a Fitbit Charge 5 makes progress over the Fitbit Charge 4 fitness tracker. An AMOLED display is a definite move in the right direction. On a similar basis, the addition of the ‘Always on Display’ feature is a nice feature for the Charge 5 fitness tracker.

Heart Monitoring – Fitbit Charge 5 vs Fitbit Charge 4

Heart monitoring makes a major improvement with the introduction of the ECG app. This app can work with the Charge 5 fitness tracker to take on-demand ECG. Heartbeat can also be monitored through the Fitbit Charge 5. Fitbit Charge 4 did not have any integration with the ECG app.

An optical heart sensor on the Fitbit Charge 5 allows better monitoring of the heart on the Charge 5 fitness trackers. If you are after a fitness tracker that offers basic heart rate monitoring, a Fitbit Charge 5 should present itself as a credible fitness tracker.

Heart rate is measured every 5 seconds on a Fitbit Charge 5. When on exercise mode, a Fitbit Charge 5 will record your heart rate every second. All the data polled on the Fitbit Charge 5 is provided to you for free for a period of 7 days.

Wellness and Health monitoring – Fitbit Charge 5 vs Fitbit Charge 4

Fitbit Charge 5 offers better tracking for overall health and wellness. It can doa a lot of things that are unavailable on a Fitbit Charge 4 fitness tracker. Some of the key differences in general health and wellness monitoring between a Fitbit Charge 5 and Fitbit Charge 4 are:

Fitbit Charge 5 has a temperator sensor on the fitness tracker. A wrist based temperature reading helps you in maintaining temperature records on a regular basis.
Fitbit Charge 5 can measure perspiration through monitoring of sweat on the wrists. This becomes useful to gauge the intensity of workouts.
Fitbit Charge 5 can take blood oxygenation readings to arrive at the SpO2 levels in your blood. A blood oxygenation sensor helps achieve the desired functinonality on a Fitbit Charge 4 fitness tracker.

Incremental health monitoring through SpO2 monitoring and temperature sensor make Fitbit Charge 5 a good wellness-oriented fitness tracker.

Features differences between Fitbit Charge 5 vs Fitbit Charge 4

In addition to health and heart monitoring, there are a few differences between Fitbit Charge 5 vs Fitbit Charge 4 on a miscellaneous set of features. Some of these features are listed below for ready reference:

Fitbit Charge 5 has an in-built gyroscope that helps to arrive at angular direction or orientation. A gyroscope is useful to track rotation and other circular motion, besides sharing the actual angular details of a specific position.
Fitbit Charge 5 has a remote control for camera. With this remote control, you can manage the paired smartphone’s camera for taking pictures.
Fitbit Charge 5 can connect to wifi networks. It supports WIFI 4 and WIFI 5 networks.
Fitbit Charge 5 also gets a compass functionality. Compass can be used to find directions based on the longitude and latitude location data set. A compass can offer significant help in finding navigation direction.

Fitbit Premium – Fitbit Charge 5 vs Fitbit Charge 4

Fitbit Premium subscription service is available for Fitbit Charge 5. Fitbit Premium expands on the basic functionality and features that come bundled with a Fitbit app. Fitbit Premium extends the functionality of Fitbit Charge 5 in more ways than one. It is a subscription service that costs $ 79.99 for an annual term or $9.99 for a month on month payment. Fitbit Premium offers key differentiators in overall health and wellness reporting. A Fitbit Premium offers some very useful features:

Daily Readiness score takes into account your body’s fatigue levels. A score under 30 implies that your body needs rest. A high Daily readiness score means that you are ready for physical activity. When you track the Daily Readiness score over a period of time, you get a lot of data as baseline data for your health, fatigue and activity levels. Over a period of data, deviations from the baseline data will help you decide to stay on or off the exercise routine. Health metrics are stored on the cloud for a period of 90 days.
Fitbit Premium also offers sleep tracking on Fitbit Charge 5. Quality and time of sleep trends can be recorded using the sleep tracker functioinality of Fitbit Charge 5.
Fitbit Premium on Fitbit Charge 5 also measures and reports stress level. It reports stress levels through a stress management score. Stress management score is calculated based on the quality of sleep and physical activity levels.
Fitbit Premium gets you over 200 physical workout sessions and mindful meditation sessions. These workouts are created for goal based fitness activities. And, the mindful meditation sessions will help your mind to still.

All these features are available through Fitbit Premium on a Fitbit Charge 5 fitness tracker. These are improvements over the Fitbit Charge 4 fitness tracker’s features.

Summary

With Fitbit Premium, the Fitbit app gets augmented with the premium app. Together with Fitbit Charge 5 and Fitbit Premium subscription, you get all the perceivable features for a fitness tracker. Without Fitbit Premium, you get a natural evolution of Fitbit Charge 4 into Fitbit Charge 5.

Should you get a Fitbit Charge 5? Or, do you think you could up the budget a bit and get a Fitbit Sense with Fitbit Premium. For a fitness tracker, Fitbit Charge 5 ticks all the boxes. But, if you are open to changing and looking forward to a smart watch, you get Fitbit Versa 3 and Fitbit Sense smart watches with a budget increment of $50-75. It may be totally worth the extra cost.

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Helen Kurt

Helen Kurt is a geeky nerd who loves to cover the wearables space. She has over 5 years of experience in the smartwatch domain. You can reach her on email at [email protected].