There are two opposing trends in sports-compatible wearables: On the one hand, prices for high-end devices from Garmin are climbing. If you have the necessary change, you can spend up to 2,500 euros on the Marq Driver. On the other hand, Aldi now even has simple fitness trackers for 30 euros, which are usually sold out immediately when the offer starts.
The batch of Fitbit represents something like the more or less golden mean. Traditionally with prices around 150 euros still within an affordable range, optically not particularly noticeable and technically not exciting. The manufacturer has sold many million copies, especially in the USA.
Now the latest generation of devices is here, and there is actually a major change inside the Fitbit Charge 4: for the first time, a GPS module is installed so that the user can record the route while jogging or on a bike tour even without a smartphone.
Another important innovation: the housing is made of plastic instead of aluminum. That is a shame, but it was probably also necessary because of the GPS antenna. Nevertheless, the quite wide tracker feels valuable. It is operated with a button on the side and with touch gestures on the display.
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The LED screen does not offer always-on, but is activated by the known tilting of the wrist. This doesn’t always work right away, but if it works, the time is visible without a noticeable delay, which is not a matter of course for trackers. The display is black and white and has a diagonal of 39.9 millimeters.
It is just barely legible in the sun. We suspect that Fitbit’s engineers have pushed the limits of what can still be expected of the normal buyer in order to save energy in supposedly long test series.
Apart from that, the Charge 4 is a pleasantly uncomplicated wearable. In addition to the time, we can display our most important vital data such as the steps, the estimated calorie consumption and the heart rate in a long and uncomplicated list on the display.
A second menu allows access to notifications, the third to functions such as an overview with the weather as well as alarm clocks and alarms – which, incidentally, use a pleasantly powerful vibration motor. We make most of the settings with the paired smartphone, such as the selection of up to six currently active sports.
At night, sleep mode can be activated so that the screen is only switched on by pressing the button – a simple solution that many other fitness trackers and sports watches cannot do.
The so-called active zone minutes are new in the Fitbit ecosystem – at Garmin, exactly the same intensity minutes. It’s about getting a certain number of active moments within a week, like doing 5 minutes of warm-up for 10 minutes of jogging (counts twice). This then results in 25 of the 150 minutes envisaged, which in turn is a recommendation of the World Health Organization (WHO).
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