Fitbit charge HR review

So I've own my fitbit HR for a year, and I absolutely love it. For those who don't know, fitbit is a brand that sells a wearable motivating workout buddy. It helps you track your steps, heart rate, workout, calorie in and calorie out, how much water you consume, your sleep, weight and just so much more.

I admit I had my doubts of its worth initially and since at that time I had just quit my job and money was tight. Fortunately, I won an instagram competition and scored a $50 voucher to Harvey Norman. God must have been on my side that week because it also happened to be on sale so I got it for $126. Yay me! (Of course now with the new blaze and HR 2 fitbit the price have dropped to almost half of what I bought it for).

Design and Features
The fitbit charge HR is made out of a light-weight rubbery material that rests comfortably on my arm. Currently, you can get it in four colours (Black, Plum, Blue and Tangerine), the black one is the best selling one, because let's face it, black matches everything. It has a small LED strip that shows your features with the tap of a button. Alternatively, you can double tap anywhere on the strap and it should turn on. It automatically turns off in about 8 seconds to conserve battery.

Heart-rate monitor
So the charge monitors your heart-rate via green LED lights. I would say it's fairly accurate just like any other wrist heart-rate monitor. I think this is a neat feature as it lets you know your heart-rate while you are resting, working out, sleeping and basically any time you want. This helps to monitor your calorie count during the day more precisely. This feature for me is motivating especially when I'm jogging or biking I love to just quickly check my heart rate and it encourages me to put more effort if I think my heart's not pumping enough.

Battery life
The fitbit comes with a USB cable that you can connect to your laptop, the plug is a different one from the norm, which is a downside for me. I think that making it a universal plug-in would make it much better since if you lose it you have to buy a new one specifically for the fitbit (happened to me twice, so clumsy). It lasts up to 5 days, so it says. It only takes an hour or two tops to fully charge which is convenient. I usually charge it when I play dota, which is almost everyday so it never really died on me. Sometimes it likes to display cute messages when it is fully charged like "I like you" or "faster".

Tracking activity
The charge tracks daily steps, distance, stair flights and sleep activity. You can adjust the goals according to your lifestyle and it shows all your stats in the fitbit app. To track a workout, you simply just hold the button until the counter starts and it'll record the stats of that workout interval. The fitbit is quite accurate except when I workout. Tracking exercises like running is fine but once you do exercises that have a lot of hand movement like boxing or riding my bike I find it to be off... by quite a bit. This doesn't really bother me much since my usual form of exercise is jogging or strength workout that does not involve me to move my arms vigorously.

The sleep tracker is SO COOL. Like really, I'm so amazed that it can know when I'm sleeping. It tracks even my short naps automatically. This feature is rad, it also lets you know when you're restless or have woken up from your sleep. Another useful feature is its silent alarm, it sends vibrations to your wrist and it's rather hard to sleep through.

Challenges
This. Is. The. Best. Not only do you obtain badges that goes to your profile to show off to people but you get to challenge friends too. According to me, this is the most motivating thing about my fitbit! They have daily goal challenges, work week challenges, weekend challenges or a daily showdown. Every time I see someone above me in the leader board I pretty much walk to uni instead of taking a bus (I live 20 good minutes away from my campus) or go for a walk just to surpass them since I'm quite competitive when it comes to my steps. I love it. I love it. I love it.

Other features
There's other features that I don't really use which exist on the fitbit. You can monitor your weight and it will graph your progress, input your water consumption, see caller ID's from your phone and calorie intake. The food variety is well, not that broad and if you want to be counting calories you're better off downloading an app like MyFitnessPal.

Dislikes
There are a few downsides to the fitbit charge HR, for example it's not waterproof so you can't use it for tracking exercises like swimming. If you're clumsy like me, you will probably scratch the screen and it's so hard to get it replaced as hardly any electronic stores will fix a fitbit screen. Another thing I dislike is, the rubber material. It popped out when I played volleyball and now it looks deformed. I also have super sensitive skin so when the weather is very humid, my skin under the strap likes to form rashes due to the fitbit (usually I would just switch the fitbit to my other wrist if it gets bad).

Conclusion
I think the fitbit charge HR certainly made my life more active by ditching the bus and walking, climb stairs instead of using the lift and even just walking around the house to complete my daily goal. I'd recommend looking into the fitbit charge HR 2 since it has a bigger screen and the strap is interchangeable so if you deformed your strap like I did, you can easily fix it by getting a new strap.

Now that the fitbit HR 2 is out, many stores like office works and harvey norman stopped stocking up on the fitbit HR but JB Hi-Fi (Teal/Plum) has them listed at $98 for anyone interested in one.

♥ Jess