Fitbit Charge 3 review

A swim-proof design, improved touchscreen and potential for deeper sleep insights make the Fitbit Charge 3 the best all-around fitness tracker for the money.

Fitbit Charge 3
Editor's Choice

Tom's Guide Verdict

A swim-proof design, improved touchscreen and potential for deeper sleep insights make the Fitbit Charge 3 the best all-around fitness tracker for the money.

Pros

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    7-day battery life

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    Touchscreen display

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    SpO2 sensor’s sleep analysis potential

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    Swim-proof

Cons

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    No automatic run-pausing at launch

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    No on-board GPS

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    Not the most accurate heart rate

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When it comes to the hardware, the $150 Fitbit Charge 3 is a solid upgrade from its predecessor and capable alternative to its successor. The design isn’t radically different, but a larger display with an actual touchscreen that responds instantly to swipes and taps is a huge improvement. The new band is swim-proof and offers a new swim workout mode, which makes it more useful for people who enjoy a variety of exercises.

But that’s not the most important feature. Fitbit’s efforts in sleep make the Charge 3, which has an SpO2 sensor that could potentially be used to diagnose sleep apnea, more exciting than other affordable fitness trackers on the market.

Like Apple, Fitbit is thinking beyond basic activity-tracking and notifications to give you deeper insights into your health. The Charge 3 is a step in that direction, although the health features with biggest potential aren’t quite ready for primetime. 

If you're thinking of picking up the Fitbit Charge 3, you may want to consider the Fitbit Charge 4, which costs $150, but also has GPS built in, better sleep tracking, and the ability to control Spotify playback from your wrist. Read our full Fitbit Charge 4 review (and Fitbit Versa 2 vs. Fitbit Charge 4 face-off) to see why it supplanted the Charge 3 as the best fitness tracker

If you own a Fitbit Charge 3, Charge 4, Inspire HR, Ionic, Versa, Versa 2, or Versa Lite, you can enroll in Fitbit's new heart study, and the company will notify you if your device detects an irregular heart rhythm that indicates AFib. Fitbit will also connect you with a doctor for a free consultation. The Fitbit Heart Study, open to U.S. residents 22 years or older, is being conducted to determine how accurate its devices are in detecting atrial fibrillation, as the first step to receiving FDA approval. Here's how to sign up for the Fitbit Heart Study.

Fitbit Charge 3 cheat sheet: What’s new

  • Bigger touchscreen display: The Charge 3’s responsive screen is 30 percent bigger than the Charge 2’s, which makes viewing information a lot easier.
  • 7-day battery life: You can easily sail through a week on a charge, even with daily workouts.
  • Swim-tracking arrives: The Charge 3 is water-resistant, unlike its predecessors, so it can track pool workouts.
  • Connected GPS: The Charge 3 quickly latches on to your phone’s GPS, but built-in antennas would be more convenient.
  • New sensor for sleep insights: An SpO2 sensor will be used to alert users enrolled in the Fitbit Sleep Score Beta program if they experience breathing disturbances. That program starts in November.

Price and availability

The Fitbit Charge 3 is available to buy now for $149.95. You can order the fitness tracker directly through Fitbit's website or from a variety of third-party retailers, including Amazon and Best Buy. 

Design: Subtle but meaningful changes

Fitbit isn’t reinventing the wheel with the Charge 3, which looks identical to the Charge 2 at first glance.

The biggest change on closer inspection is the display, which is 30 percent larger than its predecessor’s. The company’s goal is to put more information on your wrist at a glance, which is a good thing. But the taller screen makes some of Fitbit’s accessory bands, like the Horween leather strap I tested, sit awkwardly on my arm. The sporty bands are thicker than the leather options but also fit more comfortably around my wrist.

If you’re upgrading from the Charge 2, you’ll notice that the side button is no longer a mechanical piece that depresses when you touch it. Fitbit engineered an inductive button that responds with haptic feedback when you use it to toggle through the menu or pause a workout. The new button creates a sleeker look, and also makes the Charge 3’s design swimproof.

I like the new look, and I also appreciate the feel of the haptic feedback, which is a slight, subtle vibration that radiates throughout the device.

The biggest change is the touchscreen display, which is 30 percent larger than its predecessor’s.

Like the Charge 2, you can easily swap in bands made of different materials to switch up your look. The band pieces attach easily — it takes just seconds to remove one piece and slide in another.

Display: Larger touchscreen makes a difference

Fitbit’s larger screen definitely comes in handy. Now you can read entire messages and notifications without having to follow side-scrolling text, and view multiple apps on the screen at the same time. (Just two, but that’s an improvement.)

But more importantly, the Charge 3’s display is now fully touchscreen. The Charge 2 was more of a tap-screen — you had to jab at the display with your finger to view stats such as mileage covered and calories burned. Now you can simply swipe up on the home screen to view all of those metrics and quickly scroll through them.

The new tracker doesn’t have a full-color display; instead, its text and animations come in 16 shades of grey. Color would be a nice touch, especially when running outside. The reflective screen can be tough to see in the morning light, even without a direct glare. Red or yellow text would be easier to glance at.

Another minor complaint: Fitbit should minimize the bezels on its fitness band displays. Everyone can tell you’re wearing a Fitbit; there’s really no need to take up valuable real estate with a logo on the chin.

Workouts: Improved, but not perfect

The Charge 3 can now withstand water submersion, so swimmers can track their laps with the new band by activating the new Swim workout. On your wrist, you’ll be able to see time elapsed and calories burned, and then view full workout stats when you sync the Charge 3 to the Fitbit app.

This is a big deal for swimmers who don’t want to splurge on a waterproof swim-tracker such as the $199 Versa or the $279 Apple Watch Series 3.

Fitbit now has just one fitness tracker with on-board GPS, the Ionic, which one of the company’s worst-designed devices. I was hoping the Charge 3 would improve upon the Charge 2 by adding GPS, but unfortunately, the new band has to connect to your phone’s GPS to accurately track workouts instead. The good news: The Charge 3 locks onto your phone’s GPS within a second (literally). The band also tracked one 3.18-mile run fairly accurately even without GPS activated — it logged the run as 3.24 miles.

I tested the Charge 3 against a Polar H10 chest strap, the gold standard for consumer-grade heart rate-monitoring, and found that the band accurately measured my BPM while resting, but wasn’t spot on while running. After a 3+-mile run, the Polar chest strap calculated that my average heart rate was 163; the Charge 3 estimated the average was 158 BPM. The Charge calculated my max heart rate at 173, while the Polar reported 180 BPM. The Charge also lagged behind the Polar by more than a minute in the beginning of my run when my heart rate jumped up to 156.

This isn’t a huge deal in terms of activity-tracking, because heart rate is more useful to gauge trends and overall fitness level. But as Fitbit prepares to move into health diagnostics (more on that later), accuracy will become essential.

The redesigned touchscreen display makes it easier to swipe through metrics while running, but I’d prefer to see more stats on-screen at the same time rather than having to swipe with sweaty fingers to see current pace, average pace, heart rate and time.

MORE: Fitness Tracker Buying Guide

The Charge 3 didn't automatically track runs at launch, but Fitbit fixed that with an update in December.

Sensors and sleep: Serious potential

Like Fitbit’s Versa and Ionic smartwatches, the Charge 3 has an SpO2 sensor for measuring blood oxygenation levels. With that information, Fitbit can tell if you experience breathing disruptions while you sleep. Or it will soon.

In November, Fitbit is opening up a Sleep Score Beta program to qualifying Fitbit users that will use the Charge 3’s SpO2 and heart rate sensors to assess your sleep quality and rate it out of 100. (If you own a Fitbit without an SpO2 sensor, you can still participate in the beta, but you won’t get alerts about breathing disruptions.)

Fitbit will soon let Charge 3 users leverage the SpO2 and heart rate sensors to assess your sleep quality and rate it out of 100.

Fitbit could also use the SpO2 sensor to diagnose sleep apnea with clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, though it’s unclear as to how far along in that process Fitbit is. Apple just received FDA clearance for two Apple Watch features, one an electrocardiogram app that uses the Series 4’s electrical heart rate sensor to diagnose atrial fibrillation, or irregular heart rhythm. The other is a watchOS feature, not exclusive to the Series 4, that alerts users if they experience five instances of irregular heart rhythm.

MORE: Best Running Apps for iOS and Android

Fitbit is also working on atrial fibrillation, but has already differentiated itself with in-depth sleep analysis, which the Apple Watch doesn’t offer. With an SpO2 sensor, the Charge 3 (alongside the Versa and Ionic) could give Sleep Score Beta participants life-changing health information. The potential is huge.

Battery Life: As good as promised

Where Fitbit routinely pulls ahead of the competition is battery life, and the Charge 3 delivers up to a week of fitness-tracking and notifications on a charge. After three days and three workouts, the band was still chugging along at 68 percent. That’s impressive, because I was also using the band to check notifications, the weather and playing with settings with the brightness on auto (as opposed to dim or normal, which would conserve battery).

Fitbit makes trade-offs to keep battery life lengthy, but for many people, week-long battery life would be a great reason to buy this band.

Bottom Line

Fitbit’s most high-profile new devices have been smartwatches, but the company hasn’t forgotten that its best-selling product is the Charge 2. The Charge 3 is an obvious upgrade if you’re a swimmer who wants in-depth sleep analysis in a device that can last a week on a charge.

The Charge 3 doesn’t blaze any trails — at least not yet. I’m curious to see what Fitbit does with the Sleep Score Beta data, which could inform medical-grade software features down the line.

Fitbit still hasn’t made the perfect fitness tracker. But the Charge 3 is one step closer.

Credit: Tom's Guide

Caitlin is a Senior editor for Gizmodo. She has also worked on Tom's Guide, Macworld, PCWorld and the Las Vegas Review-Journal. When she's not testing out the latest devices, you can find her running around the streets of Los Angeles, putting in morning miles or searching for the best tacos.

  • scottmgs
    Have you had problems syncing your Charge 3 with your phone since the latest app update on (I think) 10/28/2018? I've got to remove the Charge 3 from the app, uninstall and reinstall the app, then reconnect the Charge 3. That seems to work almost regularly. The comments in the Google Play Store show that this is a widespread problem.
    Reply
  • mac2o
    Have you checked out the Fitbit support site? Many complaints of inability to connect, wildly inaccurate heart monitor, wildly inaccurate sleep monitor, constant need to reboot system, failure to charge, sudden bricking of the device, stress cracking of screen. Very disappointing to call this an update to the 2. Seems like an early beta released very prematurely for the xmas selling season. Currently has 25% one-star reviews on Amazon, with lots of people returning them because of multiple failures.
    Reply
  • marvelartlover
    Yes, I have also read the various negative reviews for this fitness tracker.

    Please share the battery backup experience ?

    Thanks
    Reply
  • heidi.lormans
    Mijn man en ik hebben de eerste dag dat fitbit charge3 uitkwam onmiddelijk gaan kopen .Wat een teleurstelling Mijn man gaat tafelvoetbal spelen en komt daar met een score, op een uur tijd had hij al duizende stappen, terwijl hij zo goed als stil staat ,ik als poetsvrouw elke beweging met mijn handen geef de fitbit een stap zelfs aan het stuur draaien ,sorry dit zou toch niet mogen , Ik wil het zeker niet afbreken ,daarom de vraag is er iets aan te veranderen ,iets installeren of dergelijke ,wie weet raad ?
    Reply
  • the_big_fella
    I’ve just purchased a Charge 3 for the waterproof and swim tracker feature. What a huge disappointment. After a few swims what I can see is that......it doesn’t work! Not fit for sale as a swim tracker. Maybe I have a ‘lemon’, but this bad boy does not auto track swim sessions and gives me lap stats of a non-swimmer in floaties.

    I’m an IT guy and have set all the settings up correctly. In any case, auto-track is supposedly as simply as jump in and go. Mine thinks I’m running or some other sport. And lap counting? Shocking and appalling. I do 2.5Km’s to 3km’s a 1 hour session and my lemon tells me anything between 700m and 1.8km depending on its mood that day. I’ve checked out some forums suggesting you push off hard, swim freestyle, don’t stop, stop at every end, etc.....nothing gets me anywhere near what I am counting and doing. Anywhere between 30% and 70% inaccurate?? Thats a joke Fitbit. Change your advertising and put in the facts rather than misleading your customers.

    Now, one advantage of my ‘lemon’ thinking that I am running is that it does track my heart rate, which when in proper swim mode of course, for some reason that’s normally disabled. Epic fail Fitbit; enable heart rate in swim mode, make swim mode work, and count laps properly. Or, advertise this device as a “waterproof tracker that doesn’t track your laps accurately, has no heart rate monitoring, and thinks your running when swimming anyway”.
    Reply
  • pugostore
    It is very nice device. I changed a band for it. It is very comforble.
    Reply
  • moonpie_shelly
    21378195 said:
    A swim-proof design, improved touchscreen and potential for deeper sleep insights make the Fitbit Charge 3 the best all-around fitness tracker for the money.

    Fitbit Charge 3 Review: One Step Closer to Perfect : Read more

    How long do you use it? Is it still works well?
    I can't decide: do I need that or don't...
    Reply
  • mebigkahuna
    The device features are great but the Fitbit design is lousy. If you are a big bloke, forget it. The provided large strap is really on one half of a large strap. The other side of the strap, the part with the buckle on it, is the still short strap. Still too small and the buckle on the small strap now sits on the edge of your wrist.

    Second fail is this device is easy to read as a watch, but not as a fitness tracker. The numerals are too small if you are older than 40. Sure Fitbit give you a choice of 5 different watch face Apps, but all provide large watch numerals and small performance numerals. Don't know about you, but I already have a watch, I wanted a fitness tracker.
    Reply
  • ddlawyer
    The Charge 3's (many of them) stopped syncing on December 21. Many, many, many uphappy owners of Fitbit devices. From what I can tell reading the support forums and their Facebook page community, the syncing issue is not only the Charge 3 devices. My last sync was December 22. I spent hours troubleshooting and trying to work with their support to fix mine, all to no avail other than a lot of frustration. They admit there is a serious issue with the software and many devices are not syncing. Read their support forum and FB page community for further proof of the issue. After much time spent and frustration, they are sending me a new device, mine not only quit syncing but it also stopped keeping time--I got it in mid-November. Since there's a bug in the software that is disallowing the syncing, I may be totally out of luck with the new device as well. They're not offering a time frame on when this issue will be resolved. I would suggest no one buy a Charge 3 until they fix the syncing bug.
    Reply
  • rdeebs
    Cool idea but what a piece of cheap junk. I was putting mine on and it fell off, face down onto CARPET and now the screen is cracked. Fitbit of course won't do anything about it. Waste of money if quality of product is something you're interested in.
    Reply