Review: Fitbit Charge 6

To test the music features on Fitbit’s latest flagship fitness tracker, I started a YouTube Music Premium subscription. This is less arduous than it sounds, since YouTube Music Premium offers a free 1-month trial. It's also probably not a coincidence, since Google owns both Fitbit and YouTube, so the company is motivated to get you to use both platforms.

This really got me thinking: The decision about which fitness tracker to buy is becoming less about the capabilities of the hardware and more about the software ecosystem you’ve decided to inhabit.

It's true that the Charge 6 is an attractive, affordable, and generally accurate tracker that can keep tabs on a wide array of fitness metrics and has many fun accessories. Unlike the latest Apple Watch (7/10, WIRED Recommends) or the new Pixel Watch 2, you can use a Fitbit if you have either an Android phone or an iPhone. However, the Charge 6 does become much more useful if you happen to like YouTube Music better than Spotify, or if you prefer Google Maps to Apple Maps.

The Charge 6 has much more going for it than tight software integrations. In a market where every fitness tracker seems to be finding increasingly outlandish health metrics to measure—blood sugar! time spent in daylight!—I find the Charge 6's comparatively bare-bones capabilities to be almost refreshing. You really just want to get in a few more steps and see how much sleep you get? Thank goodness. Me too.

I'll tell you more about the Charge's tracking features in a bit. First, I should go over the changes to the companion app, because they're substantial.

Something many legacy Fitbit owners will notice is that you can no longer use a Fitbit account to sign into the Fitbit app. Instead, if you already have a Fitbit account, you need to migrate it to your Google account. Thankfully, this is painless. When you open your updated Fitbit app, click on your profile and scroll down. You should see an option to move your Fitbit account to your Google account.

If you don’t have a Google account, you will be prompted to create one. As you’re clicking through the consent fields, this is also a good time to review how Google uses Fitbit data. Google says it does not use Fitbit data for Google ads; however, as with most other fitness trackers, you can consent for your data (with your identifying information stripped out) to be used for Fitbit and Google research projects.

The other big change Fitbit owners will note is the Google-fied new Fitbit app, which, to my eye, is distinguishable from the old Fitbit app mainly by its more modern color palette and font. (My colleague Julian Chokkattu says the old Fitbit app looked like something straight out of 2014—which, fair!) The app's navigation has also been simplified. At the bottom there are three tabs: Today, Coach, and You.

The Today tab shows your Focus, which is where you set your health goals. You can pick from preset goals, like Getting More Active, Sleeping Better, or Improving your Heart Health, or you can create your own. The app then shows you the metrics that are most relevant to that goal. I picked Getting More Active, which shows steps, calories, distance covered, and active zone minutes, which judges each workout's efficiency. I do not think Weight Loss should be one of the preselected Focus categories, but that's another article altogether.

The Coach tab shows different workout videos you can stream and different instructors you can follow. The You tab is where the app tracks the progress of your goals, logs your various health assessments, and shows the activities your family and friends have completed. Fitbit has been around for a long time; if you have a Fitbit, you’re probably connected with other people who have Fitbits. Unfortunately, Google has been shutting down these community features for a while, but for now you can still see your family, friends, any groups you may have, and your live feed.

The Charge 6 is a full-featured fitness tracker that logs the standard suite of health metrics. It doesn’t disguise itself as a watch. Rather, it’s a simple band with the Fitbit pebble (what other manufacturers might call a case) and its bright touchscreen, which has an optional always-on mode. On the side is a button to help control it. Fitbit went through a phase where none of the trackers had physical buttons, and they didn't always work well. I was very glad to see the physical button return with the Charge 6.

Using an array of sensors on the back, where the tracker touches your wrist, it can measure blood oxygen level (known as SpO₂) and your skin temperature to tell if you have a fever. It can take an ECG reading to determine if you have irregular heart rhythms, or take an electrodermal activity scan to measure stress levels in your body. (I found both my ECG and EDA tests to be inconclusive during my time with the Charge 6, but that’s unfortunately par for the course for me with most trackers.)

The Charge 6 also tracks your heart rate 24 hours a day with what the company says is the most accurate heart rate sensor it's ever put in a fitness trackers (that is to say, not compared to the company's smartwatches like the Pixel Watch 2 or the Sense 2). You can see your heart rate at any given time on the Fitbit’s always-on display. When I checked the Charge 6's heart rate sensor against the readings from my Oura ring, it was usually the same or close enough—84 versus 86, for example.

This constant reading, the results of which are shown on an always-on display, does not come at the expense of battery life. Fitbit claims it has optimized its various algorithms so they can be run on the device with greater efficiency. Even with using Google Maps, Google Wallet, and multiple tracked activities per day, the Charge 6 lasted a full week on one charge.

As with the Apple Watch's integration with Apple Maps, you can now get turn-by-turn directions via Google Maps on your Fitbit. It also has contactless payment capabilities with Google Wallet, and YouTube Music Premium can be controlled natively on the Charge 6's screen. All of these from-the-wrist interactions worked more or less as advertised. However, keeping the tracker in communication with my phone (which it relies on for data connectivity) was an issue. Even when I had my phone in a waist pack, I spent many minutes staring at my wrist, patiently waiting for Google Maps or YouTube Music to reconnect so I could switch the song or get directions.

Connectivity was also an issue with the app. For almost a whole day, the Fitbit app showed that I had gotten two hours of sleep. This was not true; the Oura ring showed that I’d had more than seven hours of sleep. When I clicked through, the app showed that it hadn’t synced since 2:33 am, when I got up to drink some water. I clicked to sync repeatedly, but it didn’t sync until late that afternoon. I’ve had some connectivity issues with all Bluetooth-dependent trackers, but even during a short testing period of a week, Fitbit’s issues were notably annoying. (The company also has a history of service outages.)

The Charge 6 can now also connect with some Bluetooth-compatible exercise machines, such as the NordicTrack treadmill or Peloton bike. I mostly work out outside, so I didn’t get the chance to test this. However, a lot of my activity comes in brief fits and spurts throughout the day. SmartTrack, Fitbit’s automated workout recognition system, doesn’t pick up workouts nearly as quickly or as accurately as Garmin’s or Apple’s automated systems. My Garmin has recognized runs as short as one minute—me sprinting to make a doctor’s appointment. In contrast, the Fitbit's threshold is 10 minutes, so you have to be doing an activity for a while before the Fitbit recognizes it and logs it. It’s very weird to get home after biking my kids a mile to school to find that I apparently moved nowhere and did nothing.

Finally, there’s no fall detection. No Fitbit trackers have this feature. As someone who works from home by myself and regularly runs, bikes, and hikes alone, this is one of the most important features in a fitness tracker for me. The lack of fall detection also precludes buying your nana or other elderly relative a Fitbit.

Unlike with Garmin Connect or Apple Health, you do have to pay a $10 monthly subscription fee for Fitbit Premium. (Fitbit does offer six months of Fitbit Premium for free with each purchase.) If you don’t subscribe, you don’t get to see your Daily Readiness Score, which is your daily metric to show how fit you are to tackle the day and probably the most actionable metric that any fitness tracker posts. You also don’t get wellness reports or get to see the details of your sleep score—without which I never would’ve figured out that the tracker hadn’t synced.

However, you can still get a lot of useful information without a Fitbit Premium subscription. In our current subscription hell, paying $10 per month for a tracker that costs $160, as compared to a $300 or $400 smartwatch, seems pretty reasonable.

The cost savings means you're getting a less-than-premium product. The Charge 6 might not feel quite as beautiful or sleek as a Pixel Watch 2 or Apple Watch. I consider that to be a valid reason to avoid any accessory that will spend nearly its entire life on your body. Also, spending multiple minutes a day fiddling with the Bluetooth connection can cause frustrations to build up.

Still, at a time when every smartwatch and fitness tracker is stretching harder and harder to find reasons to wear it—Get more ambient daylight! Assess your anxiety! Write a journal entry!—the Charge 6 remains simple and easy to use. It's focused, and that's something.