Fitbit Charge 6
The Fitbit Charge 6 is the latest and greatest thing to come from the manufacturer. The fitness tracker provides the most advanced heart rate monitor that’s ever featured in a Fitbit, and it covers specific fitness tracking across more than 40 different exercise modes. The Charge 6 retains Fitbit’s seven day battery life as well as much of the design language that made its predecessor an instant winner.
Fitbit Charge 4
The Fitbit Charge 4 is a modern remnant of the pre-Google design style that once characterized the brand. The fitness tracker provides fantastic heart rate monitoring and sleep tracking features, as well as NFC support for on the go payment straight from your wrist. It’s still a high performing fitness tracker, even after spending a few years in the marketplace.
The newest Fitbit stands ready to shake up the fitness tracker space in a big way. Not only has the price of the Fitbit Charge 6 come down, but the stylish design language that made its first appearance in the unit’s direct predecessor has been retained for a sleek and attractive overall finish. The Charge 6 offers improvements across the board, but how might it stack up against earlier models in both price and design specifications? More importantly, will the Charge 6 take the crown when it comes to thebest among all Fitbit models?
The Charge 4 from Fitbitremains a fantastic fitness tracker. Released in March 2020, only months after Google officially acquired Fitbit (November 2019), the Charge 4 retained much of the intuitive features and design flair that had previously rounded out these wrist-worn devices, including quality battery life, automatic tracking, NFC payment support, and built-in GPS. But two generations later, how does the tracker stack up against Fitbit’s latest and greatest, and should Charge 4 owners feel the pressure to upgrade?
Price, availability, and specs
The Fitbit Charge 6 is out now from Fitbit, Google, and most major retailers for a retail price of $160.
Meanwhile, the Fitbit Charge 4 has been out for a few years and remains available from the likes of Amazon and Walmart, even if Fitbit itself has stopped selling it. It still retails for around $150 though, making it a bad buy for anyone who doesn’t own either.
With a newer product comes a wealth of enhancements, and this is certainly true for the Charge 6 when matched up against the Charge 4. While the 4 is a little cheaper, the price difference is so slim that the newer Charge 6 is the better buy from a price perspective.
Design and display
The Charge 6 provides users with a navigation button that improves the user experience drastically over the Charge 5 that came before it. Each successive model has improved on the speediness with which users can navigate between screens, which is a particularly important feature while using the tracker during exercise. The Charge 5 made app maneuverability a bit of a muddy experience, derailing its progress in a meaningful way over the Charge 4. However, the Charge 6 gets this right, providing smoother transitions than the Charge 4 and a return to the external feature that allows for easy accessibility.
In terms of display, the Charge 4 offers up a grayscale OLED touchscreen while the Charge 6 takes this up a notch with the integration of the same color AMOLED touchscreen on the Charge 5 before it. The two models are very light, but the Charge 4 edges out the newer device with a 26.08-gram weight compared to the Charge 6’s 37.64 grams. Expectedly, the Charge 6 stands at 0.44 inches in height, while the Charge 4 is slightly thinner, measuring 0.4 inches.
The difference is so minor that you’re unlikely to notice the added weight, making either option a comfortable wear. The color screen on the new model will almost certainly catch your eye, though.
Software and performance
Both trackers from Fitbit benefit from similar software. The interface will be very similar among both devices, with the Charge 6 utilizing a colored screen rather than the gray window featured on the Charge 4. Both offer a selection of screen faces that showcase a series of different health monitoring options. For instance, you can opt to include your heart rate on the screen at all times alongside the time.
One of the many things that sets the Charge 6 apart is the ability to pair with gym equipment for enhanced health monitoring metrics. If you’re using a Peloton, NordicTrack, Tonal, or Concept2 machine, for example, pairing your fitness tracker with the exercise device will allow you to utilize the partnered machines’ heart rate tracking features via Bluetooth. This makes for more accurate monitoring of your performance throughout the exercise session.
The Fitbit Charge 6 is also firmly a product of the Google landscape, meaning your first foray into the use of Fitbit’s exercise monitoring environment will be paired with your Google account. For existing Fitbit users, a migration of data will take place, merging your Fitbit account and information with your Google account (or a newly created one for anyone who has somehow remained outside Google’s sphere of influence).
While the Charge 4 offers up a wealth of health tracking features, the Charge 6 expands on them comprehensively. The new model provides the most accurate heart rate monitor ever featured on a Fitbit device. The tracking is not only improved for 24/7 monitoring, but it’s also 60% better at identifying your heartbeat while you’re engaged in intense exercise, like a HIIT workout or a rowing session.
The new Fitbit also ships with a 6-month free trial of Fitbit Premium, giving you a pretty lengthy firsthand taste of the paywalled extras that are available if you choose to continue with the Premium subscription later down the road. Both fitness trackers also support NFC payments, with the Charge 6 integrating the Google Wallet app under the hood to allow for versatile card, pass, and ticket use.
Workout tracking and health monitoring features
The two wrist-worn devices both support a robust set of fitness tracking and health monitoring features. The Fitbit Charge 4 added an integrated GPS function rather than only relying on a paired smartphone to perform this addition. The Charge 6 retains the onboard GPS and also offers enhanced geographical data on your running route via the Fitbit mobile app. The Charge 6 adds more than 20 new exercise modes to the fitness tracking lineup, improving the versatility of the device well beyond the capabilities of even the Charge 5.
The Charge 4 offers excellent sleep-tracking metrics, including heart rate, sleep stage monitoring, and blood oxygen tracking. Two model generations later, and Fitbit continues to provide excellent sleep tracking alongside an easy-to-interpret sleep score. The Charge 6 also introduces SpO2 and skin temperature monitoring, as well as an EDA scanning function to help detect electrodermal activity — sweat level changes that may indicate a stress response. In addition, Charge 6 gives feedback on stressors in the form of a stress management score, throwing in a great new feature that monitors your body’s physical responses to stress and how your actual exercise and sleep can contribute to positive or negative changes.
The Charge 4 also supports a control integration for Spotify. This fitness tracker can’t play directly from your playlist, though, and only acts as a controller to pair with another device. The Charge 6 is set to ship with YouTube Music controls instead. The same kind of controller will be available on the new device, with the necessity of a nearby playback device to handle the heavy lifting.
With VO2 Max tracking, Fitbit Pay, and an intuitive Smart Wake system onboard the Charge 4, it was the most advanced fitness tracker available when it hit the market. However, improvements are bound to take place over time, and the same is likely true for the newest Fitbit 6, which is quickly nearing its release date. The win goes to the Charge 6, although the earlier model remains a high-performance fitness tracker with a lot to offer when it comes to health monitoring and the grunt work of tracking fitness performance for those obsessed with the numbers.
Battery life
Battery life looks to be the same among the two fitness trackers. The Fitbit Charge 4 sports a seven-day battery life, and the Charge 6 does as well. This is a feature that has continued to be included in Fitbit devices, with the Charge 5 also offering a seven-day lifespan. However, the Charge 6 utilizes a revamped charging connection that isn’t found on the earlier model. The Fitbit Charge 4 utilizes the older, claw-style charger connection that’s both cumbersome to operate and somewhat bulky to pack away if you’re taking it away on vacation or just need to charge your tracker up while at the office on occasion.
For this reason, the Charge 6 comes out ahead of the earlier model. The connection point for the device’s charger is easy to use and won’t offer any hindrances when pulling the cord out of a bag or connecting it to the fitness tracker.
Should you upgrade?
The Fitbit Charge 6 is the clearly superior tracker. In all aspects, the Charge 6 comes out on top. It provides a massively expanded range of sport and activity-specific fitness tracking modes, while bringing improved heart rate monitoring and ECG support to the fore.
With an attractive price tag to boot, Charge 4 owners should seriously consider investing in the Charge 6 for the sake of its color display, improved tracking, and deeper Google integrations.
The preeminent Fitbit tracker
The Fitbit Charge 6 builds off the successes of the Fitbit Charge 5, offering the same trusted battery life and access to even more of Google’s premium fitness features. Find your way around seamlessly using Google Maps while also keeping track of your heart rate with Fitbit’s most accurate tracker yet.
The Charge 4 from Fitbit remains a quality fitness tracker. The automatic exercise detection and sleep tracking mean that the Charge 4 offers some great integrations that have become standard in the modern ecosystem of fitness trackers.
Unless you find it at a steep discount you really shouldn’t buy the Charge 4 now, but existing owners who are happy with the tracking it offers and don’t see the appeal of a color screen might as well stick with it.
Good alternative
The Fitbit Charge 4 is a modern remnant of the pre-Google design style that once characterized the brand. The fitness tracker provides fantastic heart rate monitoring and sleep tracking features, as well as NFC support for on-the-go payment straight from your wrist. It’s still a high-performing fitness tracker, even after spending a few years in the marketplace.
