FitbitCharge 3 Fitness Activity Tracker

TLDR- This Fitbit works great for me. There are watch faces with dates on them, the watch activates when I turn my wrist. It's an extremely comfy watch/band, and doesn't feel too clunky.At first I was extremely skeptical about buying this watch. Half the reviews on here said it was bad and unreliable. I even asked a few people who had the watch and they said the same thing. The good news is that Fitbits can be updated and improved. Make sure to note the dates of the reviews posted. A lot were from when the Fitbit Charge 3 had just come out and don't doubt there were issues and bugs. However, it has been about 6 months since then and a lot has changed.The very first watch face that was on the Fitbit when I got it displayed the date. That was a big factor for me because I work in the food industries and always need to know the date so I know when food will expire. So I was pleased to see the date on the main screen. The first watch face is called "Double Stats." If you tap on the main screen it will also rotate through date, heart rate, calories, etc. In addition, I was looking through the watch face options and I saw a few more with date display options. A few reviews said the clock face was "nastily" formatted and though there are some artsy faces, there are equally traditional analog and digital faces.I also saw some reviews saying it was hard to turn the watch face on. One review said you had to mimik the motion of stabbing yourself in the chest before it would activate. I found that to be be untrue. I turns on easily, though not too easily.Basically, this watch ended up working perfectly for me. I haven't worn it long enough to check the accuracy of the fitness tracker part of it. Remember to check dates of things reviewed to see if they are from present day or months ago. People are also more likely to review something if they found it negative, so even though you are seeing those negative reviews, they are probably only a fraction of the positive reviews that just weren't written.

I’m absolutely in love with my new Fitbit Charge 3! First of all, I must express appreciation even for the simple fact of how well all the technology inside this little thing WORKS: I have had zero issues with it, which is so refreshing and rare in this day and age. It just works! Now on to all it does: it is awesome, and so empowering for the wearer! I think the thing I appreciate the most, personally, is the heart rate monitor/information. I have an electrical conduction issue with my heart, which doesn’t have any symptoms and was found on my first-ever, routine EKG back in 2009 (the issue is called left bundle branch block—LBBB for short). After further testing, I was told that my heart is healthy and fine, BUT we do have to always keep an eye on this LBBB situation, because it could stay the same, which would be great, but it could possibly become problematic down the road, and one thing the cardiologist told me to do is to routinely take my heart rate, and make sure the resting heart rate stays between 60 and 90 bpm. Well, I was so good about doing it, just as he taught me how (manually), for several years, but then I gradually stopped taking my heart rate, honestly. But now, with the Fitbit? I don’t have to sit there, stop everything, and manually take my heart rate. I just glance at the Fitbit and: THERE IS MY HEART RATE! That feature alone, for me, is worth the price of the Fitbit. And it isn’t just the resting heart rate, it is your heart rate, in real time, 24/7: resting, active, the whole enchilada! It lets you know your current heart rate at the moment, and your resting heart rate, right there on the screen of your Fitbit. AND, when you actually go into the app on your phone, it gives you TONS of DETAILED data/information about it, and your heart rate patterns. For example, if I take a 30 minute walk, the Fitbit Charge 3 KNOWS/recognizes that it was a specific exercise session, and that it was a walk, and it provides a color bar graph in the app that charts when your heart rate was in which “zone”, so you see, oh, my heart rate was at “peak” for this many minutes (you don’t really want your heart rate to be at “peak” ever, if I understand correctly—you want it in “fat burn” or “cardio” when you are exercising, but not “peak”, as at peak it is working too hard, so this is something I will ask the cardiologist about next time I see him for my routine, every-two-year appointment I have coming up to check on the LBBB. Without the Fitbit, I would have NO IDEA what my non-resting heart rate ever is! But with it, I know that it is usually very good (I think—I will check that with the doctor, too), but occasionally goes up into “peak” just when exercising moderately—this is info I want to check out with the doctor: it is probably fine and normal, but the point is, knowledge is POWER: I have so much heart rate info now that I can go into my appointment with and tell him, HEY, I have a Fitbit now and blah blah BLAH! (The poor man *lol*.) Oh, and I know that the Fitbit heart rate is accurate, as I have taken mine manually several times and compared it to what the Fitbit says at the same time, and it is exactly correct.And that is just the heart rate info—moving on, there is SO MUCH MORE that this little wunderkind does! We have sleep data: WOW! Just wow! I have had sleep issues for years, which recently have been better due to some factors, but anyway, it is fascinating and enlightening to see how much I actually am sleeping, how much of it is light, how much is deep, how much is REM, what times of night are which, etc. We also have the step counting feature, which is similarly enlightening and empowering: I’m a big walker and it is revelatory to see how many steps, and how much distance, I’m actually walking. The Fitbit also prompts me with a little vibration if I have NOT taken 250 steps in any given waking hour (it has a 9-hour timeframe set), at ten minutes before the hour. Folks, there is just too much information and data that this little amazing piece of technology gives you to even cover in a review!Suffice it to say this: like I mentioned early on, the word of the review is EMPOWERING. When you go into the app, you have SO MUCH information. I can’t get over it. I really, really love this Fitbit and would not be without it ever again. The heart rate info alone is priceless to me, but I also need to lose weight and I feel that the Fitbit is really, really going to help and is already motivating and educating me a lot re my steps per day, calories burned—oh yeah: it tells you that, too!!!—and everything else. I haven’t even used some of the features yet. Did I mention I LOVE this thing?!!!