The Fitbit Charge 5 is official – here’s what we know

Fitbit has just announced its newest health tracker, the Charge 5, and we’re a little excited about it. Fitbit will be looking to build on the success of the Charge 4, and by the looks of things, it’s done just that.

See your fit(bit)ness in colour on the Charge 5

One of the immediately noticeable upgrades is the AMOLED colour display. Until now, Fitbit’s Charge series has come with a monochromatic display. Fitbit (presumably) thought the decision to skip the colour display on previous Charge devices was justifiable for the relatively ‘low’ price. We would disagree. So it’s a welcome addition, considering that you’re still paying around R4,000 for a Charge 5, screen upgrade and all. Fitbit has also slimmed down the understated design and body by 20%, the company says.

Other notable features include the addition of ECG sensors in the stainless steel sides of the trackers’ body and in-app assessments specifically aimed at detecting Atrial fibrillation (AFib), the most common type of irregular heartbeat.

The Charge 5 will be Fitbit’s first tracker to include an Electrodermal Activity (EDA) sensor, to help keep track of your stress levels — which have no doubt been on the rise over the past year or two. Hopefully stress tracking has improved a little over the Fitbit Sense. 

Other less notable but still nice-to-haves include the classics; sleep tracking, notifications from your smartphone and on-wrist replies (if you’re on Android), timers, alarms and contactless payment. Fitbit is also boasting 7-day battery life, but we reckon that’ll depend on how active you are.

Ready for action

In addition to the tracker, the company is also pushing new updates to its subscription service, the biggest being something it calls daily readiness score. This will use data the tracker collects from your body to determine if it’s a good day to hit the gym (or road) or if you should prioritise recovery.

While that sounds like a swell idea, it’ll depend on how accurate your tracker’s sensors are. It won’t be exclusive to the Charge 5 either, if you have a Fitbit Premium subscription and a Sense, Versa 2, Versa 3, Luxe or Inspire 2, then it’ll be available to you too.

While on paper the Charge 5 looks like a worthy upgrade to the Charge 4, we will wait until we get our hands on one to say for sure. The Charge 5 will be available some time in September. You’ll be able to pick one up from the usual places, like Makro, Cape Union Mart, Incredible Connection and Takealot for R4,000.