Fitbit Charge 6 : Scientific Test (IMPROVED by AI!)

🟡 Twitter: @QuantifiedRob
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Reference devices:

Intro Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
License code: OBLD6VBBCTRDFZQP

Timestamps:
00:00 Quick Intro
01:25 Heart Rate Test 1 : Indoor Cycling
05:05 Heart Rate Test 2 : Outdoor Cycling
07:23 Heart Rate Test 3 : Running
09:08 Heart Rate Test 4 : Weight Lifting
11:26 Sleep Test
15:40 Sleep Test : Comparison w/ Other Watches
18:06 GPS Test
20:00 Limitations
20:33 Recommendations & Conclusions

The Fitbit Charge 6 is a lot better than the Charge 5! Over the last few days I’ve done a lot of testing with the Fitbit Charge 6, and I was hoping that the promised improved heart rate tracking is true. And, I am happy to report it does appear to be the case, for the most case, because it did still show some issues. In this video I will show you the results for a first test of the heart rate tracking performance, sleep tracking accuracy and GPS tracking of the Fitbit Charge 6. Let’s get to it!
The Charge 6 supposedly debuts the most accurate heart rate on a Fitbit tracker yet, thanks to an improved machine learning algorithm. Google claims that the heart rate tracking during vigorous activities — like for instance HIIT workouts, spinning and rowing — is up to 60% more accurate than before. Now, as far as I understand this, this means that the sensor set is the same between the Charge 5 and Charge 6, but just the processing of the signals is what is leading to the improvements. And, as I’ll show you in a second, this actually seems to work. There are also a number of other additional features on the Charge 6, for instance you can use the Fitbit Charge 6 as an external heart rate monitor on third-party fitness equipment, which you cannot do with the Fitbit Charge 5. But that’s not why you clicked on this video. You want to check out the heart rate tracking performance of the Charge 6, so let’s get right to the systematic testing.
Back to my final conclusion of the Charge 6. Is it any good? Well, yes. The heart rate tracking actually seems quite good, and seems to have improved significantly compared to the Charge 5. The sleep stage tracking is exactly as I have come to expect from Fitbit, which is pretty good, though I did encounter a small issue. Only the GPS tracking was a bit disappointing. Therefore, overall, I’d preliminarily give the Fitbit Charge 6, 3.5 out of 5 stars. But stay tuned for my full review to see if this holds up with even more testing. Now, I’ve mentioned this in many videos, but depending on your needs, another smartwatch or health tracker might be a better choice. For health tracking, I personally use an Oura Ring and Whoop strap. If I want the best GPS tracking with good battery life, I’d probably pick a Garmin. And for improving my sleep, I use the Eight sleep pod 3.

[sammyt]

Hi Rob, I've been watching your brilliant reviews for a couple of years now and just wanted to tell how much your efforts in doing such comprehensive scientific reviews testing devices that are actually important to one's health are appreciated. Keep up the great work!

[jgameruk]

From my experience with Charge 6:
- HR sensor is improved but not always performs well
- HR performs really well (comparing to Garmin HRM-Swim chest strap)... in the water (auto-detected swim keeps HR sensor on)
- HR locks onto the cadence. I run with cadence 195spm+ and HR often locks for a couple of minutes reporting numbers near 195. It may last a few minutes or more (longest such lock lasted 45 minutes on one of my easy steady runs)
- Built-in GPS doesn't work for me. It connects sometimes and a few moments later disconnects and tracker gives up on trying to connect. Dynamic mode isn't making things any better. Only Phone mode is somewhat reliable.
- Running distance is always short. I noticed that steps reported for the run don't match my cadence but they are always several hundreds lower. That may explain the distance issue (Fitbit never used GPS for running distance).
- Sports tracking in general is very basic and often inaccurate when it comes to metrics (swim lengths always wrong, running distance always short, less features like manual laps or swim stroke detection)
- HR broadcasting is almost useless as it won't work with majority of equipment (requires differenr connection handshake), it won't work with bike computers either. From all the equipment I could use only my PC and mobile phone connected. Nothing else.

[nrnoble]

Thanks for precise details and presenting graph data. For me it is well within my personal tolerance for accuracy. What I was surprised to see missing is Step count tests. Any average person who gets regular exercise, but does so by walking rather than running or biking is far more interested in step count over the course of day and likely has step count goals rather the miles. Example, I often spend 1-2 hours working in the yard, so step count helps understand how much yard work counts toward my daily goal.

[Jinru]

I was seriously considering swapping to the Apple ecosystem just to use their superior Apple Watches for fitness tracking. Seeing these results makes me feel I can stay with android and upgrade my Inspire 3 to the Charge 6. Thanks a lot for this review! I've been waiting all week for it.

[kreesod]

Hey Rob, congrats on hands down the best channel about wearables and surprising how many channels just do shallow reviews! and it'd be great to see more comparison in terms of sleep duration (start, wake up and nap detection) as there seems to be a lot of discrepancies among devices, for example, I've observed discrepancies between samsung watch classic 4, honor band 6 and fitbit charge 6 (interestingly honor band seems to be the best at this) and considering duration is one of the core metrics of sleep having data on this can help a lot to decide which device would offer a net positive for certain people (example, personally i would trade off a bit of phase detection accuracy in favor of total sleep duration accuracy)

[danieljrgensen]

Rob, your Fitbit Charge 5 review, reports a 92, 2% accuracy for the deep sleep detection. Check at timestamp 7 min 4 sec. And much better awake time detection as well(94, 7%).

Maybe you need to clarify this difference to your audience? 😉

[ucup]

Amazingly that charge bit 6 using the old sensor with exceptional improvement. That software could easily be installed on the 5th version.

[CrasyFingers]

holy CRAP what an improvement over the other fitbits!

[kenweidemoyer]

I have Fitbit 3 and will keep it for 2 years. I think I will be getting Fit bit 6. Thanks for sharing.

[tomasnobrega]

Hey man! Love your videos
Just came up the idea that you could calculate RMSE in the analysis. Correlation is good as it measures comovoments. However variables of different levels might comove similarly even though they are measuring quite differently.
By RMSE, root mean swuared error, i just mean make the deviation of what is measured, square it, take a mean and finally a squareroot. Its easy and might be helpful. Great job!

[paulcannizzaro]

This has to be the best performing band in the market according to your testing. I've been binging your videos for the past 2 weeks and with certainty the charge 6 has outperformed all other bands (not watches) for both heart rate and sleep tracking. I mean usually the heart rate correlation for outdoor cycling really starts to fall off and gets even worse for weight lifiting, but the correlation for the charge 6 was above .90 for BOTH exercises. That really outperforms all other bands you've tested where typically the correlation will be around .60-.70 for those same exercises. I'm really impressed

[giridhranpalani]

Nice weightlifting is getting better on fitbit as seen with the pixel 2 and now with the charge 6.

Happy to see more android friendly companies driving the change to better tracking!

Thanks for the videos Rob! Love the detail as usual!

[Santiniii]

Thanks, really looking forward to the full review of the pixel watch 2

[miguelandaya]

Hey! I hope you add more test subjects soon! Like different ages, skin tone (for the sensors), sex, and etc!

[mikispo]

Outstanding review, as always! I wonder whether you've thought about incorporating additional statistical measures like the MAPE, or even sharing the raw data (not necessarily in the video, but maybe even as supplementary material). I think that providing such information could be very helpful (particularly now that most devices are improving so much their HR PPG correlation values).

[kal]

I love the data and testing. It would be even better if you can review the product regarding value and data access+usefulness. This could be a separate video. The thing is most of the top accurate devices now have some kind of paywall that keeps useful analytics or metrics away from their users and that's a very important criteria when it comes to purchasing decisions.

[everfreeeeee]

I just love your channel!! It makes me order and end up canceled. Super informative, makes me avoid any "wrong buy" thank you so much and keep the good work 💪

[katiagiarratana]

Bellissimo video, grazie per il tuo ottimo e instancabile lavoro!! Sto aspettando con curiosità il prossimo video su questo smartwatch, quando uscirà? 👋👋complimenti ancora

[PascalKeys]

I've been literally refreshing your channel waiting for this video! Awesome!

[jmuldr]

Your reviews are great with superb rigorous testing giving a lot of detail usually missing from other reviewers. Consequently, many viewers will use your videos to help them make purchasing decisions. With this in mind, please inform viewers when features are locked behind a paywall. For example, the excellent sleep tracking features you speak about in detail are Fitbit Premium features. Without the expensive Fitbit Premium, you don't even get the breakdown of deep, light, REM, awake etc.

If you consider many folks will own a watch for 2 years the cost for this watch in EU will currently be around 400€ (160 + 24x9.90) … that's no longer such a bargain.