Fitness Watch (for indoors) - Fitbit charge 4 released

[williamcll]

Leaked a week ago, Fitbit has released their new smartwatch, featuring inbuilt GPS, Heart tracker, sleep tracker and 7 days of battery.

Quote

The Fitbit Charge 4 is a major improvement on the Charge 3, with built-in GPS, Spotify and Fitbit Pay helping bridge the gap between fitness trackers and true smartwatches. Its price and design are almost identical to the Fitbit 3 at release, which is impressive considering the improvements under the hood, and although is sadly lacks the color display we'd been hoping for, there are lots of new tools to help you monitor and improve your fitness. Although Fitbit had to cancel its launch event due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this is actually the perfect time to launch a new fitness wearable. With races and other mass participation events cancelled around the world, and face-to-face training off the cards for the foreseeable future, runners will be relying on watches and apps to hold themselves accountable and avoid succumbing to the temptations of the sofa at Netflix. The launch also coincides with Fitbit's decision to extend its free trial of Fitbit Premium to 90 days. Pre-orders for the Fitbit Charge 4 begin on March 31 2020 (at Fitbit’s website and selected retailers including Amazon), and it will go on sale globally on April 15.

The Fitbit Charge 4 is launching at $149.95 / £129.99 / AU$229.95 – the same price as the Fitbit Charge 3 at launch. The standard model is available in black, rosewood and storm blue/black. There’s also a Fitbit Charge 4 Special Edition priced at $169.95 / £149.99 / AU$269.95, which comes with both a granite reflective/black band, and a classic black band so you can choose between different looks. Extra bands are available in a choice of materials (silicone, rubber and recycled woven fiber) starting at $29.95 /£19.99/ AU$49.95 each.

Source: https://www.techradar.com/news/fitbit-charge-4-price-features-and-everything-you-need-to-know

https://www.fitbit.com/us/products/trackers/charge4

Thoughts: If this can work well indoors I think it's possible to make profits, but in therms of price I think competitors are still better.

[Commodus]

Fitbit's main problem is that you can get good, full-fledged smartwatches for not much more.  If you're an iPhone user, spending the $50 extra on an Apple Watch Series 3 may pay tremendous dividends.

[LAwLz]

9 minutes ago, Commodus said:

Fitbit's main problem is that you can get good, full-fledged smartwatches for not much more.  If you're an iPhone user, spending the $50 extra on an Apple Watch Series 3 may pay tremendous dividends.

That's still 33% more expensive, and in Sweden the Apple watch is actually 47% more expensive.

Not insignificant sums of money. Also, since the Apple watch series 3 only work with iPhones it's not an option for Android users (the majority of people).

 

 

So I think there is more than enough room for both the Fitbit Charge 4 and the Apple Watch series 3 on the market.

[Commodus]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

That's still 33% more expensive, and in Sweden the Apple watch is actually 47% more expensive.

Not insignificant sums of money. Also, since the Apple watch series 3 only work with iPhones it's not an option for Android users (the majority of people).

 

 

So I think there is more than enough room for both the Fitbit Charge 4 and the Apple Watch series 3 on the market.

There are Android-friendly counterparts, of course, I just felt that the Apple Watch would be the immediately obvious comparison.

 

And remember, people don't always judge prices by relative terms.  Are they thinking "that's 33% more" or "it's only $50 more?"  Wearables are luxuries as a general rule, so customers might be thinking more about value for money than absolute price.

 

For that matter, I'm not sure there is as much room for the Charge 4 as you might think.  Google set out to acquire Fitbit in part because Fitbit has been struggling as its activity tracker sales drop; half of its revenue comes from smartwatches, and that's a problem when it's not nearly as big or profitable as Apple or Samsung.  As far as trackers go, Fitbit has had more success offering huge quantities of basic devices through insurance companies and government fitness programs.  The Charge 4 sits in this awkward middle ground where it's neither as full-featured as a smartwatch nor cheap enough that you can easily recommend it over a smartwatch.

[dizmo]

There's a membership scheme behind it? Odd. I don't remember them having that when I had my Fitbit, but that was a few years ago. I really liked my FitBit Charge 2. Personally, I think if they're going to charge a membership to get the full amount out of the product, the product should be cheaper. Make less profit on the hardware.

 

8 hours ago, Commodus said:

Fitbit's main problem is that you can get good, full-fledged smartwatches for not much more.  If you're an iPhone user, spending the $50 extra on an Apple Watch Series 3 may pay tremendous dividends.

The FitBit gets significantly better battery life. Or at least, I imagine it does, since mine destroyed my friends Apple Watch.

6 hours ago, Benji said:

Besides the now-default NFC integration (and not just on the Special Edition like it was the case with the Charge 3), the built-in GPS and the newer wrist strap designs, it basically has only software differences from the Charge 3. The "active zone minutes" feature which apparently gives you goals to stay within certain heart frequency ranges (which the Charge 3 can display during training anyway, just without setting them as goals), the new watchface and the Spotify app are basically software features, so I think that the Charge 4 is only worth it should you really require GPS and when you only pay 100-120 bucks (I paid 100€ for my Charge 3). Besides the GPS, nothing that the new Charge 4 can do is something that the Charge 3 couldn't do after a firmware update, so I think that talking about a "major improvement" is kind of an exaggeration. When you have a Charge 3 (like I do), I think it totally isn't worth upgrading to.

Well, to be fair, tech is hardly ever worth upgrading to generation to generation. GPS is pretty significant.

[Commodus]

58 minutes ago, dizmo said:

The FitBit gets significantly better battery life. Or at least, I imagine it does, since mine destroyed my friends Apple Watch.

Oh, I know it does... but that's also because Fitbit trackers don't do nearly as much.  Fitbit's own smartwatches have considerably shorter battery life than the trackers.

[dizmo]

1 hour ago, Commodus said:

Oh, I know it does... but that's also because Fitbit trackers don't do nearly as much.  Fitbit's own smartwatches have considerably shorter battery life than the trackers.

Right but if someone is buying a fitness tracker that's all they want. They don't care about the other stuff.