 So I have a love-hate relationship with the Fitbit Charge 5 and it has amazing health tracking features which are super useful, but there are a few things about it that just don't have me sold on it just yet. And in this video, I wanna share my honest thoughts on the Fitbit Charge 5 and if I think it's worth buying over other fitness trackers. Starting off with the design, straight out the box, the Fitbit Charge 5 comes with the device itself, an additional band, the Fitbit specific charger, and a quick start guide. Similar to the previous Fitbit charger generations, they stuck with a more slimmer band design with a new vibrant display that is two times brighter than the Charge 4 and now is in full color. In this new generation, they've included a number of sensors to the device, including the typical heart rate monitor, infrared sensors for oxygen saturation, a skin temperature sensor, and the new multi-purpose sensors on the sides of the device that are used for Fitbit's heart ECG and EDA stress scanning applications. Overall, it's a simple device that has a very sleek look with features that pack a punch. Now what I think is the Fitbit Charge 5's bread and butter are their health and fitness tracking capabilities. From a device perspective, you get an overall view of your health metrics all from your wrist. For example, on the home screen of the Charge 5, you can tap through the basic fitness metrics, such as number of steps, your heart rate, calories burned, you get access to your standard phone notifications, such as texts and calls, you can start tracking a workout from the set list of exercises, and then as you continue swiping up, you can see where the Fitbit Charge 5 tracks the amount of hours you've stood up and been active during the day, it calculates how many hours of sleep you had the night before, and then the two new features added to the Fitbit Charge 5 were the ability to activate the EDA scan and the Fitbit ECG app. Where the EDA scan evaluates your skin's sweat levels that indicate your body's response to stress, while the ECG app is used to assess any heart rhythm irregularities that may unexpectedly show up. And then finally, you also have the ability to use your credit or debit card to make payments with Fitbit Pay once you've uploaded the card to the Fitbit app, which leads me to where I think the biggest strength of the Fitbit Charge 5 lies, which is actually not the device itself, it's the Fitbit mobile app. If you saw my recent video of my favorite health and fitness apps, you know that the Fitbit app is like the gold standard of fitness apps out there. The app is the central hub for all of your health and wellness stats and gives you a good sense of how healthy you are throughout the day and throughout your week. You can actually dive deeper into the individual health metrics that you care about most. For example, you can take a more specific look into your sleep score to really understand how much time you spent in individual sleep stages, or see the amount of time you were asleep versus awake. You can also access your readiness score that takes into account your amount of activity, your recent sleep, and your heart rate variability to determine how ready you are to take on your day. I can honestly talk about this app all day. In fact, if you want me to make another video diving deeper into the Fitbit app and its capabilities, let me know in the comments below. Overall, it's an amazing app that not only shares your summary of health stats, but if you sign up for their premium service, you also get workouts, meditations, wellness programs, and food ideas that help push you in the right direction to improving your holistic well-being. Now, this leads me a little bit into what I'm not the biggest fan about with the Charge 5, and what I personally feel is lacking for me to consider this as the number one health and fitness wearable out there. First off, it really does lack some of those smartwatch-based features that I'm used to and love. Yes, you have the ability to read texts, calendar events, and Gmail notifications, but it's really not the same when you think of competitors such as the Galaxy Watch 4 or the Apple Watch Series 7. Getting a dedicated app and interface really provides a better user experience, in my opinion. Which also is another thing that bothers me about the Fitbit Charge 5. You really don't have access to a ton of apps outside of what comes on the device already. Now, I'll admit it, there are definitely more options for the Fitbit since, but I don't even feel that those are as robust and well-built, similar to the Apple and Android ecosystems. You also don't get any audio playback capabilities where you can listen to music or any smart assistant features like Alexa or Google. Now I get it, Fitbit is not trying to play in the smartwatch game with the Fitbit Charge 5, but let's be honest, these are definitely convenient features that can help improve quality of life just a little bit. Who knows, we also might see some updates once Google's ownership kicks in. The second aspect of the Fitbit Charge 5 that I don't like is that you are basically forced to use Fitbit's premium membership to get the most out of the Charge 5's capabilities. For example, you need to get the membership to get access to the readiness scores, advanced sleep analytics, mindfulness sessions, video workouts, recipe inspirations, and wellness reports. That's like everything I tatted about earlier for what I love so much about the Fitbit. Now they do give you six months free right when you purchase the device, but then you get basically locked in for $9.99 a month to continue using the features that you came to know and love. And then the final thing that I didn't like about the Fitbit Charge 5, and it could just be a personal thing, but their band out of the box really irritated my wrist after about a week of use. It was so bad to the point that I had to buy both their fitness and fabric blue bands to wear instead for working out and everyday use. And I'll admit both have been a lot better, so it could have just been a bad reaction to the silicone used in their band. I just never really had that issue with my different Apple Watch bands that I've been using throughout the years. So after all of this, is it worth checking out the Fitbit Charge 5? In my opinion, I think so. It's impressive to see how Fitbit was able to pack so many amazing features and capabilities in such a small device. The Fitbit app is best in class, and if you're looking for a dedicated fitness tracker that gives you an overall view of your health and wellness throughout the week, this is definitely for you. However, if you're looking for something that's maybe more of a smartwatch and has those type of features that I mentioned earlier, check this video out here. And if you wanna hear more about the other health and fitness apps that I just love, go ahead and check this out right here. If you enjoy this video, don't forget to go ahead and capow that like button, subscribe if you haven't already, and as always, stay healthy and embrace the hype. Woo!