The Fitbit Edge could most easily be called the Fitbit Charge 7, but sometimes switching things up is a good refresh for companies and brands, and so here we are. In many ways, the Fitbit Edge will feel very familiar to Fitbit Charge users, yet it’ll concurrently feel very much like a recent Google Pixel Watch. That’s both good and bad. There’s a lot of good things coming from the Pixel Watch 5 & Fitbit Air that have landed here. Yet equally, having used it the past few weeks, there’s a number of smaller things that aren’t quite what we had on the very popular Fitbit Charge series.
Speaking of which, both my wife and I have been using Fitbit Edge units over this last while on all of our workouts. Runs, rides, hikes, walks, gym stuff, and everything in between. With that, let’s dive into what’s new, and then all my daily and workout usage experiences.
What’s New:
The Fitbit Edge is the next version of the Fitbit Charge 6, which came out in 2023. Here’s how it’s different:
– Increased screen/display by 46% (has 1.34” display)
– Case thickness is 11.5mm
– Added physical side button that actually clicks (previous was just a touch area)
– Added altimeter (for stair tracking, as well as elevation tracking)
– Added automatic workout detection (now supports 100 sports)
– Increased supported manual workout profiles to 50 workout profiles
– Made user-replaceable/serviceable battery (the first Fitbit-branded product to do so)
– GPS accuracy improvement claimed at 40% more accurate (via new GPS chipset, and new aluminum case design)
– Switched to a more modern user interface, matching the Pixel Watch 5 series
– Added structured workout support
– Added support for dual usage with Pixel Watch and Fitbit Air (e.g., switching back and forth seamlessly)
– Added fast charging (5 minutes gets you 1 day of usage)
– Removed Google Pay (NFC Contactless payments)
– Removed EDA Scan feature (but does have continuous stress monitoring in the background)
– Changed the band attachment mechanism (old Fitbit habits die hard)
– Switched the charger to the same charger as the Fitbit Air (hey, at least they picked something else they already had this time)
– Added a bunch of band accessory types
– Price increased to $179 (officially the Charge 6 was $159 previously, but realistically it sat between $99 and $129 virtually all the time)
– Also a Stephen Curry model at $219 (US, Canada, EMEA)
In terms of some other general specs, just for recap purposes:
– Same claimed 7-day battery life
– Still has heart rate broadcasting feature via Bluetooth (though it can be a bit funky in terms of compatibility)
– Still has music control of your phone’s music (no onboard music storage)
– Still has Google Maps turn-by-turn directions (with phone)
– Still has smartphone notifications (more integration on Android than iOS)
– Still has full sleep tracking
– Still has continuous heart rate monitoring (background and workout)
– Still supports high & low heart rate alerts
– Supports the Google Health Guardian features announced a few months ago
– You can do quick replies on Android, though not on iOS devices
– Has FDA/EU approved medical ECG functionality, including background Afib detection
– Includes skin temperature sensor
– Supports Steps, Distance, Active Zone Minutes, VO2Max, Floor/elevation, Cardio Load, and many more metrics
– Two sizes of bands (see specs below)
– Water resistance level is 5ATM, and IP68 for dust protection
So that covers the piles of new stuff, and some of the bits that were there before. But there are still numerous color schemes/models to choose from.
Model Options & Detailed Specs:
The Fitbit Air case comes in 5 different colorways, and then with that a huge slate of band options. Starting off with the core options you can buy, they are as follows:
– Matte Black Aluminum case / Obsidian Active Band
– Polished Silver Aluminum case / Fog Active Band
– Satin Pyrite Aluminum case / Olive Active Band
– Champagne Gold case / Canyon Active Band
– Satin Pyrite Aluminum case / Stephen Curry Special Edition
From there, you’ve got the following band types/options:
– Active Band
– Active Sport band
– Metal Link band
– Magnet band
– Performance Loop
Now, for most of our testing (my wife and I), we’ve been wearing the relatively basic/default Active band, which works perfectly fine and is easy to adjust/etc.
Still, we both wore other bands as well. Yesterday we had a fancy afternoon thing to go to, and swapped out to the Metal Link band. Hers was the champagne gold, and mine the brushed silver. Obviously neither quite perfectly matched with the models we had, but…well…that’s the models we had:
My only complaint here is that I found the clasp release button could actually get reasonably easily pressed. Ironically, it didn’t happen all day during most of the day, and then towards the end of the day, it was triggering constantly. My wife didn’t have this issue, so….yeah.
I’ve also worn the Active Sport band a bit, though I didn’t honestly find it all that meaningfully different than the Active band, in terms of sport wearability.
And finally have the Magnet Band, which is super cool and just snaps tight/shut.
Finally, looking at the tech specs, here’s a whole slate of things that may or may not be interesting to you:
– Display is 1.34”/34mm AMOLED display, supporting an always-on configuration
– Display supports adjustable brightness
– Bluetooth 5.4
– Processor: Ambiq AP5 MCU
– GPS chipset supports GPS+Galileo in US, and GPS+Galileo+GLONASS+BeiDou+QZSS outside of US
– Onboard memory: 64MB NOR flash memory, 7 days of detailed motion data (minute intervals), 30 days of daily totals, heart rate at 2-second intervals
– Internal sensors: Altimeter, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Red and infrared sensors for oxygen saturation (SpO2), Multipurpose electrical sensors compatible with ECG app, Photoplethysmography (PPG) optical heart rate sensor, Ambient light sensor, Far-field skin temperature sensor
– Battery is 65mAh
– Fully end-user replaceable battery
– Charging speed: 5 minutes of fast charging for 1 day of battery life, or 100% in 90 minutes
– Requires iOS 16.4 or newer, and Android 11 or newer
– Fitbit Edge Weight: 17.7g without band
– Fitbit Edge Dimensions: 39.22 x 25.56 mm
– Fitbit Edge Height/Thickness: 11.58mm
– Case is made from 100% recycled aluminum
– Active band: Silicone with “soft-touch coating”
– Active Band Sizing: Small fits wrists 130-170mm around, Large fits 170- 210 mm around
– Stephen Curry band: “Recycled polyester yarns with water-repellent coating and stainless steel lugs, as well as a raised interior print for increased airflow.”
– Stephen Curry band sizing (US): Small fits wrists 135-170mm around, Large fits 170-210mm around
– Stephen Curry band sizing (EU/Canada): Single-size fits wrists 150-195mm around
– Water resistance: 5ATM/50 meters
– Dust immersion resistance: IP68
Phew, got all that? Good, let’s roll right into the basics of the unit day to day.
The Daily Usage Basics:
In this section, I’ll go through all the daily usage basics of the Fitbit Edge, like activity/step tracking, sleep tracking, and general health bits. Then after this I’ll cover workout pieces.
First up is interacting with the device. The Fitbit Edge gained a physical button on the right side, which quickly opens the apps menu, for things like accessing the alarms, ECG, exercise, media controls, and weather. Previously on the Fitbit Charge 6, this was a touch-sensitive area, but not a clicking button:
The button is great, and I’ve been super happy with it. Note that at present, long-pressing it doesn’t do anything.
Instead, for most other interactions, you’ll use the touchscreen, which allows you to swipe left/right/up/down, and tap it for what you need. Of course, the first thing you’ll see is your watch face:
You can customize these in the Google Health App, allowing you to save multiple watch faces to the Fitbit Edge for quick swapping between them. You can customize each of the complications (data bits) on the watch face, as well as the coloring. There’s roughly a dozen watch faces to choose from:
From anytime on the display, you can swipe down to access the controls menu. This includes things like the flashlight, do-not-disturb mode, heart rate broadcasting, and more. I’ll cover some of these in more depth throughout the review.
Instead, if we swipe from the right we’ll get the quick start menu for workouts, allowing us to access the most recent sport profiles:
Swipe again, and we’ve got a high-level overview of the Focus Metrics panel:
This one (above) is kinda odd, though, in that you have to tap into it again to get to a longer list of focus metrics:
However, the most odd part here is that you can’t tap any of these metrics to see more details on-device. For example, want to see what time it thinks you went to sleep or woke up? Can’t do that here. Have to go to the phone. Want to see why your Readiness Score is what it is? Can’t do that here. Have to go to the phone.
In discussions with Google/Fitbit, they seem to hint that changes are coming here in this area. I sure hope so, as this seems pretty half-finished at best.
In any case, as you keep swiping through these to the left/right, you’ll essentially see other data metrics for stuff I already showed in the Focus Metrics. For example, swipe again, and you’ll see the very small sleep tidbits. You can’t tap into this, though, for any additional details beyond what you see below:
Same goes for heart metrics:
And then there’s weather, showing current weather in your area, and then another page for quick accessing the timers:
And finally, there’s another page for media controls. There is no music storage on the Fitbit Edge, which seems logical/fine to me. However, what’s less logical is the lack of NFC/payment support. This was in the Fitbit Charge 6, and has been in countless cheper Fitbit devices over the years, yet isn’t here. Given Google doesn’t support the higher-end Pixel Watch series on iOS, this means there’s really no option for iOS users to use a Google device if they want contactless payments. And, as both Google and Apple know well, very few people are going to change phone platforms merely to support a wearable. That ship sailed long, long ago.
In any case, since we can’t see many details on the screen itself beyond core metrics, a lot of that is shifted to your phone and the Google Health app (the Fitbit app is dead, live the Fitbit app!). Here you can see your summary at the top for the day, in terms of steps, readiness scores, sleep, and cardio load for the week. This is all free. However, anytime you see lots of descriptive text, that’ll be part of Google’s Premium subscription. In other words, the data is free, but the wordy analysis requires a subscription.
Looking at my sleep metrics, for example from last night, those look accurate and have been consistently accurate over the last few weeks. The only one that caused many wearables to stumble was yesterday’s daylight saving time change, which seemed to truncate an hour of sleep. However, otherwise the times I woke up and went to sleep have been spot-on.
Note that I don’t compare accuracy of sleep stages/phases, as that’s simply not an accurate metric. In a best-case setting for so-called gold-standard devices, those basically top out in the mid-80% accuracy range, which is pretty poor for a gold-standard device to compare against. Thus, I’m not going to mislead you here.
Instead, I will get annoyed at one sleep-related thing that Google/Fitbit lack on the Fitbit Edge, which is automatic sleep mode toggles. Specifically, while you can setup sleep schedules and do-not-disturb schedules, that actually won’t prevent the screen from illuminating all crazy-pants in the middle of the night (or, perhaps lack of pants in the middle of the night). Instead, anytime the sheets or you brush the screen, it’ll light up. Same goes for raise to wake. Which is both annoying and a long-solved problem on wearables.
Instead, you need to tap the bed icon each night to force it into sleep mode. That by itself isn’t actually as annoying to me as remembering again in the morning to un-tap that bed icon, so that things like raise to wake actually work. Again, like the other details piece, I get the impression there’s a fast-follow to enable this on the Fitbit Edge, but it does feel like the Google/Fitbit team is just a bit behind on getting this device fully baked.
In any case, beyond that, within the Google Health app you’ve also got the Health Status panel, which shows your trending metrics over the course of longer time periods:
There does appear to be a bug here in that my Blood Oxygen levels have been updating nightly, both on the Fitbit Edge since putting it on, as well as for months on other devices, but since wearing the Fitbit Edge, it’s stopped trending for me. This is a minor nit for me, though it does make my metrics ‘4 out of 5’, instead of ‘5 out of 5’.
When it comes to text notifications, note that you’ll see those come in on the device, though on iOS you’ll be unable to respond to them. But you can read them and clear them:
Finally, in terms of charging, you’ve got the same charger as the Fitbit Air, so kudos to the Google/Fitbit team for managing to keep the same charger for more than one product. I can only assume they had a grand celebration for finally unlocking that accomplishment, complete with Haribo gummy bears and rosé wine. Well deserved.
Indeed, you can fast charge silly-quick to get you through the day/night. And in terms of battery life, if you leave it for the default gesture-based display, it seems to be on trend for the week-long battery life. However, I quickly changed it to always-on display, and that pulls things back real-quick to basically two days of battery life. Again, all dependent on how much GPS-outside workout time you have. With that, let’s talk sweaty stuff.
Sports & Workouts:
The Fitbit Edge takes virtually all of the best features from the recently launched screenless Fitbit Air (which is basically a Whoop competitor), and rolls them into the Fitbit Edge. This means that you’ve got equal parts manual activity/workout controls, as well as the ability to just totally ignore the unit on your wrist, and know that it’ll track things behind the scenes automatically. Both my wife and I have done both. Sometimes manually starting a workout, and other times just letting it figure it out.
Starting off with the manual side, to begin a workout you’ll tap either from the watch face (if the complication is enabled), or, just swipe once from the right to the sport menu:
Here you can choose from your most recently used sports, or one of the ones in the list. On the manual workout profile side, here are the workout profiles that are supported on the Fitbit Edge. Note these are a subset of the automatic detection list, which is around 100 activities (see following this:
Manually Selectable Sport Profiles
Aerobics
Badminton
Baseball
Basketball
Bike
Bootcamp
Boxing
Canoeing
Circuit training
Core training
Cricket
Cross-country ski
CrossFit
Dancing
Elliptical
Field hockey
Football
Golf
HIIT
Hike
Indoor climbing
Kayaking
Kickboxing
Martial arts
Mountain bike
Open swim
Outdoor workout
Paddleboarding
Padel
Pickleball
Pilates
Pool swim
Powerlifting
Rollerblading
Rowing machine
Rugby
Run
Skating
Skiing
Snowboarding
Soccer
Spinning
Sport
Stair climber
Strength training
Surfing
Swim
Tennis
Treadmill run
Walk
Weightlifting
Weights
Workout
Yoga
I definitely appreciate having all of these profiles available on-device, rather than just a very basic set. Which I suppose is the general trend in watches/wearables the last year or two: More workout profile options is better.
Once you’ve selected a sport profile, there are a few options you can choose, such as any targets or goals like distance, pace (high/low), calories, etc…
Additionally, there’s the option for GPS usage. This allows you to leverage GPS internal to the Fitbit Edge, or, to use it from your phone. The choice is honestly pretty simple: Which device’s battery do you want to burn? By default, even when you toggle GPS on for an activity (like a run), it’ll default to using your phone’s GPS (via Bluetooth).
However, within the settings of the Google Health app, you can choose to instead use the device’s GPS. By default, it’ll be on ‘Dynamic’, which Google has confirmed actually translates to “use the phone unless the phone isn’t there”.
In my case, as seen above, I switched to ‘Built-in’. This is the configuration I mostly used it within. In my testing, I’d burn the Fitbit Edge battery at about 15%/hour, for outdoor GPS workouts with the screen in always-on display.
However, if you want to save some battery, in gesture-based mode, I got a fair bit longer. Basically twice as much for this 5-hour ride in the mountains, burning at roughly 8%/hour:
In the above example, the battery started at 90%, though it ended at 50%.
Speaking of which, the Google Health app does support mirroring of data from the Fitbit Edge to your phone, if you want to use it as a bike computer or just generally see your workout data metrics on your phone in real time. This isn’t super detailed, nor does it show as much data as on the device itself, but it’s an option for the core bits.
Still, circling all the way back to the start of the workout, you’ll see your GPS status icon at the top:
Once you start, you’ll see your data details across a few different data pages:
That said, quirkily, you can’t change/modify any of the data pages from a sports standpoint. They are what they are.
Nonetheless, all of this works reasonably well within a workout, and I had no issues there in terms of general usage. For things like rain during workouts, this made the screen pretty tough to use for swipes specifically; that was also true of other wearables I was testing at the time.
Once you’ve completed your workout, you’ll see summary data of the workout:
And then over on the Google Health app, you can see more details of it:
One of the metrics you’ve probably noticed a few times is the ‘Cardio Load’. This is essentially your training load, and it resets every week. You accumulate Cardio Load during workouts, and roughly speaking, you get more Cardio Load the higher your heart rate is. So an easy walk with no meaningfully raised heart rate might accumulate just 0 or 1 cardio load. Yet a flat-out balls-to-the-wall 5KM run might score a few hundred units of cardio load. You can see this on the Fitbit Edge itself after a workout, as well as in summary stats.
Your goal dynamically changes each week, based on your personal historical data, as well as any goals that you might have configured in the Google Coach features (those are Premium features).
Otherwise, you can simply see how it compares to your historical data within the Google Health app:
Next, as mentioned, you can push a structured workout to the Fitbit Edge. This is a notable upgrade from the Fitbit Charge 6, which didn’t support structured workouts. However, it’s a little bit different than on a Pixel Watch, where you select it on the watch. Here, you’ll need to select it from within the Google Health app. This can be workouts that Google has created for you, or ones you create yourself:
Then, you’ll choose to start it from the phone, rather than on the Fitbit Edge. All of the instructions will be on your phone, not on the Fitbit Edge. The Edge is basically just recording and showing your general data. The phone is where everything is explained. This is perfectly logical for indoor/gym/yoga/etc workouts, but is kinda wonky for an interval workout outside, where you need to keep checking your phone for what you should be doing. I’m not a huge fan of this implementation, especially if you’re a runner.
Finally, and semi-unrelated, if you are indoors and want to broadcast your heart rate to other devices, you can do so with the heart rate broadcast option by swiping down from the top and activating the heart rate broadcast icon. An example here would be pairing it to a Peloton Bike to use as a heart rate sensor/strap:
Note that Fitbit’s implementation doesn’t actually follow the Secure Bluetooth pairing standard, so it won’t really work with everything else out there unless they specifically partnered with Fitbit. For example, it works with Peloton and Zwift, but not with a Garmin Edge bike computer (sadly, the two Edges can’t chat). Sigh.
Of course, everything I’ve talked about thus far is about manually starting workouts and basically interacting with your Fitbit Edge. But the other way to do workouts is just to do them, and not even touch the Fitbit Edge (of course, still wear it). That then leverages Automatic Workout Detection, which is pulled from the Fitbit Air launched earlier this year.
Within that realm, there are basically two different ways the Fitbit Edge will detect workouts. The first set of workout types are ones it “really knows”, and should get right each time. Whereas the second set are ones it takes a flyer on, based on historical data, and hopes for the best in an educated guess. Here’s the first set:
Core Automatically Detected sports without any context:
Outdoor Walk
Outdoor Run
Outdoor Bike
Stationary Bike
Elliptical
Rowing Machine
Swim
Racket Sports
Rowing
Golf
Basketball
Soccer
Strength Training
Sports (generic – team sports)
‘Activity’ (generic – periods of sustained elevated HR)
Then this next set requires some sort of historical context, as well as previous confirmations of the activity in the app. In other words, if it knows that you mow the lawn every Saturday morning, and then do hoeing on Saturday evening, it’ll likely detect those automatically each weekend if it feels the movement patterns are similar enough to your past hoeing activities:
Context-required Automatic Detection Types:
Treadmill Run
Treadmill Walk
Core Workout
Yoga
Stretching
Dancing
Baseball
Football
Pickleball
Hockey
Water Aerobics
Fishing
Shooting
Cleaning
Meditating
Mowing Lawn
Gardening
Carpentry
Archery
Martial Arts
Rock Climbing
Kayaking
Skating
Snowshoeing
Skiing
Surfing
Snowboarding
Paddleboarding
Fencing
Ultimate Frisbee
Gymnastics
Horseback Riding
Orienteering
Polo
Skateboarding
Trampoline
Wrestling
Diving
Sailing
Water Skiing
Trail Run
Incline Run
Power Walking
Hiking
Rucking
Stroller Walking
Nordic Walking
Incline Walk
Walk With Weights
Mountain Biking
Spinning
Snorkeling
Hiit
Crossfit
Jump Rope
Boxing
Kickboxing
Stairclimbing
Zumba
Soccer
Basketball
Tennis
Volleyball
Badminton
Free Weights
Body Weight
Weight Machines
Power Lifting
Calisthenics
Resistance Bands
Trx
Cardio Sculpt
Circuit Training
Pilates
Barre
Tai Chi
Ballet
Softball
Cricket
Rugby
Squash
Table Tennis
Racquetball
Field Hockey
Handball
Lacrosse
Curling
Water Polo
Water Volleyball
Water Jogging
Hunting
Indoor Climbing
Canoeing
Roller Blading
Ice Skating
Roller Skating
Cross Country Skiing
Aerobic Workout
Modern Dance
Jazz Dance
Tango
Ballroom Dance
Breakdancing
Hip Hop
Karate
Jiu Jitsu
Taekwondo
Muay Thai
Musical Performance
Assault Bike
Cheerleading
Parkour
Scootering
Electric Scooter
Electric Bike
Motorcycle
Tabata Workout
Beach Volleyball
Bikram Yoga
Hatha Yoga
Power Yoga
Vinyasa Yoga
Weeding
Hoeing
Household Chores
Shoveling
Painting
Frisbee Playing
Unicycling
Croquet
Motocross
I do want to point out that I’d love to have been a fly on the wall in conference rooms at Google when they debated putting the ‘Hoeing’ activity type in there.
While I cannot attest to the Hoeing activity accuracy levels, I can say that when it comes to other things it detected, it had no problems for me or my wife, in terms of detecting walks, hikes, and indoor cycling rides. When you do these activities, it’ll show up very similar, but slightly different than a regular activity. First, there won’t be any GPS tracks associated with it (even if outdoors). It doesn’t automatically turn that on. But second, you can actually change the times if it truncates something incorrectly.
While Fitbit had some basic automatic detection in the Charge 6, it’s nowhere near what they’re doing now with the Fitbit Edge. So this is definitely a bit of a step up.
With that, let’s take a look at the workout accuracy of both heart rate and GPS.
Accuracy:
The prior-gen Fitbit Charge 6 was known as a hot mess of a dumpster fire when it came to heart rate and GPS accuracy. As a user, you basically had two options: You could loosen up the band and get decent GPS accuracy, but nonsense heart rate accuracy. Or, you could tighten the band and get no usable GPS track at all, but good heart rate accuracy. Choosing both was simply not an option, due to a design that put the GPS antenna on the underside edges of the Charge 6.
One of the big things called out by Google with the Fitbit Edge is addressing that issue. The question is, does it?
Let’s start off with an indoor trainer ride. This one isn’t too hard, with some moderate but not crazy intervals. Here we can see that it really struggled at the beginning, for no obvious reason. It wasn’t until the main set started that it locked on.
I’m a bit surprised by this, as this should have been easy-town. That said, once it started the workout, it was largely fine.
Next, looking at heart rate on a bit under a 45-minute outdoor ride (mostly pavement, tiny bit of gravel towards the end), we can see it struggles a bit at the beginning. To be fair, this was downhill on this first section, which many wearables will struggle starting with. By around the 10-minute marker I’ve stabilized on flat ground, and you can see it largely trends OK, until round the 35-minute marker, where it struggles a little bit.
If we look at the GPS tracks on this, at a high level it looks very similar to the Garmin Edge 1060 and COROS Dura 2 I had on my handlebars then:
If we zoom in to a fast descent section, the Fitbit Edge (using built-in GPS), actually manages to stick on this road better than the $550 COROS Dura 2.
Though, on this much slower 20% grade climb, the Fitbit Edge wobbled a bit more than the others. It’s interesting that the section it wobbled (just below the pools), is actually the portion I had to get off the bike for a few seconds, as the recent rainstorms had basically washed away a portion of this gravel road, making brief impassable sections when trying to go up.
Lastly, if we look at the elevation profile on this, using the barometric altimeter inside the unit, it was quite close here, within just a couple of meters most of the time:
Looking at another ride, this one a 90-minute ride that was a mix of road and gravel, you can see things are…umm… bit mixed when it comes to heart rate. Though, the Suunto Run 2 also struggled here on heart rate. Yes, you can see things ‘roughly trended’ in the right was, but overall this is a bit prickly.
On the GPS side of things, overall it was pretty good, occasionally slightly offset a meter or two from the other units when I’d do some lower-speed swerves, but still a *massive* improvement over the Fitbit Charge 6, which wouldn’t track GPS to save it’s life.
But you can see places like these straightaways here; it’s spot-on with the other GPS units, including $800 bike computers:
Finally, looking at a run from today, this is a simple 5KM run through both trails and pavement, split roughly evenly. Here’s the heart rate side first. This looks reasonably good. A few minor quibbles, but overall pretty solid despite being up/down on steep terrain, things are good here.
And then looking at the GPS, here’s the wide look at things:
Looking closely at some parts in the trees, and a bit of a ravine, it’s not meaningfully different than the $1,199 Garmin Fenix 9 Pro inReach model, or the $399 Suunto Run 2.
Same goes for this section here. Virtually indistinguishable.
Overall, this is a massive upgrade over the Fitbit Charge 6 for both heart rate and GPS. With the Charge 6, you had to ‘choose one’ of the two to be accurate. Here, the GPS is more than good enough for most things, and the heart rate is OK (though not great). The unit lacks the size/space to put in Google’s much better optical HR sensor found in the Pixel Watch 5, so instead leans on a smaller sensor that fits into this case. Still, I suspect for most people interested in this device for probably more casual workout tracking, this is probably good enough.
(Note: All of the charts in these accuracy portions were created using the DCR Analyzer tool. It allows you to compare power meters/trainers, heart rate, cadence, speed/pace, running power, GPS tracks, and plenty more. You can use it as well for your own gadget comparisons; more details here.)
Final Thoughts:
For the vast majority of users, the Fitbit Edge will be a notable upgrade over the Fitbit Charge 6. Or definitely a Fitbit Charge 5. The GPS & heart rate situation is vastly improved, the user interface is cleaner and easier to understand, and I think the majority of the Google Health app is an improvement (though obviously, there are still some folks that prefer the older Fitbit app, especially if you don’t plan on being a Premium subscriber).
That said, while none of the issues I ran into were major blockers, it definitely lacks a bit of software finishing polish around the edge. Specifically, things like not having the automatic sleep mode for the display, not being able to tap into any of the metrics on the unit itself for more details, and then not being able to customize workout data pages. The way Google implemented these seems like they had grander/deeper plans, but eventually cut their losses for a holiday season launch. It sounds like some things are planned for firmware updates down the road.
Still, for a sub-$180 device targeted more at wellness than hardcore athletes, it largely fits the bill for tracking and analyzing your daily workouts, your daily health/sleep, and doing so in a tidy form factor that’s easy to understand. Having the automatic workout detection is super handy for when you don’t want to fuss with the screen, and yet it’ll properly track everything behind the scenes.
With that, thanks for reading!
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Hopefully you found this review/post useful. At the end of the day, I’m an athlete just like you looking for the most detail possible on a new purchase – so my review is written from the standpoint of how I used the device. The reviews generally take a lot of hours to put together, so it’s a fair bit of work (and labor of love). As you probably noticed by looking below, I also take time to answer all the questions posted in the comments – and there’s quite a bit of detail in there as well.
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Here's a few other variants or sibling products that are worth considering:
Fitbit Edge (Steph Curry Special Edition)
Fitbit Edge (Black/Obsidian)
Fitbit Edge (Silver/Fog)
Fitbit Edge (Champagne Gold/Canyon)
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