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Fitbit Charge 6 review: The best fitness tracker

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Fitbit Charge 6 review

The Charge 6 is the best fitness tracker you can buy (Image: Fitbit)

The Fitbit Charge 6 is the best activity tracker you can buy, with outstanding battery life and features you wouldn’t expect at this price

What we love

  • Outstanding battery life
  • Slim lightweight build
  • Google wallet app for payments
  • Built-in GPS

What we don’t

  • No third party apps
  • Screen is very cramped for reading notifications

The Fitbit Charge 6 looks a lot like 2021’s Charge 5 but refines it into the best activity tracker from the company yet. Given Google now owns Fitbit, you get Google Wallet and Google Maps integration for payments and directions that work much better than before.

Outdoor run and cycle tracking is also excellent thanks to inbuilt GPS plus with a heart rate sensor you get all the tracking stats you need, including decent sleep tracking. All your health data integrates well with the Fitbit app but it’s an annoyance that you have to pay for Fitbit Premium to get all your data and insights.

Battery life is truly excellent with at least a week between charges if you’re a light user, but even with GPS use this is still a multi-day device. If you want a top health tracking experience and payments on your wrist this is one of the best options under £150 and is more discreet than a smartwatch.

Fitbit Charge 6 review

As the name suggests, the Fitbit Charge 6 is the latest in a long line of the Charge activity trackers from the brand. It means that this is a very polished product even if there’s not much new here but the addition of better Google integration means it’s the best Fitbit activity tracker yet.

With a slim and subtle design, great battery life, accurate health tracking, and compatibility with Android and iPhone, this is a very accomplished fitness band at a competitive price. Its simplicity is a breath of fresh air compared to over-complicated smartwatches.

Fitbit Charge 6 design

The Charge 6 is available in three colours (Image: Fitbit)

Design

  • Slim and comfortable
  • Two band sizes in box
  • Touchscreen and haptic side button

Simple activity trackers used to be two-a-penny but now decent new ones are harder to find than expensive smartwatches. Luckily the Fitbit Charge 6 harks back to the pleasingly straightforward idea of a bracelet style fitness device that you can wear on its own as a watch or on your other wrist to complement a mechanical watch.

Our all black review sample looks very similar to the older Charge 5 but is very subtle and you can also get it in silver with a white band or rose gold with a coral band. The tracker comes with a small and large size band in the box to fit any wrist and we found it light and comfortable to wear all day long. The bands are interchangeable and you can buy several different styles from Fitbit.

… the Fitbit Charge 6 harks back to the pleasingly straightforward idea of a bracelet style fitness device

There’s a small colour touch screen to cycle through your stats, settings, apps and to simply look at the time while there’s also a touch sensitive button on the left hand side to skip back to the home screen or to call up things like your payment card. It’s a static button that gives haptic vibrating feedback when you push it.

The screen is tiny so notifications are very small, cramped, and hard to read, but there is a new magnify feature where you can triple tap on the screen to zoom in. On the underside that sits next to your skin is a heart rate sensor that can continually track your heart beat all day and night. The metal sides of the tracker are conductive and can be used to record an electrocardiogram (ECG) to further monitor your heart health.

It’s a very simple design to the point of being plain, but we found that part of its charm after using several bigger, heavy smartwatches.

Health and fitness tracking

  • Built-in GPS
  • Great heart rate monitor
  • Subscription needed for full use

Fitbits were always designed to be smart pedometers, something the Charge 6 still accomplishes accurately, counting your steps, floors climbed, distance walked, and other stats simply by wearing it throughout the day. Unlike cheaper trackers, the Charge 6 has built-in GPS, which means you can go for a walk, run or cycle outside without your phone and track your route to be viewed later on a map in the Fitbit app.

We found this pretty accurate though if you want absolute precision you’re going to have to spend more on a specialist running watch from a brand like Garmin. However for casual walkers and runners it’s perfect, plus the heart rate monitoring is very accurate, so you get a pretty complete picture of your daily health habits.

Fitbit Charge 6 button

The Fitbit Charge 6’s button has vibrating feedback (Image: Fitbit)

It’s also great to see ECG built in along with irregular heart rhythm notifications. This is a feature usually found on more expensive wearables – ditto with the electrodermal sensor that measures changes in skin temperature to records changes in your mood and stress levels. It’s an impressively feature-packed device that can even monitor your blood oxygen levels, but it lacks the intelligent fall detection you’ll find on the Apple Watch or the Google Pixel Watch 2.

… for casual walkers and runners it’s perfect, plus the heart rate monitoring is very accurate, so you get a pretty complete picture of your daily health habits.

One of the most useful things the Fitbit app gives you is a daily readiness score which collates all of your health data from the Charge 6 and tells you how ready you are to tackle the day in terms of exercise. Annoyingly, this is hidden behind a paywall – Fitbit Premium costs £7.99 a month and also gives you access to other coaching programs and useful information, but we don’t think you should have to pay for this considering you’ve just forked out 140 quid for the tracker. 

You do at least get given a six-month free trial when you buy the Charge 6, though. 

The exercise app on the watch lets you pick from about 40 different exercises, ranging from the obvious to sports like canoeing, kickboxing, pilates, and spinning. All this gets recorded for you to view in the app later. More enthusiastic sports fans can now link the Charge 6 via Bluetooth to compatible gym equipment such as Peloton bikes, or link live heart rate data to apps like Strava.

Smart features

  • Google Wallet and Maps
  • YouTube Music controls
  • Smartphone notifications syncing

As Fitbit is now owned by Google, you must sign into the Fitbit app using your Google account. You can then use the built-in Google Wallet and Google Maps apps on your wrist. We easily linked our debit cards to pay contactlessly, and we’re glad to see the back of the Fitbit Pay app that had terrible UK bank support.

Maps can give you turn by turn directions on your wrist when you start a navigation from your phone, but it’s worth noting for some reason it doesn’t include public transport routes, only walking or driving. It’s also the one feature we found buggy – it sometimes simply didn’t connect to the Maps app on our phone.

There are no third party apps for the Charge 6, so that means no Spotify, Strava, or any other popular apps you might get on other wearables. Because this is a Google Fitbit now, you do get a built in YouTube Music app, but all this does is control YouTube Music playing on your phone. You’ll of course need a YouTube Music subscription to get the most out of this, but we found it works reliably – but you can’t download music tracks to the Charge 6 to listen to offline.

All this new functionality is nice to have but you really do have to live in the world of Google products to get the most out of it. It means the band is compatible with all Android phones running Android 9.0 or newer, though it does also connect to iPhones. You can get notifications on your wrist from either phone platform but you can only send quick responses to messages if you’re on Android.

Fitbit app

If you want all these coaching sessions you’ll have to pay for Fitbit Premium (Image: Fitbit)

Battery life

  • Up to 7 days on a charge
  • Less when using GPS
  • Charges via included proprietary cable

One of the best things about the Fitbit Charge 6 is its excellent battery life. It can go up to seven days on a single charge when you don’t have the always-on display turned on and if you don’t really use GPS tracking. If you want to use both of these battery life is going to hover around three to four days, but that’s still better than most smartwatches on the market and means you can wear the tracker for several days without worrying about it dying.

One of the best things about the Fitbit Charge 6 is its excellent battery life

It charges via a magnetic proprietary snap-on USB-A cable that’s included in the box but there’s no charging brick so you’ll have to plug it into one you already own, or a computer.

Price

The Fitbit Charge 6 costs £139.99. This is a very reasonable price considering all the high-end fitness and smart features it packs in.

You can buy it from Fitbit, Amazon, , , and.

Verdict

The Fitbit Charge 6 is an outstanding activity tracker and the best one you can buy right now. For the reasonable price, you get an amazing set of health and fitness features, tons of accurate data, mobile payments, and ridiculously good battery life all stuffed into a slim, lightweight band that’s comfortable to wear all day and night.

The main downside is that you have to pay for Fitbit Premium every month to get full functionality out of it, but aside from that this is an excellent fitness device that’s an excellent alternative to a more expensive, more cumbersome smartwatch.



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Ring camera rival is now just £9.99, no surprise it’s selling out fast

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Amazon is now one of the biggest names in home security thanks to its hugely popular Ring range of devices. However, for those on a tighter budget, the online retailer also offers more wallet-friendly devices, called Blink. These are already cheaper than the more premium Ring gadgets, and now talking delivery of one is even less expensive thanks to a new sale event. In fact, you can currently pick up a Blink camera and keep an eye on your home, via your smartphone, for just £9.99.

That ludicrously low price is for the Blink Mini, and it’s more feature-packed than you might think.

This diddy device offers 1080p recording, along with being able to film at night. It also sends alerts straight to phones if it spots something strange taking place, and there is two-way audio so you can hear and speak to anyone who has entered your property.

£9.99 is unbelievably cheap, and the only thing you might need to add is a Blink Subscription Plan, which starts from £2.50 per month.

This allows you unlimited access to the live feeds (cut to 5 minutes without a subscription) as well as cloud recordings, which store all captured footage.

So that’s the inside of homes sorted, but what about outdoors? Along with the Blink Mini on offer, Amazon has also cut the cost of its Ring Outdoor camera as well.

This battery-powered device usually costs £79.99, but that price has been dropped to just £49.99.

This security camera offers a water-resistant design, full 1080p recording, real-time alerts and customisable motion zones.

This device can be mounted on exterior walls and capture pin-sharp 2 K-resolution footage. Thanks to 4X digital zoom, you can even get a close-up if the camera notices anything.

It’s not just during the day that things will be spotted. There’s also enhanced low-light performance, and it can record full colour even when the sun goes down. This means you can see important details – like the colour of a vehicle or clothing – when natural light is limited. Another bonus is battery life: Amazon promises a single charge can last up to 2 years.

It goes on sale this month.



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Amazon discounts every Fitbit tracker and they are selling fast

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Fitbit range

The entire Fitbit range is currently on sale. (Image: Fitbit)

If you are looking for an affordable way to track your daily steps and activity, or want to upgrade your existing fitness tracker, now is a good time, as every current Fitbit is currently on sale on Amazon.

The Fitbit Inspire 3, Fitbit Charge 6, Fitbit Versa 4 and Fitbit Sense 2 are the latest trackers and smartwatches in Google’s Fitbit line up, and with a range of discounted prices there is one to suit every budget.

I’ve tried and tested each and every one of these devices, and have found they all have value, even at the least pricey end of the scale.

You can pick up the Fitbit Inspire 3 for just £58.99. It’s a very slim and lightweight tracker with a small colour screen. Wear it 24/7 – and you can as it’s waterproof, so it’ll survive the shower – and it’ll track your steps, distance, calories burned, sleep and heart rate to paint a picture of your daily activity.

It also has the best battery life of any Fitbit, rated for up to 10 days of use before you need to plug it in again. On the listing page it is labelled as “Deal selling fast”, showing Amazon shoppers agree this is a great deal.

I like that it’s the only Fitbit with a traditional watch strap, rather than the button and tuck loop on the other three models. However, it’s also the only Fitbit that lacks built-in GPS, so if you want to track your run routes you’ll have to take your phone with you for connected GPS.

If you want GPS and a few more features, the Fitbit Charge 6 is just £98.99, a solid saving on its £139.99 RRP. This still-slim tracker has a larger, better screen than the Inspire 3 and also has Google Wallet support, so you can add your debit or credit card to your wrist for contactless payments.

Google, which owns Fitbit, says you can get up to seven days of battery life on the Charge 6. If you use GPS frequently, expect it to be a little less. But add in blood oxygen level monitoring and an ongoing stress score, and it’s a very accomplished tracker for less than £100.

The Fitbit Versa 4 is on sale for £129.99, down from its RRP of £179.99. While it is marketed as a smartwatch, temper your expectations slightly – but not in a bad way. The Versa 45 is basically a fitness tracker in functionality, but in the form of a watch. That means a larger, better AMOLED screen, so you can see more data and also better read incoming notifications from your iPhone or Android phone.

But unlike the Apple Watch or Google Pixel Watch, you can’t get third party apps on the Versa 4. It still has built-in GPS, up to six days battery life and all the features of the Charge 6, but in a watch-like design.

If you want to go for the top of the line, the Fitbit Sense 2 is discounted to £159.99, but it’s usually £219.99. That’s a big saving on the most advanced Fitbit yet, which adds in real-time stress tracking based on your skin temperature. This prompts you to log why your mood may have just changed, and then the Fitbit app gives you feedback on how to manage stress.

This clever device also has ECG tracking for detecting unsteady heart rhythms that could hint at an underlying condition. The design is similar to the Versa 4, but if you want these extra perks, it’s the Fitbit to get



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I tried the viral book gadget that keeps selling out

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Kobo Remote

The Kobo Remote solves a problem you didn’t know you had. (Image: Kobo)

Once you buy an e-reader, you probably don’t think about getting a new one for several years. That’s the blessing for the consumer and the curse for e-reader companies such as Amazon and Kobo – these devices are so simple and have been so good at doing one thing very well for so many years, that you don’t need to upgrade yours anywhere near as often as you might do a phone, or maybe even a laptop.

There also aren’t that many accessories one needs for an e-reader. Besides a case, or maybe a stylus for some models that support pen input, all you need is a screen and a book to read.

But Kobo, one of the main rivals to the dominance of the Kindle, has come up with a £25 accessory that has proven so popular that at the time of writing, it is sold out.

If you’ve ever thought tapping on the screen to turn the page of an e-book was annoying, the Kobo Remote could be the reading gadget for you, if you can find one in stock.

This accessory is a small plastic handle that looks a little like a TV remote control crossed with the controller of the Nintendo Wii. Its only function, via Bluetooth, is to remotely turn the page of your book. One button moves the page forward, the smaller one moves backwards. That’s it.

If you’ve ever thought tapping on the screen to turn the page of an ebook was annoying, the Kobo Remote could be the reading gadget for you, if you can find one in stock.

If you’re scoffing reading this, so was I, initially. Why would I want this? How lazy can you get? Wouldn’t this remote make me feel like the humans in Pixar’s Wall-E, never lifting a finger and glued to their screens?

But after using the Kobo Remote, I think I get it. And hey, if there’s one screen in my life that it’s not so bad to be staring at, it’s my Kobo’s.

The remote allows you to prop your Kobo up somewhere using its case or on a stand, or nestled in the duvet around you, and not have to reach up and tap the page to turn the buttons. That might sound mad, but hear me out. If you don’t want to hold your Kobo while reading for an extended period of time, or you want to lie back with it perched on the arm of your sofa, the Remote comes into its own.

Kobo Remote

Hands-free reading requires accessories. (Image: Kobo)

It opens up another advantage to choosing an e-reader over a physical book. Now you can lean back and read easier while holding that mug of tea, or, as some people in the cosiest corners of BookTok (the literary community on TikTok) and reading culture on other social media have found, covered in your snuggliest blanket.

After a couple of weeks of watching me use it, my wife still thinks the Kobo Remote is stupid. But she hasn’t used it long enough to get her head around its niche charms. Besides, it’s not compatible with her Kindle.

Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, I’d say. Third party e-reader remotes have existed for a while, but this is the first official one from Kobo, and Amazon has never released one. The Remote only works with Kobos with Bluetooth, so that’s the Kobo Clara 2E, Kobo Clara BW, Kobo Clara Colour, Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Libra Colour, Kobo Sage, Kobo Elipsa, and Kobo Elipsa 2E. It doesn’t work with Kindles.

On the sofa with a beer in hand. On my desk as I ate my lunch. It fits in relatively well to my reading habits, but it is by no means an essential accessory.

I’ve tested it mainly with the Kobo Clara Colour, a device that lacks page turn buttons, unlike the firm’s Libra line. I have quite small hands but they dwarf this dinky pointer, which has a large recessed button for your thumb to skip ahead.

My main criticism is that the buttons are loud and clicky. If your text is quite large on the Kobo, you’ll have to turn pages frequently. I found it hard to ignore the clicking, especially in my prime reading slot post-10pm in bed when my wife might already be asleep. The clicking is not ideal on a remote that is very plasticky.

But sitting up in bed holding the Kobo negates the need for a remote in the first place, and while I have been taken by the remote’s charms, I have not reached for it for every reading session. It worked best for me with my Kobo propped up on an aeroplane’s tray table while I pushed my seat back and had the Remote in my hand.

Kobo Remote

Whoever designed the Kobo Remote must have owned a Nintendo Wii. (Image: Kobo)

On the sofa with a beer in hand. On my desk as I ate my lunch. The Remote fits in relatively well to my reading habits, but it is by no means an essential accessory.

The e-reader market is very popular and very successful, but the problem for the companies that make them is that once a customer has bought one, there isn’t much incentive to upgrade.

Aside from upgrading the processor for faster navigation and page turns, or improving the screen quality and text resolution, there isn’t much more Amazon or Kobo can do to get you to pay for besides the e-books to read on your device.

The Kobo Remote feels like an accessory to fill this gap, as Kobo probably won’t sell you another e-reader for several years after you’ve bought one. I appreciate the fact Kobo has jumped onto a social media trend for e-reader remotes by releasing its own, and I am still a little on the fence about it. It’s fun and relatively cheap though, so if you find one in stock and are intrigued, you probably won’t regret it.

When in stock, you can buy the Kobo Remote for £24.99 from Kobo and Amazon.



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