One problem people experience when buying a fitness band to improve their health and fitness is finding an activity to do for the band to track. Put it all together and you have an everyday tracking offering that is unsurpassed. The Charge 4’s HRM also automatically clocked when I was playing tag with my child and logged a batch of active minutes. That’s a solid showing against a device that costs five to six times as much. After a firmware update, the Charge 4 was bang on during the second run, mostly within one to two beats of the reading on the more expensive device, occasionally straying into three beats’ difference. At the beginning of the first test run the HRM locked on to my cadence rather than my pulse for five or so minutes, putting me in the peak heart rate zone for what was an easy run, but it soon settled to be in line with the heart rate recorded by the GPS multisport watch on my other wrist.

Of course, all this depends on the accuracy of the heart rate monitor (HRM), but everything looks rosy on that front. The feature is also put front and centre: the Charge 4 buzzes and presents a message when you cross the threshold into a different heart rate zone, whether that’s during an activity you’re tracking or you just legged it to catch the bus. For one, breaking the weekly target down into a daily 22-minute one has the effect, at least for me, of making it feel more achievable. Fitbit isn’t the only brand to integrate the 150 minutes’ activity guidelines into its devices, but it’s made it a more engaging target to aim for.

Fitbit charge 4