Fitbit launches Charge 3 for INR 14,999; Comes with SpO2 sensor to track sleep disturbances

Fitbit today launched Fitbit Charge 3™, the latest evolution of its Charge family of devices. Charge 3 features an elevated, premium swim-proof design with a touchscreen display, 15+ goal-based exercise modes, essential smart features to stay connected to what matters most, up to 7 days battery life, and Fitbit’s most advanced sensor and algorithm technology in a tracker. Charge 3 will be available for INR 14,999 starting November 2018.

Fitbit’s Charge family is the most popular of Fitbit’s product lineup, with 35 million devices sold to date. Further, IDC estimates shipments of fitness trackers will continue to comprise a significant portion of the overall category for the next several years.

“With Charge 3, we are building on the success of our best-selling Charge franchise and delivering the most innovative tracker on the market, offering an extremely slim, comfortable and premium design along with the advanced health and fitness features our users want. Charge 3 gives existing users a compelling reason to upgrade, while also allowing us to reach new users who want a more sleek, affordable wearable in a tracker form factor,” said James Park, co-founder and CEO of Fitbit. “Our commitment to consumer choice and ability to meet the demand of millions of users by offering a range of products, from trackers to smartwatches, enables us to continue to expand our share of the overall wearables market.”

Premium design, intelligently crafted

Charge 3 is crafted from exceptional, lightweight materials, including an aerospace grade aluminium case and Corning® Gorilla® Glass 3 display for a slimmer, modern silhouette, increased durability and more comfortable fit for men and women. It features a crisp, touchscreen display that is nearly 40% larger and brighter than its predecessor, offering a more intuitive experience with easy access to your most important information.

Fitbit Charge 3 is the first wearable with an inductive button, which includes new patent-pending technology that provides a streamlined, swim-proof design, increased space in the device to add more sensors plus a larger battery with up to 7 days of use, and more effortless interaction while maintaining the performance expected from our most advanced fitness tracker.

To complement the elevated hardware, the interactive software experience was redesigned to more deeply engage and motivate users to reach their goals each day. The high-resolution touchscreen display brilliantly showcases crisp, grayscale graphics with new playful animations and expressive graphics which surprise and delight, creating fun moments to help you celebrate milestones and stay focused on hitting your next goal.

Superior health & fitness experience

Charge 3 also delivers the most advanced health and fitness features found on a Fitbit tracker to date. With more than nine trillion minutes of heart rate data tracked, Fitbit has enhanced its 24/7 PurePulse® heart rate technology for even greater accuracy during exercise compared to Charge 2, and provides a better measure of calorie burn and resting heart rate to optimize workouts and uncover health trends. The addition of a relative SpO2 sensor – a first for a Fitbit tracker – adds the potential to estimate relative blood oxygen levels and help track new health indicators, like sleep apnea.

Additional health and fitness features include:

• Goal-based exercise modes: Choose from 15+ exercise modes like bike, swim, run, weights and yoga; set a goal for calories burned, distance or duration, and see real-time stats, progress and celebrations on the device when you reach your goal.
• Water-resistant to 50M: Wear in the shower, rain pool or ocean. See real-time duration on your wrist with Swim Mode, or use SmartTrack® to see laps and pace in the Fitbit® app post-swim.
• Go the distance: Stay motivated with Connected GPS from your phone for real-time pace and distance on the device, and Run Detect will auto pause and auto stop(coming soon).
• Female health tracking: Gain a deeper understanding of your menstrual cycle by using the Fitbit app to log your period and ovulation (coming soon), record symptoms and compare cycle trends over time. With all your health and fitness stats in one place, you can better manage your health; easily see where you are in your cycle on in the on-device dashboard.
• Information at a glance: Easily navigate the new personalized, on-device dashboard to see daily activity stats and health metrics like female health tracking, hydration, sleep and weight (coming soon).
• Personalized insights: Know yourself to improve your health with new dynamic insights about your activity, heart rate, nutrition and sleep to help you reach your goals with positive reinforcement and tips to course correct when needed (coming soon in the Fitbit app).
• Social motivation: Connect to one of the largest health and fitness social networks in the world with more than 25 million active users for added motivation to reach your goals when you engage with friends, family and others through Feed, Groups and Challenges in the Fitbit app.^[v]
• 24/7 guidance and motivation: Stay on top of all your daily activity and get a more complete picture of your overall health with features like automatic exercise recognition, Reminders to Move, Relax guided breathing, sleep tracking with Sleep Stages and Sleep Insights, and more.

Advancements in Sleep Tracking & Analysis

Fitbit helps millions of users better understand their sleep patterns and the lifestyle habits that can impact them. Fitbit started tracking sleep in 2009 and has built one of the largest databases of sleep over the past seven years with more than 7.5 billion nights tracked. Fitbit also introduced Sleep Stages & Sleep Insights based on heart rate variability to give you an even more in-depth understanding of sleep quality.

“Fitbit continues to harness its data to give users actionable insights into their health and wellness. For example, we’ve found that 1 in 4 people get significantly more sleep on weekends than on weekdays, which implies they are trying to make up for reduced sleep during the week.^[vii] We can deliver insights to these users through the Fitbit app to make them aware of how this behaviour affects their well-being and suggest how to set up a sleep schedule,” said Shelten Yuen, VP of Research at Fitbit. “In the future, we hope to provide more guidance to our users to reduce the risk of disease so they can become the healthiest versions of themselves.”

Fitbit continues to make advancements in sleep and is announcing a new Sleep Score beta from Fitbit Labs that will be available to Fitbit users later this year. Using key metrics tracked by any Fitbit device with its advanced 24/7 PurePulse heart rate tracking, Sleep Score will provide a nightly score to help give you a more complete picture of your overall sleep quality and what factors affect it.

In addition, for devices with a relative SpO2 sensor, including Charge 3, Fitbit Ionic™ and Fitbit Versa™, Fitbit will test alerting users to breathing disruptions, which can be indicators of health issues such as allergies, asthma or sleep apnea.

“With the Fitbit Labs Sleep Score beta, we’re pioneering an intuitive way for people to understand their sleep. It’s an example of how we are continually evolving the health experience for our users,” Yuen added.

Separately, Fitbit will continue to collect clinical data to test and develop FDA grade systems for health conditions such as sleep apnea and atrial fibrillation. Fitbit is one of nine companies in the FDA’s digital health software precertification pilot program, which is designed to streamline the approval process for software as a medical device.

Stay connected with the right mix of smart features

Along with its advanced health and fitness features, Charge 3 is Fitbit’s smartest tracker yet, offering the best smart features to stay connected to what matters most without overwhelming you with technology or distractions you don’t want or need.

• Expanded notifications and quick replies: Easily customize and view call, calendar, text and smartphone apps notifications (like Facebook and Uber), plus accept or reject calls, and respond on the go with pre-populated or custom quick replies for Android users.
• Essential apps: Make the most of your day with top-requested convenience apps like Alarms, Timer and Weather; plus Fitbit Leaderboard and Calendar coming soon with future updates.
• Popular brand apps: A select number of popular brand apps will be added on the device in the future, similar to those offered on Ionic and Versa.
• Easy and secure payments: Leave your wallet at home and use Charge 3 devices to make easy and secure payments with Fitbit Pay™ contactless payments; supported by more than 100 financial institutions in 18 countries.
• Broad compatibility: Compatible across most Android and iOS devices, with Windows coming soon, so you can choose the wearable you want, regardless of your phone.

Accessories, Pricing & Availability

Customize your Charge 3 day and night with a redesigned, easier-than-ever band attach and a range of accessory options. These feature premium materials like refined polygonal-textured and stain-resistant classic bands, breathable perforated silicone sports bands, fashionable woven bands and premium Horween hand-crafted leather bands. Charge 3 Special Edition with an exclusive, white silicone ports band with a graphite aluminium case or lavender woven band with a rose gold aluminium case and offers two looks in one with the inclusion of a black Classic accessory band in a box.

Fitbit Charge 3 will be available in India starting November 2018, across Reliance Digital, Croma, Helios and other major retailers offline and online on Amazon and Flipkart for INR 14,999 in black with a graphite aluminium case or blue-grey with a rose gold aluminium case; with the following accessories:

• Classic Band: INR 2,990
• Woven Band: INR 3,490
• Leather Band: INR 4,490

Do let us know what you think of the Fitbit Charge 3 in the comments section below or tweet to us @theunbiasedblog.