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Fitbit Charge 5 | 2019-2021
Fitbit Charge 5 | 2019-2021


Designers: The Fitbit Industrial Design Team, Fitbit Inc.,
San Francisco, California, USA
Manufacturer: Fitbit Inc., San Francisco, California, USA


Charge 5, the latest in Fitbit’s most popular line of trackers, aims to help users move more, understand how their body responds to stress, sleep better, and eat well. Its goal was to make this new tracker the most advanced, powerful, and comfortable Charge to date by adding new sensors and components while slimming it down to be more wearable.

Charge 5’s 360 intelligent design seamlessly integrates sensors and other technology into a single streamlined device that makes sensing easily accessible on the wrist. The AMOLED color touchscreen – 2x brighter than Charge 4 – and buttonless navigation let users explore easy-to-read health and fitness stats with the swipe of a finger.

And the reinvented band attach system makes it easier to attach bands to the device while enabling better fit and comfort in four styles – standard silicone, along with perforated sport, velcro, and leather accessories – to suit varying personal preferences and performance needs. Fitbit’s Charge line of fitness trackers delivers personalized, data-based guidance on your activity, sleep, nutrition, and mindfulness to help you take control of your health and build a fitness routine that works for you.

With Charge 5, the designers wanted to push the boundaries of fitness technology by bringing the most advanced health and wellness features, which were previously available only on smartwatches, to a tracker for the first time. Charge helps active people optimize their fitness with workouts and recovery practices that are based on genuine bodily feedback, including their daily readiness; heart health (via ECG measurement and sinus rhythm), and mindfulness and stress management.

Charge 5 is 10% slimmer than its predecessor, with a shorter rigid length whose added flexibility easily accommodates different wrist shapes and sizes.
The low-profile aluminum housing creates a lightweight but robust structure while allowing internal components to be optimized; precisely machined steel panels on the side and bottom become touchpoints for sensing. The soft silicone infinity band, introduced in a Fitbit tracker for the first time, easily adjusts to the wearer’s wrist. Charge 5’s push-and-click band attachment makes it more versatile with accessories, acting as a canvas for personal expression to reflect the user’s activities and personality.

Perhaps most important, Charge 5 is Fitbit’s most functional tracker ever. It’s our first tracker to feature an EDA sensor for stress management, ECG assessments for AFib, high/low heart rate notifications, and tracking of key metrics like HRV, RHR, SpO2, breathing rate, and more in the Health Metrics dashboard.

Charge 5 also features a built-in GPS, 20 exercise modes, Active Zone Minutes, and up to 7 days of battery life. And the efficient user interface makes metrics like activity, heart rate, and sleep easily accessible at the swipe of a finger using its optional always-on AMOLED color display.

The aluminum housing design provides a light, robust structure that acts as a nest for advanced sensors and technology. The side electrodes are made of stainless steel for sensing, and precise, simple design geometry amplifies the device’s visual thinness. Finally, the design’s optimization for 3-axis machining contributes to the world’s collective sustainability imperative by making the aluminum housing more efficient to manufacture, reducing machining time and material waste.

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