Fitbit Charge 5 or Mi Band 7: Fitness Tracker Comparison

Speaker 1: This is the Fitbit charge five. It's one of the best fitness trackers you can buy, but at $150, is there a cheaper alternative? That's just as good. This is the me band seven. It's got many of the same features as the Fitbit charge five, but it's almost half the price. Hello, I'm Lexi your budget friendly buddy, always on the lookout to help you spend your hard earned cash the best possible way. And I'm gonna compare a big name, fitness tracker to a less expensive alternative [00:00:30] to see which is worth the cash I've provided latest pricing and availability of both of these trackers linked in the description plus chapters. So you can skip straight ahead to a specific section. So should you spend more or less? Let's find out Speaker 1: We're gonna kick things off by looking at the design, the comfort. And of course the screens on both of these trackers, starting off with the me band seven, let's [00:01:00] take a look at this specimen. Now this one has a color. 1.6, two inch display. It's a touch screen and it has the option to remain always on navigation is super simple. You swipe up and down from the main clock phase to see things like your notifications from your phone apps, workouts, daily health metrics, and then swipe left and right, to be able to see things like your music controls and the weather, the Fitbit. On the other hand, see what I did. There has a color 1.04 [00:01:30] inch Alet display. So it's a little bit smaller than the me band navigation is pretty much the same as the me band. It also has the option to remain always on and you can double tap on the screen from any screen to get straight back to the clock face, which makes it super simple. Speaker 1: Both of these are super comfortable to wear all the time. And the idea is you'll probably end up wearing these 24 7 to track your activity throughout the day and your sleep at night. I would say the me band [00:02:00] is probably slightly more comfortable than the Fitbit charge five, just because it's slimmer. The me band pops straight out of the strap. So you can change up the look with a different color or a design. The Fitbit charge five has quick release buttons. So you can do the same thing. It just has straps rather than a fully integrated design, like on the me band. Now the me band obviously has a slightly longer screen. So this means you can fit a little bit more onto the display. And I really found this was helpful when I was looking at things [00:02:30] like notifications and things like text messages. Speaker 1: I could see more of the message on the me band than I could on the charge five, but overall, in terms of readability, if you need reading glasses to see smaller screens or smaller texts, you're probably gonna need to pull them out for both of these fitness trackers because the text size is not adjustable. Now both of these are bright enough to see in broad daylight, outdoors in bright sunshine, but neither of them have an automatic brightness sensor. You [00:03:00] will need to go into the settings and adjust that brightness manually. This wasn't too much of a problem on the Fitbit because that medium or normal setting was easy enough to see the me band. On the other hand, it was just a lot of trying to shade my screen, trying to see what was going on and having to remember to manually adjust that screen brightness before I stepped outside. Speaker 1: Ain't nobody got time for that. Now let's talk about GPS. First up the Fitbit charge five does have a built [00:03:30] in GPS. The me band seven does not. This basically means you'll need to take your phone with you when you are doing an outdoor workout. If you do wanna track things like your overall distance, your route information, whereas you don't have to take your phone. If you're using the charge five, considering that most new fitness trackers do have built in GPS. I was a little bit disappointed. Both of these have high and low heart rate alerts. They also have a blood oxygen center on board and they can monitor [00:04:00] your heart rate 24 7. They also monitor your stress, but they do this in a slightly different way. The me band seven uses things like your heart rate to calculate whether or not your stress. Whereas the charge five has an additional sensor on board, and this is called an EDA or electrodermal activity sensor. Speaker 1: This is basically measuring minute changes in sweat and taking into account other factors like your heart rate to determine how stressed you are [00:04:30] while I don't think the stress measurement on either of these is essential. You might find it's actually really helpful to tell you how you're feeling. Now let's specifically talk about the workout tracking on each on the me band seven. There are no joke, 120 different types of workouts that you can track. It's not a typo. I didn't say that wrong. Yes. 120. Let me read you some of the abridged list. Walking outdoor, running, cycling, jumper, yoga, duds, archery hit core training hall, hooping, col bear, dancing, [00:05:00] chess, TGA war playing with your dog, kite flying square dancing, ZBA folk, dance Billards and more, the Fitbit by comparison has 20 different sports or workout tracking modes. And there are space for six on the device itself. Speaker 1: So if you want to swap out, say yoga for weightlift, you can do that, but you need to go into the Fitbit app. And then re-sync to your device. Both of these trackers have different ways of measuring how well you're going on your fitness journey. Now, obviously both of them track things like your steps, but they also have a different metric [00:05:30] that takes into account how hard your heart rate is working during workouts. To give you an idea, if, if you're doing well or you need to push yourself a little bit harder on the me band seven, it's called P I and on the charge five, it is called active zone minutes. These are both measuring moderate to intense physical activity. And I definitely found the Fitbit version of this was easier to understand and interpret than the me band version, because the me band was just saying, you gotta get at least a score of a hundred every [00:06:00] single week. Speaker 1: I did a workout every single day for seven days, and I didn't get anywhere near 100 as my metric. It just wasn't very motivating. The Fitbit at least was much more useful in the advice it was giving me. And it definitely felt like it was reflecting more of my overall activity than the me band. Now let's get into the good stuff, the side by side comparisons during a workout, because I know that's what you really wanna know now, the steps and the distance of say an outdoor workout that I was doing like a walk or a run [00:06:30] actually was pretty close between the two. So I wasn't too concerned about that, but the calorie count that was wildly different on both. Now, I did a nine kilometer walk over, you know, two hours. It wasn't super fast, but you know, it was a long walk. Speaker 1: I got back. I looked at the stats from the me band and it was like, you did 390 calories. You what? 390 calories doesn't make any sense. When I compared that to not only a control [00:07:00] phone with a control app, calculating calories and the charge five look, I could eat a lot more after my workout with the charge five than compared to what the me van seven was giving me for heart rate sensor accuracy. I tested both of these against a chest strap. And for resting heart rate, both of them were pretty good. They did match up to the chest strap when it came to more intense workouts, especially workouts that involved a lot of movements swinging my arms, things like that. I definitely found that the me band seven took [00:07:30] longer to catch up to the strap. And I really noticed this when I was doing a big, long hike up a hill, I would look down at my wrist on the Fitbit charge five. Speaker 1: And it definitely felt like it had reflected my heart rate, especially when I compared it to the strap. It was like 130 BP makes sense. Right? Look down at the me band 7 95 BPM. I was like getting sweaty. I, I needed to take a little bit of a breather at the top. Did [00:08:00] not feel like 95 BP. Let me tell you. And then after the workout, when I went back to look at the stats side by side in the apps, I always found that there was a consistent 10 BPM difference between the maximum heart rate on my Fitbit versus the me band seven. Now the heart rate sensor accuracy is not unique to the me band seven. I've definitely noticed this issue on earlier me band edition. So I really hope that there is a firmware update somewhere down the track that can help improve that accuracy to kind of bring it up to the level of the charge. Speaker 1: Five, both of these require [00:08:30] an app, either on iOS or Android to sync the device. Overall, the Fitbit app to me definitely feels better laid out. It's easier to see the data and you can get super, super granular with everything that this device is tracking the me band seven. It's fine. It's a bit more utilitarian. And it is a little bit more tricky to see the data that you might want to see in terms of like specifics of your workout. It's there. It just needs a little bit more drilling down. The me band does have one trick up it sleeve that the Fitbit does not though. It can sync with apple health on iOS [00:09:00] and also Google fit on Android. The Fitbit kind of closed in its own Fitbit app. There are third party apps you can use to port your data across, but it's not as seamless as the me band. Speaker 1: And on the flip side, the Fitbit has one up on the me band because it has an ECG or electrocardiogram app. This is used to detect signs of things like atrial fibrillation. Now the Fitbit also has one thing that I do need to mention it is called Fitbit premium. Now this is the $10 a month subscription [00:09:30] service. This is not required to use the charge five, but it does give you access to deeper things like sleep metrics, things like customized workout plans, meal plans, the me band seven, it's all free pay once. And that's it premium also gives you access to the daily readiness score. Now, this is a score out of 100 that takes into account things like your sleep overall activity levels. And it gives you an idea of whether you should tackle a workout or not, or maybe take it easy, have a rest aid, do some yoga meditation. Speaker 1: [00:10:00] I really like this score, cuz I actually feel like it's a useful way to see if you're ready to work out or it's snooze time. Speaking of sleeping, let's get into the sleep tracking differences, the Fitbit. I think if you're really into sleep, it's so worth it compared to the me band because the accuracy of the data is better on the Fitbit than the me band. Now both of them give you the ability to obviously track your sleep, wear them all throughout the night, wake up in the morning, sync with the app [00:10:30] and you'll get things like a sleep score. You'll also be able to see sleep stages, but the me band, you will need to go in and manually toggle on the more advanced sleep tracking to see all of that data. You can also track blood oxygen at night on both of them, but the me band just wasn't as good at tracking my awake time as the Fitbit. Speaker 1: And I definitely felt like the sleep score on the Fitbit correlated better with how I felt in the morning compared to the me band seven. There was one night where I was tossing and turning for hours and the Fitbit tracked it. The me [00:11:00] band was like good work, Lexi. You've been sleeping for nine hours. I wasn't. I remember because I was tired in the morning. The Fitbit will also have a sleep profile after a couple of weeks of wearing it. And the good news is at least both of them, you can track naps. Let's get into the smart features on these fitness trackers. Now while they might not be as fully fledged or well rounded as say the smart features on a smart watch, they still actually probably do a lot more than you might [00:11:30] think. Both of them can obviously receive notifications from your iOS or Android device. Speaker 1: But if you're paired with an iOS device, you are only gonna be able to see notifications come through on Android. You can also customize some quick responses that you can tap and send from your wrist. You can also do the basics, like see the weather and set an alarm. The MEbA actually one ups the Fitbit in many ways on the smart features front, you get so many different watch face options. [00:12:00] Like the options within the app is kind of crazy. You will be looking at this list for a very long time. Everything is also super customizable. And I really like the options that are available to you here. It also has a find my phone feature so it can ping and make your phone ring wherever it might be within Bluetooth range. You can also use the screen as a flashlight. It also has a calendar so you can see your agenda. Speaker 1: Whereas the charge five does not. The charge five, unfortunately only [00:12:30] has 24 different clock faces to choose from. Now, this might not be an issue. You maybe you, you like the standard ones, but I wish there was a little bit more variety. The charge five also comes with onboard NFC for contactless mobile payments. The me band does not have NFC in the international version. And the big one is of course battery life, or at least it is for me. Now this is of course gonna depend on how much you're using your tracker. Things like your screen brightness, how often notifications [00:13:00] are coming through from your phone. If you're tracking blood oxygen, all of the heart rate stuff that you might be doing, the me band will just edge out the charge five with the same usage patterns. So it lasted me about seven days. Now this was without the always on display, doing sleep tracking 24 7 with blood oxygen tracking overnight. The charge five lasted me four full days under the same conditions. Again, no, always on display, but overall the me band just [00:13:30] edges out the Fitbit on the battery front. Now it's time to pick your winner. The more expensive or less expensive fitness tracker. If you want the most comprehensive health and fitness tracking with the most accuracy, it is worth shelling out for the Fitbit charge five. Speaker 1: And if you don't worry about the accuracy of higher intensity workouts, the less expensive alternative might be worth the cash. But for smart features, if you just want something, that's not about the fitness, it's about, [00:14:00] you know, connecting with your phone and getting notifications and that's about it. You can't go wrong with the me band, the screen on the me band seven is bigger because sometimes bigger is better. Hey, thanks so much for watching. If you like this episode, give it a thumbs up, but don't stop there because there's a lot more of this show than meets the eye. You can find a full playlist of more or less episodes linked in the description. I've also got a full review of the Fitbit charge, five spoiler alert. I gave it and edit editors choice, [00:14:30] cuz it's actually really good. That's also linked in the description for you as well and subscribe to CNET. Is that my laundry list done? Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's see ya.