Fitbit Charge 2 This fitness band is a healthy option

The Fitbit Charge 2 can be seen as both a fitness band and a smart watch. It won’t do as much as pricier options like the Apple Watch, but it can buzz your wrist to notify you of phone calls, texts and appointments on your phone, which it connects to wirelessly.

Like rivals, this is really a phone accessory rather than a standalone product. A big part of fitness tracking is generating information that’s displayed later to show you how you’re doing, and this takes place primarily on your phone screen. The Charge 2 also relies on your phone’s GPS to detect where you are then measure how far you’ve walked or run. If you leave your phone behind you’llu’ll just get step counts and continuous heart-rate records, which will be uploaded to the app later.

The heart-rate monitor is built in, using optical measurement (meaning youou won’t feel a thing) of the veins in your wrist. That puts you in much closer touch with your body than a pedometer, and makes the Charge 2 and its app quite a powerful health aid.

Being a little more basic means the Charge 2 uses far less battery power, so it’ll only need charging every five days or so, and usefully it emails you to tell you it’s running low. The only annoyance is that it uses a special charging cable, which costs £17 to replace if you lose it.

It’s water-resistant but not recommended for immersion, so – logically enough – it doesn’t offer swim tracking. But it understands a range of other activities besides running and walking, so it can meaningfully track your performance even if you don’t explicitly tell it what you’re doing.

Sleep tracking is included, and there’s also a breathing activity, where the Charge 2 shows your heart rate and tells you when to breathe in and out to achieve a calmer state. This is very effective, and something you couldn’t do without a heart-rate band. Add the convenience of seeing phone calls, texts and appointments on your wrist, so you can decide whether to get your phone out or not, and the Charge 2 seems worth the money.

It works with your phone to monitor your r fitness – just don’t take e it for a swim

Given the lack of competition at this price, the 34UC79G is a good choice for gamers, but for general use it doesn’t impress enough

★★★☆☆

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