Fitbit The Dust

fitbit
The Fitbit Charge fell apart

This Fitbit Charge has bit the dust. Well, not completely. Let me explain.

When we last discussed this Fitbit Charge, I had given it to my wife after I took over her Fitbit One.

The band fell apart completely while we were in Las Vegas at the first of this month. The band had been peeling off for sometime, as my wife wore it to do just about everything except showering. And with it not being waterproof, it obviously didn’t survive months of wrist shrapnel from hands washing, which I believe helped the band to start coming off. So given this state, it became evident that it was destined to be retired.

So my wife now has her Fitbit One back and I took her Charge to see what could be salvaged from it. As it turns out, once I removed the band completely, the unit itself was still in a workable state, albeit without being able to be worn on the wrist anymore.

Skeleton State

fitbit
Fitbit Charge bare metal… err. plastic

So with the band removed, the Charge is a bit larger than the One with it’s case. But still small enough to fit in my pants pocket. I am now wearing it instead of the One and it works for the most part. I’m sure without it being directly on my wrist, there’s some functionality that is not detected but it counts my steps, floors and sleep just fine. And I will wear this until it dies completely or gets damaged or lost.

Lacking

When in Las Vegas, I attended the CES 2017 trade show. Before this Charge fell apart but was in a falling apart state, my wife and I visited the Fitbit booth and had a spirited chat with a customer service rep. While being mostly honest that the Charge and Charge HR had issues with staying together, I told her that I contacted support when it first starting coming apart and they didn’t do anything. When I visited the previous year in 2016 and talked to a customer support rep, they told me they would replace a Charge unit that was coming apart. What a difference a year makes, huh?. And now they tout purchasing direct from Fitbit instead of from a local retailer or online vendor as they can better know when the unit was purchased. And while that makes sense on the ability to better know the purchase date, my response to this support rep was “Wow, that’s not saying much for the many thousands of Fitbits sold through everyone else but you.” She agreed that came across as odd [You think?]. We ended the conversation with her suggesting getting the Charge 2, which I’ve seen and heard good about it.

There is one feature that all but one of the Fitbit models don’t have? Waterproof. Part of the above conversation was my suggestion that all of their wrist devices should have some sort of waterproofing. She noted my suggestion. I mean, you spend $100 to $350 for one of their fitness tracking devices. You would think that would be a feature they could focus on. Especially given fitness trackers from other vendors have some sort of waterproof capability.

For now, I will use this Charge alongside my Apple Watch, which I will talk about in a separate post and in more detail.

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