Opting for a healthy lifestyle has never been easier since the arrival of Fitbit Charge 3. It is stunning not only with its bold looks but also with its upgrades like waterproofing, improved battery life, and a connected GPS.
Despite not being as rich in features as Fitbit’s two smartwatches:- Iconic and Versa, this generation of Fitbit, Fitbit Charge 3, has its fair merit.
Here is a simple guide on how you can benefit from Fitbit Charge 3 to know about your body, its mechanisms, and monitor your progress and activities.
What Is Inside The Fitbit Charge 3 Box?
To know how it works, firstly, you must be introduced to the gadget.
These are the 3 things you get in the package:
- A tracker with a wristband (which may vary in color and material)
- A charger
- An extra wristband (which varies in color and material)
How To Set Up Charge 3 To Your Computer And Phone?
How To Charge Your Tracker?
There is a port on the back of the tracker. Connect the port to a USB port on your computer or any other USB certified wall charger by the charger you have been given in the package.
Once charged, a battery icon appears on the tracker. It takes around 2 hours for a full charge, and next show a smiley-faced battery icon when you swipe up.
Set up Fitbit Charge 3 with your iPhone, Android, iPad, and Windows10 computer.
Fitbit Charge3 works best for iPhones, Android, and iPads. Similarly, a Bluetooth enabled Windows 10 device works in case you don’t have the aforementioned devices. However, if you need to be notified about your calls, text, calendar, or smartphone applications, a phone is necessary.
Step 1: Install The Fitbit App
Find the Fitbit app and install it on mobile through:
- Play Store app(for Android users)
- Apple Store(for iPhone users)
- Microsoft Store(for Windows 10 users)
Step 2: Register For Fitbit Account
Make a Fitbit account by logging into your account:
- Tap the account icon
- Set Up a Device.
Step 3: Provide You Body Information And Track Your Activities
Start a Fitbit account by typing your height, weight, and sex to determine BMR (Basal metabolic rate), stride length, and calculate distance and calorie burn.
Your name and your picture will be visible to other fellow Fitbit users. The majority of your information is private on default, but you can change it as you wish.
You can clearly see your activity, such as sleep statistics, food and water intake, heart rate, female health-tracking, and more.
Step 4: Optimize Fitbit For Best Results
For the best outcome, turn on the all-day sync, so charge 3 syncs in rhythm with the app.
Sync at least once a day even if you turn it off the “all-day sync.” Each time you open the Fitbit app, Charge3 syncs automatically when it’s nearby. You can also use the “sync now” choice in the app anytime.
Wearing Fitbit Charge 3
You may wonder what’s there to talk about how to wear a fitness band. You might be correct; it’s simple. But there are some ways which you can follow while wearing your Fitbit Charge 3 to reap maximum benefit from it.
How to Wear Fitbit Charge 3?
Put the Charge 3 around your wrist.
- If the wristband doesn’t fit, you can turn it over and find the wristband latches. Press down on the wrist band’s flat button to release the latch by gently pulling the wristband away from the tracker.
- To join a wristband that matches your wrist size, press the band on the end of the tracker till you hear a snapping noise and feel it come to its rightful place. Gently pull it back and forth if you feel like the band is too loose or have difficulty in fixing the band.
Wearing Fitbit Charge 3 During Exercise Vs. Normal Routine
When You Aren’t Exercising
Give a 3 finger width distance above your wrist bone and place the charge3 there.
When You Are Exercising
Put the charge 3 higher on your wrist for an accurate and let us say precise heart-rate interpretation. However, Dynamic exercises such as cycling, weight lifting, need wrist bending can intervene in the accurate results if the charger3 falls low on your wrist.
Note: See that the tracker is in complete contact with your skin. However, also see that tightly wearing a tracker can impede blood flow, which is a very harmful condition and can affect heart rate. The tracker should be, in simple words, comfortably tight.
On Which Hand Should You Wear The Fitbit Charge 3?
For better operation, you need to mention your dominant hand in the setting. If you wear charge3 on your right wrist, change the wrist settings to the right in the Fitbit app and vice-versa.
Basic Features Of Fitbit Charge 3
Clock As a Homescreen
The home screen has a clock that can be viewed by clicking the home button(a button on the left side of the tracker) OR by double-pressing the tracker screen. You can edit the clock settings on the Fitbit app.
No matter where you swipe, to go to the home screen, click the home button repeatedly until you reach the home screen. Activate the home screen or tracker by flicking the wrist towards you(You can change the settings “screen-wake”)
Notification
Swipe down to see notifications from your phone like calls, texts, emails, smartphone applications. Press on “clear-all” to remove the notifications.
Daily Stats: Compare Them With Your Partner
You can compare your daily progress with your fitness partner and improvise on your failings through the Fitbit app. You both will encourage each other in this way.
Swipe up to see your stats, which include heart-rate, sleep or wake state, calorie intake and calories burned, daily steps, miles you’ve walked, etc.
Female Health Tracking Feature
This is greatly beneficial to women. Predict your monthly cycle, fertilization period, and reproductive health through the Fitbit app.
Exercise And Fitness
Swipe left to select various exercises to choose from. Select the desirable exercise and swipe up to adjust the settings.
Timer, Stopwatch, And Alarm
Swipe left two times, and you get options like timer, stopwatch, and Alarm. They are very useful in our daily life. During fasting, you can use a stopwatch or a timer to see whether your fasting time has exceeded its limit or not.
Sleep Tracker
You can adjust your bedtime and keep alarms through the Fitbit app. The device detects that you’re sleeping when your wrist remains stationary for more than an hour. It can detect REM sleep, deep and light sleep too. It can also detect that you aren’t sleeping well if you toss and turn in your sleep. Sleep tracker can help maintain circadian rhythm and make our body healthier and our lives happier.
How To Adjust The Settings?
For a quick setting, click and hold the home button for 2 seconds or more and change the setting you deem fit by turning it on or off.
Swipe left to see settings on the tracker.
Remember when we told you about flicking the wrist to activate the tracker? For that, you need to adjust the screen-wake setting.
The notifications display can be adjusted in the settings of the Fitbit App. Bear in mind that notifications only get displayed when you’re near the phone.
Other settings can be changed through the Fitbit app. Brightness, steps, sleep tracking, etc. can be changed in the setting. Swipe up to see the full repertoire of settings at the setting app.
How to use the Clock, Stopwatch, Alarm, and Timer?
Using The Clock
The clock is the home screen.
The clock face can be changed through the Fitbit app. Here is how you change the clock face:-
- Tap the account icon
- Charge 3 tile
- Tap clock faces
- All clocks
- Look around the clock faces and select the one you like.
- Click on “switch” if you like it to display the clock face on your tracker home screen.
Using The Alarm
The alarm can be adjusted in the Fitbit app. When the alarm goes off, the tracker vibrates. Click on the Zzz button to snooze for 9 mins. If you ignore the alarm for 1 whole minute, the Fitbit app is computerized to go into snooze mode.
Using The Stopwatch
Likewise, the stopwatch can be adjusted in the tracker easily. Swipe right from the home screen and find the timers app. Tap on it to reveal the stopwatch. Press on it to start the stopwatch. And press on it again to pause the time. Swipe up to reset it all together.
Using The Countdown/Timer
Similarly, the timer can be adjusted in the tracker. To adjust the timer, follow these steps:
- Swipe left from the stopwatch and view the countdown feature.
- Tap the timer.
- Scroll the numbers to set the timer.
- Tap the play icon to start the timer.
- When the countdown has ended, the tracker vibrates to notify you.
- Pressing it again will remove the display from the screen.
How Does Charge 3 Help Us Align With Our Health Goals?
Are you having a hard time setting goals and forgetting about it the next millisecond? Don’t worry, for Charge 3 will be your motivator.
First, you need a goal to check your progress. Suppose you have a goal to walk 10,000 steps today or walk a mile or control your calorie intake or burn calories. Follow the steps needed to complete your goals, and all the activities will be tracked by the best fitness tracker FITBIT CHARGE 3.
Charge 3 acts like your motivator and reminds you of your goals hourly when you don’t feel like it or have forgotten to keep track of your aim.
Staying sedentary because you’re playing video games? Don’t worry; charge 3 will gently nudge you to walk 250 steps an hour by vibrating the tracker. After completing your activity, you will receive many many congratulations.
How Do We Track Our Sleep From Fitbit Charge 3?
Wear the tracker to bed to track your sleep. REM (Rapid eye movement), light sleep, deep sleep will be tracked along with your sleep time. Syncing with the app after you wake up will give you the stats of your sleep hours.
The device thinks that you’re sound asleep when you stay still for an hour or so. If you toss and turn a lot in your sleep, the tracker detects that too.
The data is displayed in the app.
Through the Fitbit app, you can
- Customize to have a sleep time of 8 hours a day.
- Set a bedtime reminder to get in tune with your biological sleep rhythm.
- Check your weekly sleep stats and see if you are getting a sound sleep or having trouble sleeping.
How To Track The Heart-rate In Fitbit Charge 3?
The tracker always keeps data on your heart rate when you’re wearing it. Make sure that it is comfortably tight.
Swipe up to see the reading and adjust the heart rate zone in the Fitbit app.
According to the American Association, there are three heart zones, and you can put any one of them if you are aiming for a certain heart rate.
However, turning off the “heart rate” setting will make the battery last longer.
Meditate Through Fitbit Charge 3
Breathing is one of the best meditative exercises which relaxes your mind and spirit. And Fitbit Charge 3 has just that; a guided breathing exercise. Charge3 app has a relax app that has 2-minute or 5-minute sessions. Tap on the relax app. It shows a 2-minute session. Swipe left to choose a 5 min session.
The screen displays the actions you need to follow:- Exhale and inhale.
After finishing, the screen shows how you performed, whether you were in sync with the exercise or not. Meanwhile, the initial heart rate and end heart rate during the exercise is shown. Weekly stats are also shown.
How To Use The Fitness And Exercise Tracker On Charge 3?
Using From The Band
Swipe left and tap on exercise. Various exercises such as boxing, cycling, running, swimming, treadmill, and weight lifting will be displayed, which can be adjusted by swiping up.
The GPS of your phone needs to be turned on for this feature so that the tracker can use its connected GPS. For this, tap on the exercise you want to do, swipe up and turn on the GPS setting on the tracker. A GPS icon appears on your tracker screen on the top left saying connected, and the tracker vibrates, which means that the tracker is now connected to the GPS on your phone.
Start the exercise tracking by tapping the play icon on the screen. When you finish exercising, tap the button and tap “finish” to end the tracking of the workout. You can also pause the exercise tracking by tapping the button once.
Swipe up to see your exercise summary and tap on the button to close the summary.
Note: During the exercise, charg3 displays three live stats such as heart rate, calories burnt, etc. Clicking the middle stat displays other stats.
Using From The Fitbit App
You can adjust your exercise setting using the Fitbit app from your phone too. Here’s how you do it
- Tap the account icon
- Charge 3 tile
- Exercise shortcuts
- Tap the exercise you want to adjust and change the settings
- Finally, sync with your tracker.
How To Check The Weather?
Want to exercise outdoors, and you’re doubtful about the humid rain incoming? Well, here’s how you use the weather feature on your Fitbit app to know how the weather will be.
Check the weather app on your tracker, which, by default, shows the weather of your location. Additionally, you can also see the weather of two other locations you have chosen by swiping left.
You need to turn on your phone’s “location” services, so the Fitbit app can sync with your tracker to display the weather. The unit of temperature can be changed in the Fitbit app.
To add or remove locations, you need to:
- Open the app
- Tap Account icon
- Charge 3 tile
- Press on Apps
- Press the gear icon next to Weather(you may need to swipe up to find the app)
- Tap Add City to add up to 2 additional locations
- Tap Edit on the X icon to delete a location.
Bear in mind that you can’t delete your current location.
Sync your tracker with the Fitbit app to see the new weather locations.
How To Reboot, Erase And Update?
Reboot
Steps to Reboot are:-
- Swipe right to settings. Then, click on About. After that, click on the reboot device.
- If the tracker is not responding, charge the tracker on the computer or wall charger. Then, hold the button on the tracker for 8 seconds. Finally, the tracker vibrates and shows a smiley face, which means that it restarted.
Erase
If you want to give your tracker to others, you need to erase your data.
On the tracker, you need to do the following,
- Tap on settings about
- Tap on “clear user data.”
Update
When an update is available, it displays on your notification in the app. Then, the Charge3 and Fitbit app display a progress bar that disappears once the update is completed.
Advantages of Fitbit Charge 3
- It is waterproof up to 50 meters, and it can track activity during swimming lessons and ocean diving.
- It has a connected GPS setting through the phone, so you can track the distance, and you’ve traveled.
- It has a long battery life of 7 days.
- For android users they can respond to notifications with emoticons and also customize quick messages.
- Straps are easier to change.
- It is easy to keep in touch with your daily exercises, and it is easier to track your health progress.
- It has a female health tracker and also notifies on calendar and smartphone applications.
Disadvantages of Fitbit Charge 3
- It has a monochrome display.
- It has no control over choosing music while exercising or doing daily activities.
- It has no built-in GPS, so you need a phone nearby to track distances and locations.
- It cannot download apps and cannot call from it as it has no built-in microphone.
Conclusion
We hope the above methods helped you to get familiar with the Fitbit Charge 3. It is really simple to use and efficient in daily life. As it helps us to get familiar with the activities of our body and to use the data to monitor our health, we have a happy and healthy body and mind.
