With the Alta, Fitbit is adding more style to its fitness tracker line-up. But how does its latest offering stack up against the similarly priced Charge HR? Let's take a closer look at each tracker and compare them feature for feature.
Fitbit Alta
The Alta is one of the two new trackers from Fitbit. It is stylish and slim out of the box, and with the available accessory wristbands and clock faces, it transforms from a fitness tracker into a piece of fashion jewelry. You could quite literally go straight from the gym to a black-tie event wearing your Alta and no one would know that you are tracking your steps from the punchbowl to the dance floor.
- Style: Wristband
- Trackable statistics: Steps, distance, calories burned, sleep, active minutes, and exercise with auto-logging.
- Display: OLED tap display showing daily stats, smartphone alerts, and time of day.
- Colors: Black, blue, plum, and teal
- Battery: Rechargeable. Lasts up to five days between charges.
- Unique features: Plays alerts throughout the day to remind you to be active, customizable with different wristbands, including jewelry-like bangles, and different clock faces in horizontal and vertical orientations.
Fitbit Charge HR
Classed among Fitbit's line of active fitness trackers, the Charge HR tracks the same stats as the Alta but adds heart rate and floors climbed to the list. Like the Alta, the Charge HR logs your exercise in the Fitbit app automatically, so that you don't have to remember to do it. Unlike the Alta, what you see is what you get. It does not have interchangeable accessory bands or customizable clock faces. The heart rate monitor does give it some pretty red lights, though.
- Style: Wristband
- Trackable statistics: Steps, distance, calories burned, sleep, active minutes, exercise with auto-logging, floors climbed, and heart rate
- Display: OLED shows time of day, daily stats, and Caller ID.
- Colors: Black, magenta, blue, orange, and mint green.
- Battery: Rechargeable. Lasts up to 5 days between charges.
- Unique features: Heart rate monitor and altimeter.
Fashionably geeky or geekily fashionable?
If you're asking what's the better fitness tracker, the Alta or the Charge HR, that's not the right question. The better question to ask is which one is right for you. If having a heart rate monitor is the most important feature for you, then the Charge HR is the way to go. If you like the idea of being prompted to move during the day, and you want a tracker that you can customize, then go with the Alta.
