Fitbit has been leading the wearables market for quite some time now, and they have some pretty good watches in terms of health tracking. Two of their popular models, the Fitbit Charge 5 and Fitbit Sense, have an AMOLED display, ECG capability, advanced sleep tracking, and so much more.
We’ll delve into the comparison of these two smartwatches in terms of design, health and fitness tracking, pricing, and battery life to help you find the one that fits your needs and style preferences.
Fitbit Charge 5 vs Sense: Quick Glance
The first thing you will notice right away after seeing these watches is their design. The Fitbit Charge 5 has a long, rectangular design suitable for health-conscious buyers or athletes. While the Fitbit Sense has more of a smartwatch type in a squarish shape, appealing to more casual users or women who want a more sophisticated watch on their hand. But this isn’t the only difference you get from these watches. Let’s dig deeper.
How do they differ in looks?
Before diving into the features, let’s dive further into the looks. As noted, the Fitbit Charge 5 has a rectangular shape that resembles an athlete’s style. The 1.04-inch, 326 PPI, 450 x 250-pixel AMOLED screen is surrounded by aluminium and surgical-grade stainless steel. It doesn’t feature a crown or a button like the Fitbit Sense, but it’s a touch-screen watch, so you can navigate its UI and functionalities through the screen. To protect the watch screen, it has Corning Gorilla Glass 3, making it scratch-resistant and durable enough to survive in extreme conditions.
At 36.7 x 22.7 x 11.2 mm and 28 grams, the Fitbit Charge 5 has a slimmer, lightweight design along with a smaller screen. It comes in Black, Soft Gold, and Platinum colorways along with Graphite, Luna White, and Steel Blue straps. The straps are 20mm in length.
To customise the watch interface, it comes with 21 clock faces, plus Fitbit added two new clock faces, Analogish and Aura, for a total of 23 clock faces.
The Fitbit Charge 5 boasts a lithium-polymer battery that can last for around 7 days on a single charge, two and a half days with the always-on display enabled, and five days with it disabled. Battery life is significantly reduced to 5 hours when the built-in GPS is used. To juice up the watch, it will take approximately 2 hours, and you will need more frequent charging if you want to use GPS and an always-on display (AOD).
The Fitbit Sense, meanwhile, has a little bulkier and squarish design, as noted, which makes it more suitable and appealing to more casual users and women. It comes with a 1.58-inch, 268.5 PPI, 336 x 336 pixels AMOLED screen that is surrounded by the same anodized aluminium. However, it has a physical button on the right side of the watch used for recent apps, a power button, and shortcuts (voice assistant, quick settings, music control, and Fitbit Pay). For screen protection, it has laser-bonded Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for added durability and scratch resistance.
Measuring 40.4 x 40.4 x 12.4 mm and weighing 30g, the Fitbit Sense is bigger and slightly heavier than the Charge 5. It comes in a single Soft Gold Stainless Steel colour along with a Lunar White band. It can be quite deceiving for users who want multiple colours, but the best thing is that it has interchangeable straps, so you can change the bands with the Charge 4, Sense 2, and Charge 3 if you have either of these watches. The straps for this model are also the same 20mm, so if you have a slightly bigger wrist, these watches can be quite uncomfortable for you.
You can also customise the watch with a wide collection of clock faces to choose from in the Fitbit app. The clock faces include Minimal Sunset, Minimolo, Neon, and many more. There’s also a few more available clock faces, but it requires a Fitbit premium subscription to access them.
In terms of battery life, the Fitbit Sense runs for the same 6+ days per charge, which is the same as the Charge 5. With the always-on display enabled, it only lasts for around 2 days but lasts for about 12 hours in GPS mode. But one of the best things about this watch is that it supports fast charging, which provides enough juice for one day in just 8 minutes of charging. It takes 40 minutes to go from 10-80%, which is a good thing compared to how little battery life this watch has.
Both smartwatches can withstand being submerged underwater for up to 50 metres.
Let’s break down the specs
| Specifications | Fitbit Charge 5 | Fitbit Sense |
|---|---|---|
| General | ||
| Brand | Fitbit | Fitbit |
| Model Name | Change 5 | Sense |
| Design and Body | ||
| Weight | 28 grams | 30 grams |
| Material | Aluminium | Aluminium |
| Shape | Rectangular | Square |
| Display | ||
| Type | AMOLED | AMOLED |
| Touch | Yes | Yes |
| Size | 1.04 inches | 1.58 inches |
| Resolution | 450 x 250 pixels | 336 x 336 pixels |
| Features | Always-on Display | Always-on Display |
| Connectivity | ||
| Bluetooth | Yes | Yes |
| GPS | Multi-band GPS | Multi-band GPS |
| Extra | ||
| Sensors | Pedometer, Heart Rate Monitor, SpO2 (Blood Oxygen) Monitor, Calorie Count, Step Count, Sleep Monitor | Pedometer, Heart Rate Monitor, SpO2 (Blood Oxygen) Monitor, Calorie Count, Step Count, Sleep Monitor |
| NFC | Fitbit Pay | Fitbit Pay |
| Camera | ||
| Camera | No | No |
| Technical | ||
| Compatibility | Android, iOS | Android, iOS |
| Multimedia | ||
| Music | Yes | Yes |
| Battery | ||
| Backup | Up to 7 days | Up to 6 days |
| Features | ||
| Water Resistant | Yes | Yes |
| Water Rating | IP68 | IP68 |
| Water Depth | 50m | 50m |
| Extra Features | Alarm Clock, Stopwatch, Timer, Reminder | Alarm Clock, Stopwatch, Timer, Reminder |
| Price | $127 | $216 |
Fitness, workouts, and activities
When it comes to fitness, workouts, and activity tracking, both devices do not have a whole lot of features but offer all the important features we use in everyday life to stay fit and healthy. You can track multiple sports modes, including running, swimming, cycling, walking, and many more. You can simply log these activities in the Fitbit app and get a better insight into your health and fitness activities. You can also check which activity helps you sweat more and helps you burn more calories.
There’s smart recognition of multiple activities, but it starts tracking after you are performing the particular activity for up to 10 minutes and logs it into the Fitbit app. Doing hardcore activities is not enough; recovering from them is also a vital part of your overall well-being, so they added daily readiness scores to help you better understand if you are ready for your next activity or not.
For motivation, these smartwatches have active zone minutes, which track your heart rate zone and give credit when you workout harder, plus you earn double minutes through cardio or peak zones. Apart from that, they also have heart rate tracking, ECG, irregular heart rate rhythms, EDA for stress management, and SpO2.
Both devices feature skin temperature sensors, but the Fitbit Charge 5 tracks skin temperature for activity, illness, and menstrual cycle, while the Fitbit Sense tracks your skin temperature every night so you can get better insight and be aware of your trends over time.
Apart from these features, they also offer high and low heart rate notifications to keep you notified about your heart health. Plus, advanced sleep tracking is also there and tracks it in three stages: deep, light, and REM, providing a sleep score so you can understand the quality of sleep every night. To wake you up, they added a smart wake alarm that vibrates on your wrist to wake you up feeling refreshed. One thing that only the Fitbit Sense has is the ability to detect your snoring and noise in your room, which can impact your sleep.
Both smartwatches also have menstrual health tracking, in which you can log periods, record symptoms, track your ovulation, and discover patterns in your cycle.
What else can they do?
What about beyond sports and fitness? Both smartwatches can reject and pick up a call coming from your smartphone, but only the Fitbit Sense has a built-in speaker and a microphone, so you can talk directly from your wrist, which the Fitbit Charge 5 is not capable of doing. You will need your phone nearby and connected via Bluetooth to work with this feature in the first place.
The Fitbit Sense lets you download hundreds of apps for fitness, sports, and fun, whereas the Fitbit Charge 5 has few built-in apps but doesn’t let you download anything apart from the existing ones.
Both watches have voice assistants (Google Assistant and Alexa) and Fitbit Pay to let you store your credit and debit cards, which you can then use for contactless payments. Plus, always-on display mode is also available, thanks to their AMOLED display.
Both devices also have built-in GPS, which lets you see distance and pace directly on the wrist without the need for a smartphone.
Which should you buy?
Given how similar these smartwatches are when it comes to health tracking and features, it comes down to individual design choices. If you want a tracker that can help you in your fitness journey without feeling on your wrist, provide a vibrant and colourful display, decent battery life, excellent health and fitness features, and a budget is your main priority, then the Fitbit Charge 5 would be a way to go.
Those who don’t care about pricing but want a smartwatch for themselves that has a bigger display, fast charging support, Bluetooth calling, and better health tracking, then the Fitbit Sense might be a good choice for you.