Fitbit Charge 6

 

Up until February of this year, I have not worn a watch since well........ I cannot remember.  Possibly a couple decades at least.  I've heard about FitBits for years.  Then I heard about the Apple SmartWatch and several other types.  At one point I bought a cheap 20 thing off Amazon.  I wanted to see if it would be any benefit.  I was not impressed.  Just seemed like too much to keep up with. Hard to explain that, but if you know you know. 

So over the past couple of years I have found myself having a significant increase in the amount of panic attacks.  If you have never had a panic attack, it makes you think that you are having a heart attack.  It is not a pleasant experience by any means.  Many times I would find myself going to urgent care just to make sure it was not a heart attack.  I know that sounds silly.  I just needed the reassurance or my panic attack would get worse.  

I do not know what possessed me to look at FitBits specifically other than I was trying to come up with ways I could  bring myself down from the ceiling.  I had started having panic attacks at work to the point of an ambulance was called one of those times. One day I just said heck let's order a real one and see what happens.  So the FitBit Charge 6 was on sale on Amazon one day.  It just happened to be a payday so I ordered it.  The fact that I had to really pay for it (a lot more than a 20 dollar knock off) made me decide to wear it religiously.  The only time it is not on my wrist is when I'm in the shower (it is water proof, but I don't want to take many chances) or when it is charging. 

I won't really go into all the details on how I use it to bring me down from the ceiling.  And I will say that it does not always work for that as it depends on how far gone I am.  If I catch a panic attack at the beginning I can use some of the features of it to bring me down.  I realize that most people do not use it for that.  

I'll be the first to admit that I do not understand all of the features nor do I understand all of the graphs that go with the app.  

Let me tell you about some of the features that I do like.  

It constantly monitors your heartrate.  
It tracks your sleep...... now this feature I like.  It will tell me exactly how much I slept.  It will even monitor your O2 rate while you are asleep.  It tracks stages of sleep as well.  I can log into the app and see the stages of sleep.  It will give you a rating of how well you slept.  The picture posted above has my sleep listed as fair.  I can tell you that is because I currently have the crud.  I do not sleep well when I have the crud.  I know how much I sleep on average as well.  During the work week I average 5 to 6 hours of sleep most nights.  No wonder I"m always dragging lol

Another feature I like is Google Maps.  You connect the Bluetooth on your phone and pair it with the FitBit.  There are a couple of different ways to use this.  You can be in your car and have the GPS directing you on your phone and it will come through the watch.  I have not tried that feature yet.  What I have used it for is in the exercise mode it will track how many miles you walk/run/bike.   I can connect it to Google Maps and hop on my bike and know a lot of data instantly such as distance, speed, etc.  This is good for me because I was looking at Google Maps and trying to do math to figure out my distances.  If you know me, you know I do not like to math!  Yes, I turned math into a verb. 

It does many other things.  It can take an EKG, YouTube Music, stopwatch, alarm, track exercises, step counter. receive text messages, do voice calls, and Google Wallet. I'm probably missing something.  I have not used all the features as of yet.  

So far I only have 3 cons

-  It has to be charged.  Call me old school, but I liked having an actual battery in a watch.  This is just another charging cord to keep up with.  

-  While it can receive text messages, it will only show a portion of the message if it is a long message.  

-  It does not have an exercise setting for recumbent exercise bike.  It has all these other things, but not that. 

From what I have used it for, I really like it.  I can use it to tell if I have a good or a bad Monday.  The more steps I log on a Monday means a bad day because I'm having to chase people down for timesheets and therefore logging more steps lol.