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  Fitbit / Pocket-lint

  Fitbit Inspire 3

  Best value Fitbit

  For those that want a slim and subtle device that does a great job of sleep tracking and activity tracking, the Fitbit Inspire 3 is well worth considering. It’s a great device with a superb battery life, fantastic software support from the Fitbit app and solid performance. It’s simple but that’s part of its charm.

  Pros

  • Slim and subtle design
  • Superb battery
  • Excellent software

  Cons

  • Small display
  • Some overestimation
  • Screen unresponsive

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  Fitbit / Pocket-lint

  Fitbit Luxe

  Most stylish Fitbit

  The Fitbit Luxe is the most stylish of the company’s trackers, offering a bracelet design, along with plenty of accessories like a link bracelet from a jewellery brand. There’s solid performance here too and a premium design, making it great fitness tracker overall, even if it does lack a coupole of features compared to the Charge 5.

  Pros

  • Stylish design
  • Solid performance
  • Plenty of accessories

  Cons

  • OLED display too small
  • No built-in GPS
  • No payment options

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  Fitbit / Pocket-lint

  Fitbit Charge 5

  Best Fitbit for features

  $120 $150 Save $30

  The Fitbit Charge 5 is an excellent activity tracker. It takes everything we liked about the Luxe and adds to it – with features like built-in GPS and Fitbit Pay – whilst also bringing some of the great features from the Fitbit Sense, such as stress management.= and the ECG function.

  Pros

  • Lovely OLED display
  • Solid performance
  • Built-in GPS / Fitbit Pay

  Cons

  • Display could be bigger
  • Limited exercise options
  • No music control

Fitbit refreshed its fitness tracker range in August 2022, introducing a couple of high end devices in the Fitbit Sense 2 and the Fitbit Versa 4, as well as an entry level tracker in the Inspire 3. The Inspire 3 succeeds the Inspire 2 – which is still available in the Fitbit portfolio – and it sits below the stylish Fitbit Luxe and feature-rich Charge 5.

Which of the Fitbit fitness trackers is right for you though? We’ve put the Inspire 3 up against the Luxe and Charge 5 to help you work out what the differences are and what features each one offers so you can pick the right one for you.

Inspire 3 vs Luxe vs Charge 5: Price, availability and specs

Let’s first start with the price and availability of the three Fitbit fitness trackers we are comparing here, as you’ll need to consider that not only for your budget, but the features you get with each device. The Fitbit Inspire 3 is the cheapest, as mentioned, costing $99.95 in the US, ?84.99 in the UK, and EUR99.95 in Europe. It comes in three colour options including Midnight Zen/Black, Lilac Bliss/Black and Morning Glow/Black.

The Fitbit Luxe is next in the range, priced at $129.95 in the US, ?109.99 in the UK, and EUR129.95 in Europe. It comes in three colours too, comprising Lunar White/Soft Gold, Black/Graphite, and Orchid/Platinum. There is also a special edition model.

The Fitbit Charge 5 is the most expensive of the three models, costing $149.95 in the US, ?129.99 in the UK, and EUR149.95 in Europe. It is available in Black/Graphite, Lumar White/Soft Gold, Steel Blue/Platinum.

You can see a quick breakdown of the specs for each of the three trackers below, but read on for more details on how they differ.

• 	Fitbit Inspire 3	Fitbit Luxe	Fitbit Charge 5
  Heart Rate Monitor	Yes	Yes	Yes
  Notification Support	Yes	Yes	Yes
  Battery Life	10 days	5 days	7 days
  Display	Coloured touchscreen	Coloured touchscreen	Always-On Colour AMOLED touchscreen
  Sensors	Heart rate, SpO2	Heart rate, SpO2	Heart rate, SpO2, EDA, ECG
  Water resistance	50 metres	50 metres	50 metres
  Dimensions (body)	39.32 x 18.6 x 11.75mm	36.30 x 17.62 x 10.05mm	36.7 x 22.7 x 11.2mm
  Mobile payments	No	No	Yes
  Exercise modes	Activity tracking, sleep tracking, Active Zone Minutes, Cardio Fitness Score, Daily Readiness Score, Stress Management Score	Activity tracking, sleep tracking, Active Zone Minutes, Cardio Fitness Score, Daily Readiness Score, Stress Management Score	Activity tracking, sleep tracking, Active Zone Minutes, Cardio Fitness Score, Daily Readiness Score, Stress Management Score

The Fitbit Inspire 3 and the Fitbit Luxe offer a similar design with a slim and narrow touchscreen, rounded edges and a slim band. The Luxe is more stylish and more premium in terms of its finish, though opting for stainless steel over plastic, whilst also offering a slimmer profile.

The Luxe doesn’t have any function buttons, while the Inspire 3 has a tactile button on the left side. The Charge 5 meanwhile, is wider than both the Inspire 3 and Luxe trackers, and much slimmer. It is less discreet though, and while accessories are offered for all three, the Luxe accessories are a little more fashionable.

All three Fitbit trackers being compared here are water resistant, so all of them will be capable of swim tracking, or wearing in a pool on holiday for example.

Hardware and specs

Let’s talk about hardware next. By hardware, we are talking sensors on board, as well as battery and display specifications. The Fitbit Inspire 3, Fitbit Luxe and Fitbit Charge 5 all offer a heart rate sensor for 24/7 tracking, along with heart rate variability, resting heart rate and irregular heart rate rhythm notifications. The three devices also offer an SpO2 sensor for blood oxygen tracking and they can also all detect skin temperature variation and breathing rate. Blood glucose tracking is also possible with all three trackers.

There’s Connected GPS on all three devices, but only the Charge 5 has built-in GPS, allowing you to go for a run and it track your route without your phone. The Charge 5 is also the only one out of these three Fitbit trackers to offer Fitbit Pay, the EDA Scan app for stress management and the ECG app for heart rate rhythm assessment. It is also the only one to have high and low heart rate notifications.

All three trackers offer a colour touchscreen though and they all offer an Always On Display too. The Charge 5’s display is definitely the most responsive and impressive of the three, though for all of them, we did feel like the screen could have been bigger given the space available. When it comes to battery life, the Inspire 3 promises 10 days, the Luxe promises 5 days and the Charge 5 promises 7 days. All offer solid performance here though, and while the Inspire 3 will last the longest, you still get a decent number of days out of all of them.

Features

We’ve mentioned some features offered by these three Fitbit trackers in the section above, but we’ll go over a few more here so you can understand the differences in the offerings.

All three offer Fitbit’s Active Zone Minutes feature, Cardio Fitness Score, Daily Readiness Score, automatic exercise modes and they will all track steps, distance and calories, but none of them have an altimeter for tracking elevation.

The three devices will also all track sleep and sleep stages, offer a sleep score and a sleep profile and they have smart alarms too, waking you up at an optimal time within half an hour of your chosen time.

Additionally, all three devices will offer a Stress Management Score and Reflections, though only the Fitbit Inspire 3 and Luxe have Relax Breathing Sessions. They can all recieve call, text and app notifications and they all have the Find My Phone feature too, as well as Do Not Disturb and Sleep Mode.

They also all come with six months of Fitbit Premium, which you can read more about in our separate feature.

Conclusion

The Fitbit Charge 5 is the most feature-rich of these three Fitbit trackers, offering a few extras like built-in GPS, Fitbit Pay and the ability to take an ECG compared to the Inspire 3 and Luxe trackers.

Fitbit / Pocket-lint

Fitbit Charge 5

Best for features

$120 $150 Save $30

The Fitbit Charge 5 is a great performing fitness tracker with a fantastic feature set.

The Charge 5 is the most expensive though, and it’s not as neat and elegant as the Luxe tracker especially, or the Inspire 3, both of which are minimal in their designs.

The decision between these devices will likely come down to budget or the features that are most important to you. The most stylish is the Luxe, the best value for money is the Inspire 3, while the best for features is the Charge 5.

Fitbit / Pocket-lint

Fitbit Inspire 3

Best Value

The Fitbit Inspire 3 is the successor to the Inspire 2, offering all the same features but with a couple of extras, a softer design and a colour touchscreen.