Organized basketball is a sport that requires, probably a better term, that everyone on the court be in good physical shape. I say organized basketball because yes, a group of people can get together and play some basketball without any of them being in any kind of physical shape, but when it comes to organized basketball, like for your school, a traveling team, a team of AAU and most Definitely in the NBA, players must be in good shape.

Being physically fit is something I take very seriously, even outside of basketball. To make sure I keep up with my fitness, I use the Fitbit Charge HR. The Fitbit Charge HR is a fitness bracelet that can help you keep track of things like steps taken, floors climbed, distance traveled, and one important thing, your heart rate.

It also has a very good number of different functional features which I will talk about in the list below.

PurePulse

This is what Fitbit calls their heart monitors on their products. The band has a sensor just below the screen that rests on your wrist while wearing the band. This is what detects your pulse and can accurately determine your heart rate.

Training / activity monitoring

This feature is basically what you would expect from any fitness band you buy. It is able to keep track of things like the number of steps you have climbed, the stairs you have climbed, and the calories you have burned. Know the essential elements of a fitness band. One of my favorite features is that I can keep track of the races that I follow. Fitbit had a companion app that allows you to see the routes you run and their distances, as well as save workouts with detailed statistics for them.

Caller ID

Now this feature is not very experienced as I don’t use it very often, but I can see how it could be useful. If you were in a workout, you could see who’s calling and determine if it’s important enough to take a break from your workout or if you can just call them later after the workout.

Sleep monitoring

This may be everyone’s favorite feature. It allows you to keep track of your sleeping patterns. This is huge for me as I sometimes have trouble sleeping well, which can drastically affect workouts and meeting fitness goals.

Alarms

Again, it’s not a feature that I use often, actually, but I can see its uses. The alarm uses a vibration on your wrist instead of a sound, but I’m not sure it will wake me up every time, so I don’t use it.

Wireless sync

I’d say this is another feature you might expect with a fitness, but my old FuelBand had to be plugged in USB-style to collect a few bits of information, which could be a hassle. Fitbit’s wireless syncing is really nice.