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I love my Fitbit Charge HR, but with my busy lifestyle it's important that it works well with my smartphone, in this case the Samsung Note 3.

It was quite easy connecting the Fitbit Charge HR with my Samsung Note 3, just follow the steps on the screen and you will get it!

Click this link for help on setting up the Fitbit Charge HR

Let's look at the widget that comes along with the Android app available on Google Play (Click here for the Fitbit Android app). The widget is pretty basic and displays the steps that a user has taken up to the last time the Fitbit Charge HR was synced. Unfortunately, the widget does not display anything else as of now- moreover, you cannot control what the widget should display. For example, it won't display the ounces of water or calories consumed during the day. However, it's still a pretty cool to have this widget on the main screen of your Samsung Note 3.

Once you open the Fitbit app, the app takes you directly to the dashboard which provides a summary of all the Fitbit features. The top most portion of the dashboard lets you know if the Fitbit Charge HR is synced with your Samsung Note 3 as well as battery status. As you can see in the images below, the Fitbit I am using is a little low on battery, but the good part is that the Fitbit Charge HR battery at full charge lasts for almost 5 days straight!

The Steps tracking feature of the Fitbit app is quite handy. It lets you see the total number of steps you have taken in that day- moreover, if you click on the small square on the top right corner of the screen then you can see the total steps you have taken in 1 week or 1 month or more...!! The default goal for the number of steps is 10000 per day and if you achieve it, a green smiley appears on the dashboard and a green star appears inside the steps tracking page.

The Heart Rate page is a new feature that was added to the Fitbit Charge HR Android app. A very cool feature of the app is that on the dashboard it can show you live heart rate if the Fitbit charge HR is synced via Bluetooth with your device. Once the heart rate page is opened, you are able to see your heart rate for the last 30 days, however, if you want to see your heart rate for the day then you can just click on the tab below the top screen and it will take you to a page that shows a track record of your heart rate for the complete day. The same can be done if you want the heart rate for any previous days.  You can also easily see which zones your heart has been in during the day. One thing I was surprised not to see in the app was that live tracking of the heart rate is not done on the app, sort of like cardiographs you see in the doctor's office. This would have been a really cool feature.

The next tab on the dashboard is of the distance traveled by the user. The Fitbit Charge HR keeps track of the distance the user has covered till the last sync and by default, the goal is set to 5 miles per day.

Next comes the calories consumed by the user. This feature is not that helpful unless the user enters what food has been had during the day.  This requires a certain commitment from the user to be diligent in entering every morsel of food.  Even though the Fitbit food tracker page allows the user to add a lot of famous food items to the tracker, it is still not enough. Maybe they can team up with something like Yelp and get the list of items that is near the users location. (Food for thought for the Fitbit programmers.)

The next and the most useful feature of the Fitbit android app on my Samsung Note 3 is of water tracking. Being an avid water drinker, this feature works as a boon for me, giving me a complete track record of my water consumption. However, here's another thought for the Fitbit programmers- can Fitbit provide reminders to have a glass of water every hour?

A cool feature of the Fitbit is call notifications. As soon as someone calls you on your Samsung Note 3, the Fitbit vibrates and displays the contact name. However, you need to keep your Bluetooth turned on all the time for the Fitbit to be synced with your phone.

Overall, the user experience of the Fitbit Charge HR with a Samsung Note 3 is flawless and the UI is quite beautifully done.  Awesome job Fitbit!