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Antonio Villas-Boas;Rick Stella/Insider
The best fitness trackers have come a long way since Fitbit introduced its first clip-on wearable in 2009. While those functioned like advanced pedometers, today's models are like wearing a personal trainer right on your wrist.
And it's because of that modern utility that the best fitness trackers have become increasingly popular as many folks now wear one as a replacement for their everyday, analog wristwatch. Why not use a single wearable that tracks every aspect of your daily activity while also telling time?
But the real question to ask yourself isn't if you should wear one but rather, which you should wear. To help, I've compiled a list of the best fitness trackers across eight different categories below. You'll also find answers to FAQs, as well as insights into how I test fitness trackers, at the end of this guide.
Make sure to visit our other wearables guides covering the best Android smartwatch, the best Apple Watches, and the best Fitbit.
Learn more about how Insider Reviews tests and reviews fitness products.
Rick Stella/Insider
When Garmin announced it was resurrecting the Epix, I was curious how it'd slot into the brand's lineup alongside the Fenix, a wearable that does just about everything. After wearing the Epix as my daily driver for a month, it became clear that it's not only worthy of its own line but it also happens to be the best fitness tracker on the market.
From a feature standpoint, it's brimming. There's wrist-based heart rate monitoring, sleep, step, stress, hydration, and respiration tracking, Garmin's Body Battery monitoring, and VO2 max readings. This is in addition to the endless list of available activities to track, unique coaching insights and workout tips, recovery time estimates, visual race time predictors, and custom workouts (the list goes on and on).
But what's been most impressive about the watch is that it does all of this incredibly well. I find myself using almost every feature in all facets of my day, too. I use the recovery time estimate to see what workout my body is ready for, the coaching insights for daily inspiration, the race time predictors to adjust my training schedule, and sleep tracking to see how well my body recovers each day.
One of my favorite things to use is the digital breadcrumb feature that comes in handy when hiking in areas with little to no service. With this turned on, I'm always able to know the exact path back to a trailhead or major road, even if my phone dies or I'm not in an area with much cell service.
Yes, it's on the expensive side, costing upwards of $900. However, it's not that much more expensive than the $800 Apple Watch Ultra, a similarly rugged outdoor watch that has far weaker battery life.
Because of its laundry list of available features, it's best used by folks who are consistently active and who enjoy getting outside. Of course, anyone can buy one and use it but to get the most value out of it, you want to make sure you're actually using it as it's intended — and with a battery that lasts up to about two weeks, you're going to get a lot of use out of it.
Shannon Ullman/Insider
Pros: Six-day battery life, comfortable fit, advanced health and fitness tracking capability, less than $100
Cons: Small screen, no built-in GPS
The Inspire 3 is one of Fitbit's latest wearables that blends advanced health and fitness tracking with a subtle, no-frills design. With features like skin temperature sensing and sleep tracking, and a price tag that situates it under $100, the Inspire 3 is a budget fitness tracker that performs like something much more expensive.
What makes the Inspire 3 an especially great wearable is that it's perfect for people of all fitness levels and skills. Beginners and first-time wearers will find it easy to navigate and that it offers plenty of basics such as daily steps taken, calories burned, and a number of trackable activities.
Seasoned fitness enthusiasts will appreciate the Inspire 3's advanced health features, including the new skin temperature sensor and in-depth sleep tracker. It's not as comprehensive as our top pick but the Inspire 3 still offers tons of useful features. It's compatible with a range of the best Inspire 3 bands, too.
The watch isn't perfect, though. During our tests, we noted that the lack of built-in GPS may tarnish the experience for more hardcore athletes who don't always want to work out with their phones. GPS syncing was quick when we brought our phone along, but it wasn't always ideal. The other major drawback is its lack of downloadable apps.
But even when we factored in those cons, we still feel the Inspire 3 is an excellent fitness tracker that punches above its weight. It's the best fitness tracker for those on a budget, or for beginners or first-time fitness tracker users. It's even an adequate overall wearable for fitness veterans who seek a no-frills experience.
Read our full review of the Inspire 3.
Rick Stella/Insider
Pros: Comfortable, lightweight design, tons of health and fitness tracking features, long battery life
Cons: No third-party app support, no music playback or storage
The Fitbit Sense 2 is the best fitness tracker in Fitbit's lineup and satisfies just about everything you look for in a quality active wearable.
It offers a wide variety of trackable activities and catalogs tons of unique insights into your sleep habits and fitness data while also monitoring your stress and menstrual cycles. It even has a built-in GPS and a battery that lasts around five days on a single charge.
While you could pull those features from the Sense 2 product page, we found the watch to live up to those ambitious expectations at just about every turn. It was highly accurate during workouts, both in terms of GPS syncing and the data it tracked, its health insights were easy to access and actionable, and the battery life was superb.
It's also an incredibly easy watch to navigate. The swipe controls are simple and intuitive to use and it offers enough customization to make the experience personal.
But the biggest highlight of the Sense 2 is its advanced health and wellness tools. There's a skin temperature sensor (similar to the Inspire 3 above), the ability to get heart rhythm (ECG) readings, and the aforementioned stress tracker which monitors stress levels in real-time.
The watch doesn't come without a few drawbacks, though. The most apparent of which is the fact it's just not that impressive of a smartwatch. Yes, it falls into the category of smartwatch on Fitbit's website but it struggles to fit the bill. This is because it doesn't offer third-party app support and doesn't allow access to tools like Google Assistant (even though Google is its parent company). There's also no ability to store or play music.
Unless you need a fitness tracker that also doubles as a premium smartwatch, don't let those missing features preclude you from considering the Sense 2. Outside of those cons, it offers a really great fitness tracking experience. Plus, it's still an adequate smartwatch with call, text, app, and email notifications. It's just not the ideal smartwatch.
But it is an ideal fitness tracker.
Read our full review of the Sense 2.
Antonio Villas-Boas/Insider
The Apple Watch is a titan of a smartwatch and has helped revolutionize the way iPhone users interact with Apple's ecosystem. The latest generation, the Apple Watch Series 8, further cemented the wearable as a bonafide smartwatch, despite it not seeing a substantial overhaul from the Series 7 (or the Series 5 and 6 for that matter).
But what makes the Series 8 such a solid smartwatch is that Apple hasn't had to give it much of a makeover in recent years. It's added some new health and fitness features and tinkered with some of the power settings, but the Apple Watch is one of the truest definitions of, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
This is why, after all these years, it continues to be the best smartwatch on the market (and especially so for iPhone users). Of course, it's not compatible with Android smartphones, which does limit its wider appeal, but that's not enough to knock it off the mantle of "best smartwatch." It's that good.
The operating system is smooth and easy to navigate, there are tons of compatible apps to download and use right on the watch, and interacting with notifications, like responding to text messages and emails or even taking calls, is incredibly easy. Put plainly, it offers a premium smartwatch experience.
The newest features native to the Series 8 also give it some appeal even beyond the Series 7. These include the new Crash Detection feature which quite literally detects if you've been in a car crash (or bike crash), a body temperature sensor, and a new Lower Power Mode that can help the watch's battery last up to 36 hours on a single charge.
It's also a great health and fitness tracker, offering a wide variety of trackable activities, as well as an accurate built-in GPS. There's also an in-depth sleep tracker (though it does need to be recharged daily, so wearing it to bed isn't always ideal), and improved menstrual cycle tracking that can predict ovulation and period cycles via the new body temperature sensor.
One of our favorite non-interface features is the fact you can swap out the band for a variety of different styles. You can put on one of the best designer Apple Watch bands for something classy, or maybe one of the best leather Apple Watch bands for a rustic look. Throwing one of the best Apple Watch screen protectors on it is a good idea, too.
If you're an iOS user and in the market for a smartwatch that doubles as one of the best fitness trackers you can buy, the Apple Watch Series 8 is what you seek. It's intuitive to use, offers a wide variety of health and fitness features, and is the perfect extension of your iPhone.
Read our full review of the Apple Watch Series 8.
Antonio Villas-Boas/Insider
The Apple Watch Ultra is the pinnacle of Apple Watch innovation thanks to two incredibly useful new features: A longer-lasting battery and a unique new Action Button. The longer battery life is self-explanatory (so happy to not have to charge this thing every day), but it's the Action Button that truly puts the Ultra in the category of "best."
Located on the opposite side of the watch as the dial is a large button that can be pressed to bring up any number of shortcuts. Out of the box, this is programmed to open the workout selection screen where it can then be used to start whatever activity you select.
Prior Apple Watch wearers will know how worthwhile this is as all previous generations simply started a workout right as you clicked the activity itself. Being able to give the watch a few extra seconds to sync GPS (or even just so you can get yourself situated) makes a world of difference.
I know a single button doesn't sound like much but it really is an impactful new addition. The Ultra even lets you customize the button to do other actions like turning on the flashlight feature, opening the stopwatch, or setting a waypoint, among others. The shortcut list is a bit limited as of now but it'd be good to see Apple add a few more compatible features on future models.
Beyond the Action Button and longer battery, the Ultra is essentially a suped-up Apple Watch. It has a larger screen and a more durable, rugged construction (it's a bit heavier, too) to go along with all the advanced health and fitness features found on the Series 8. It even offers the same premium smartwatch functionality and is also compatible with a variety of the best Apple Watch Ultra bands.
But it certainly isn't for everyone. There's a lot to the Ultra that ordinary Apple Watch users likely won't need, like some of the safety features and the diving function. It's also quite a bit more expensive, with a price tag of around $800. That does put it on par with something like the Garmin Epix, though (our top overall choice).
Despite those potential drawbacks, it's still the best fitness tracker for iPhone users, if for no other reason than it doesn't require a daily charge (I often get two-ish days out of it) and the fact the new Action Button is an incredibly useful addition.
Read our full review of the Apple Watch Ultra.
Rick Stella/Insider
The competition for the best Android smartwatch is a stiff one as both Samsung and Google offer premium wearables worthy of the title. However, only one truly lives up to the moniker of best: the Samsung Galaxy Watch5 Pro.
Building off the solid Galaxy Watch4, Samsung's next generation Watch5 now comes as a Pro model option that aims to be the Apple Watch Ultra for Android users — and it lives up to that hype. It has a longer-lasting battery and advanced health and fitness features, and once again uses the WearOS operating system which delivers a fluid, intuitive user experience.
For the fitness-focused crowd, the Watch5 Pro is an exceptional activity tracker. During our tests, we found the watch to be highly accurate in terms of how quickly it synced its built-in GPS as well as how well it tracked activities like runs, bike rides, and hikes.
There's even a track-back function that lays digital breadcrumbs so you know your exact path on a hike. We do wish this was available on more activities (it's only compatible with hikes and, oddly enough, bike rides) but perhaps this will be an update on the next release.
Those looking for a smartwatch will also appreciate how well the Watch5 Pro functions. There are a ton of downloadable apps via the Google Play Store and navigating the watch is incredibly easy. You can even customize the watch face and its displayed data to fit however you prefer to use it. Additionally, all notifications from emails, texts, apps, and phone calls, are simple to interact with.
But perhaps the Watch5 Pro's best feature is its expanded offering of health tracking. It has comprehensive sleep tracking which charts your nightly sleep habits, as well as a body composition scanner that tracks your muscle mass percentage, body fat, and water weight.
It's worth pointing out that the Watch5 Pro experience is far better when using a Samsung phone. While it does work on something like the Google Pixel, a few features are missing, including the heart rhythm tracker (i.e. the ECG app). We also found there to be some syncing issues when we initially set up the watch.
Despite those drawbacks, however, the Samsung Galaxy Watch5 Pro is the best fitness tracker for Android users (as well as our top overall pick of the best Android smartwatch currently available). It functions incredibly well as a smartwatch, offers a wide variety of fitness-tracking capabilities, and has tons of unique and actionable health insights.
Read our full review of the Galaxy Watch5 Pro.
Adam Molina/Insider
Garmin's long-made highly advanced fitness trackers that have always done well to satiate the needs of hardcore athletes. With the Forerunner 745, it brings that in-depth approach to a wider audience, providing highly valuable fitness insight and feedback to anyone, regardless of how active they are.
The beauty of this watch rests in the advanced data it provides. During workouts, the 745 displays everything from time active and heart rate to distance covered and pace. Each of these is highly useful in the moment if you're interval training or aiming for a certain time on a run or bike ride. It's also quite easy to customize this screen so you have exactly what you want when you want it.
Though that in-the-moment date is great, it's what the watch offers after the activity (or between workouts) that's even better. This includes challenging workout recommendations that adapt to your output, the ideal amount of rest you need between activities (which is highly important), and customized training plans. Neither of these is just tacked on, too, and I found myself gravitating toward them more and more as I tested the watch even though I've always preferred my own workouts to anything pre-written for me.
Its tracking accuracy is also highly precise, and I found it to be similar to that of Suunto's 7 and the Apple Watch Series 6. It syncs with GPS rather quickly and would consistently produce very similar metrics (both in terms of distance and pace) no matter if I was cycling or running.
If there was something to nitpick about the Forerunner 745, it'd be its clunky menu system. Like most Garmin watches, the OS isn't exactly intuitive, though it does get easier the more you use it (as would anything). It's not enough to be a dealbreaker, especially considering how much else this watch does that's superior to most fitness trackers currently available.
Read our full review of the Garmin Forerunner 745.
Coros
If you spend much of your active time doing something different from the day before, then the Coros Apex is the best fitness tracker for you. It's especially adept at tracking running, biking, and swimming, making it perfect for the budding or seasoned triathlete.
But that's not only who the Apex is for; Coros consistently updates the watch's software to add new activities and modes, including sports like snowboarding, gym cardio, and hiking. This only adds to its versatility and the newly added modes do a good job of being accessible and easy to use as soon as they're available.
The Apex truly proves its worth for ultrarunners. Thanks to excellent battery life, highly accurate GPS, and a dedicated trail running mode, it's the watch a grab for when I know I'm going to be out for a long run that won't just consist of running on the sidewalk or through my local park. Its comfortable design makes it easy to wear for long periods of time, too, without irritating my wrist or becoming a drag on my running form.
Though these are its high points, the Apex does also offer basic fitness tracking capability in the form of heart rate, steps, calories, and so on, so it's not just for advanced athletes. Rather, it's great for anyone looking to spend more time running, biking, or cycling, and who has an inclination to try new activities.
Its $300 price point puts it solidly in the middle in terms of other watches featured in this guide but its incredible capability makes it highly worth the expense.
How I test fitness trackers
Each of the best fitness trackers included in this guide went through a series of tests to determine how well they performed across these four categories: Fit & comfort, tracking accuracy, features, and value.
Here's how we considered each category while testing:
Fit & comfort: If a fitness tracker isn't comfortable or doesn't fit well, you're far less likely to want to wear it — and if you don't wear it often, what's the point? Wearable brands know this, so many of the best fitness trackers have bands that not only stay comfortable for long periods of time but won't chafe or become bothersome while you sweat. When testing, I looked at everything from how they felt when I put them on to if I noticed any discomfort during short or long workouts.
Tracking accuracy: Testing for accuracy isn't always easy; you can literally wear two different watches and get different GPS readings, pace data, and so on. So, instead of using a second tracker to test a wearable's accuracy, I'd map out how far an exact mile was from my house before running it a few times wearing the same watch. The trackers that made the cut all produced results no more than .1 miles off.
Features: This category is mostly straightforward: Does a tracker have any supplemental features outside of tracking steps, calories burned, or heart rate? This could be anything from extra activities it's capable of logging, the ability to act like a smartwatch and get smartphone notifications, etc. Trackers aren't defined by their added features but it's a nice touch and something that can separate a good tracker from a great one.
Value: The value of a fitness tracker isn't just its sticker price but also how valuable it is from a function standpoint. Does it have the features you need? Will it track and compile the data you want it to? Can it actually serve as something that benefits your fitness? These are all questions you want to consider when shopping to find a tracker's true value. This becomes more of a subjective category when viewed that way but when testing, I still was able to judge how well each tracker held up across the above categories — and still considered how much they cost, as well.
FAQs
Are fitness trackers worth wearing?
Yes, so long as you actually use the tracker, and the data it collects, to inform your fitness goals. This means understanding what the fitness tracker you buy offers, and opting for one that offers insight into what you specifically need. For instance, if you just need something to motivate you to increase your daily activity, you shouldn't buy a full-featured watch like the Coros Apex or Suutno 7. Something like the Apple Watch or Fitbit's Versa 3 would be better suited to your lifestyle.
And although there's nothing wrong with wearing a fitness tracker to only keep tabs on your daily steps or calories burned, that information it accrues can be vital for anyone who wants to develop a daily, weekly, or monthly fitness routine.
The term "worth" as it applies to fitness wearables is relative to how exactly that information is used and who is using it. You first need to decide how you intend to use a fitness watch to truly determine how worthwhile it can be.
What does a fitness tracker do?
The best fitness trackers monitor and accrue a variety of activity data such as the number of steps a wearer takes each day, how many calories they've burned, and the flights of stairs they've climbed, among many others.
Basic fitness trackers often offer tracking for just those listed above while more advanced wearables, and fitness smartwatches, provide a slew of advanced features such as workout tracking (running, cycling, weight lifting, etc.), heartbeat monitoring, smartphone notifications, and more.
Some trackers even have compatible smartphone apps that centralize the data it collects, allowing users to chart their progress over time via a dashboard or activity calendar.
What are the pros and cons of fitness trackers?
Deciding whether the pros of a fitness tracker outweigh its cons ultimately comes down to how you intend to use it. If you plan on being routinely active and using the data it collects to develop and maintain a fitness routine, then it can be extremely beneficial.
However, if you don't ever look at the amassed data or buy a watch that has too many features you'll never use, then it will surely become an expensive digital timepiece that tracks fitness data for no reason.
Fitness trackers are powerful tools that can offer deep insight into one's health profile — but they can also be quite expensive. This is why it's important to not only figure out how you want to use the watch before you buy one but to research which watch is best fit for your lifestyle and your goals.
What should I look for in a fitness tracker?
Those looking for a device dedicated to tracking daily activity, workouts, and sleep have a vast number of choices even without including members of the smartwatch family. Here's what to consider:
Comfort and design: Since you'll wear the tracker daily (even to bed for sleep tracking), comfort is a high priority. If it's not comfortable, you won't want to wear it; plain and simple. The same goes for design. If you have a small wrist, you may want a tracker with a sleek, understated look. Fitness trackers come in all shapes and sizes, so you'll be able to find one that suits your style.
Features: If you're looking for a no-frills fitness tracker, then one that only tracks steps and your sleep habits may suffice. However, if you work out often or want insight into how your activity impacts your overall health, a more advanced tracker with a heart rate monitor or built-in GPS may be the one for you.
You should also consider the types of workouts you like to do. For example, if you're a swimmer, waterproofing is a must. If you're just starting a new fitness routine, then a device that coaches you and gives you goals to work towards may provide the extra motivation you need.
App experience: Most fitness trackers are designed to work in tandem with your smartphone, syncing the data collected with a downloaded application. This allows you to gain even more insight into your health and save the information collected to track your progress over time.
Unfortunately, not all companion apps are that effective and you may find there are some experiences you prefer over others. It's important to choose a fitness tracker that gives you a good app experience. Easy navigation and compatibility with your phone's operating system are a must.
from All Content from Business Insider https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/best-fitness-tracker
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