A Fitness Tracker Is the Missing Ingredient in Your Workout Routine. We’ll Help You Find Out Which One is Best!
A Fitness Tracker Is the Missing Ingredient in Your Workout Routine. We’ll Help You Find Out Which One is Best!
Whether you’re someone who exercises daily or you’re just beginning your fitness journey and need an extra push to get in shape, a fitness tracker can help you set and achieve your goals. The BestProducts.com editors set out to find the best fitness trackers that track our activities all day long and our sleep at night.
Most trackers monitor your heart rate, record workouts, and offer detailed data over time, but as a bonus, some even pack smartwatch-like features for reading messages, keeping an eye on your notifications, or even serving as a digital wallet for making mobile payments on the go. The devices can help serve as the perfect wellness companion, too, by helping you log meals and hydration intake or monitor your menstrual cycle.
The only downsides to the world of fitness trackers is that there are so many to pick from and the lines that separate fitness trackers from smartwatches, GPS watches, and sports watches are blurrier than ever before. Fitness trackers typically are the smallest and most affordable of the bunch. They’re less obtrusive because of their smaller-sized screens. But they still offer outstanding battery life, water- and sweat-resistant designs, and plenty of features to keep your fitness goals in check.
To cut through the clutter, we spent 30 hours researching 25 different models. We compared them and read dozens of reviews from other publications, personal trainers, and runners to narrow our list down to 10 total fitness trackers to bring in for testing. Here are the models we think are best:
Fitbit Charge 4 Fitness Tracker
Fitbit
amazon.com
$118.95
Considering the fact that Fitbit makes and sells seven different fitness trackers, it’s easy to get them all confused. We recommend the Charge 4 most for its premium but stylish design, its extremely comfortable fit, and its outstanding weeklong battery life.
What separates it from the wide realm of fitness trackers is its ability to automatically begin tracking your activity. When I walked my dogs, it automatically logged my step count without requiring me to fuss with its touchscreen display. It knew when I was swimming laps in the morning, or when I was on a jog in the evening. That reliability and ease of use means something.
The tracker now features a built-in GPS, so you don't have to take your phone with you on a bike ride, run, or hike. There's even a new fitness metric on board, dubbed Active Zone Minutes, that recognizes when your heart rate is sustained or elevated so it can track how many minutes you're active.
If you raise your wrist, its display illuminates to tell you the time and with just a flick of a finger, you can get a glimpse at the weather. The Charge 4 manages to find the perfect balance as to what a fitness tracker should be, without breaking the bank or getting too bogged down with features, apps, or complicated menus.
It does the essentials (heart-rate tracking, step counting, and workout tracking/logging) extremely well, but still is packed with plenty of customization options such as enabling the ability to receive text messages or change watch faces on it. What we like most is how it doesn’t get in the way. It’s comfortable, waterproof, and has interchangeable bands.
Plus, the majority of our testers preferred the Fitbit app to Garmin's and Withings’. The data is easy to interpret, and it truly can help lead to healthy lifestyle changes. We loved the socialness of the app, too. You’re easily able to find friends who own Fitbit devices, challenge each other, set goals, and encourage them. That can make the difference and be the nudge you need in achieving your step goal.
This option is currently ranked as Wired's top fitness tracker pick, for its accuracy, its sleep-tracking hardware, and its ease of use. You can use the tracker to make mobile payments right from your wrist, skip songs that you're listening to on Spotify, and measure your blood oxygen levels. Overall, it's an incredibly useful tool that's stylish and will help hold you accountable to your goals.
More: Our Review of the All-New Apple Watch Series 6 Smartwatch
Garmin vívoactive 4S Fitness Tracker
Garmin
amazon.com
$219.99
Hands down, the Garmin vívoactive 4S is the most capable fitness tracker that we’ve tested. Key features include an integrated heart rate sensor, sleep tracking, and the ability to monitor your body's energy levels throughout the day — which will help you determine the best times for exercising, as well as for recovering.
The device also guides you through your workouts via on-screen animations and it tracks all the ways you move and exercise. You can log your daily fluid intake, get a feel for your blood oxygen saturation, and track your menstrual cycle.
Erica Murphy, BestProducts.com's director of SEO and content — and our resident New York City Marathon runner — said she really liked the overall design of the Garmin because it looks like a regular watch and didn't feel too bulky on her smaller-sized wrist.
Murphy wore the fitness tracker alongside her Apple Watch during three runs and said that its built-in GPS and the heart rate tracker were spot on and that it even helped improve her speed on runs.
The fitness-tracking timepiece has a large color touchscreen that's easy to read at a quick glance. Murphy added that she appreciated that you can set up favorites for activity tracking, so rather than scrolling through 20-plus different pre-programmed workouts on the watch, you can pick your top three, which makes them more easily accessible for instant workout tracking.
The Garmin’s built-in GPS provides detailed mapping of the user's running routes. You can also install apps on the watch, receive smartphone notifications, as well as make mobile payments with it. The watch lasts up to a week between battery charges. Garmin offers the product with a 40- or 45-millimeter case.
Withings Pulse HR Fitness Tracker
Withings
amazon.com
$99.95
The attractively priced Withings Pulse HR is a highly capable fitness tracker with discreet looks and killer battery life. Our senior food and drink editor Danielle St. Pierre tested the tracker and used it primarily to count steps walking around New York City, and also for a run through Prospect Park. She said its step-counting and heart rate monitor really came in handy, but what she loved most was its battery life. She used the device for 3 weeks and it still has some charge left.
St. Pierre opted not to get her smartphone notifications (calls, texts, alarms, and alerts) “pushed” to the tracker because she found those settings distracting.
Key features of the Pulse HR include a built-in heart-rate sensor with top-notch accuracy, the ability to track more than 30 sports and exercises, monitor your sleep, as well as to map your outdoor workouts by connecting to your phone's GPS. The fitness tracker can survive depths of up to 50 meters, so it's great for swimming, too.
You can view and analyze the data collected by the device on a sleek mobile app.
Although she found that the watch offered a great fit on her tiny wrists, she said that the device’s display was difficult to read. We compared the Pulse HR alongside other fitness trackers and this one looked noticeably more pixelated, with smaller text that appeared blurrier.
Fitbit Inspire 2 Fitness Tracker
Fitbit
amazon.com
$68.95
Priced at less than $100, the Fitbit Inspire 2 is the best pick for budget-conscious buyers available today. It has an elegant design, automatic workout tracking, continuous heart-rate monitoring, a fully waterproof body, up to 10 days of battery life between charges, and the ability to keep tabs on the quality of your sleep.
What we like most about the Inspire 2 is its attractive and slim design. It's stylish enough to wear anywhere and always blends in with your outfit.
Equipped with an OLED touchscreen, the Inspire 2 is also easy to use. You're able to adjust the brightness of the screen which comes in handy on afternoon runs when the sun is its brightest. Compared to the Garmin vívosmart 4, this fitness tracker detected our activities better and its touchscreen was superior.
If you want, the gadget will send you notifications from your smartphone, ensuring that you never miss an important email, text, or app alert. However, we think if you have the budget for it, you'd be better off spending more on the Fitbit Versa 3 to make the most of these smartwatch-like features since the Inspire 2 has a significantly smaller screen.
As expected from a Fitbit product, the Inspire 2 will present all the fitness data it collects in an intuitive mobile app. Fitbit offers the Inspire 2 with a black case, along with several band options to customize the device to your liking.
Read More: Our Reviews on Other Fitbit Fitness Trackers and Smartwatches
Garmin vivofit jr. 3, Fitness Tracker
Garmin
amazon.com
$59.99
The vívofit jr. 3 from Garmin is a waterproof fitness tracker that helps get your little one up and moving. It tracks steps, their sleep, and records their active minutes to help them form positive habits. Parents can set daily activity goals, customize an “in case of emergency” screen with their contact information, and participate in fitness challenges using fitness trackers of their own.
The watch even gives you the option to send customizable alerts and chores lists to the device, and you can reward your child with virtual coins for completing goals, fitness or otherwise! The vívofit jr. 3’s built-in battery lasts for a year.
Amazfit Band 5 Fitness Tracker
Amazfit
walmart.com
$34.99
For those looking for a fitness tracker on the cheap, look no further than the Amazfit Band 5 — which goes on sale at prices as little as $30. Despite its narrower feature set, there’s still a lot to love about this basic tracker.
For starters, it has a rather impressive AMOLED display that’s higher in resolution than other trackers that cost closer to $100. It is equipped with a SpO2 sensor, for measuring your blood oxygen level, and it’ll help you track your sleep, and monitor your heart rate. The watch is waterproof and is made from polycarbonate. Its TPU strap is comfortable, but we think the Fitbit Inspire 2 has this tracker beat in the looks department.
The Amazfit 5 is packed with 11 sports modes for recording your runs, swimming, jump roping, indoor rowing, and more. Although it doesn’t have a built-in GPS chip, it can piggy-back off your smartphone’s GPS signal to track outdoor activities like bike rides. A reviewer at Wareable reported that during runs, this tracker’s heart rate monitor wasn’t as reliable as pricier fitness trackers but was impressed with its lengthy 10-plus-day battery life.
If you don’t want to spend an arm and a leg on a fitness tracker or smartwatch, we think the Amazfit Band 5 stretches your dollar further. Given the fact that it sports a waterproof body, is equipped with useful smart features like a built-in Amazon Alexa smart-assistant, and has a lengthy battery life, we think that it will make do for most budget shopper’s fitness tracking needs.
FORM Swim Goggles
FORM
amazon.com
$199.00
The FORM swim googles are unlike any fitness tracker we’ve come across. That's because instead of offering a multitude of features, they just do one thing: track swims.
The goggles use an augmented reality display to show you two lines of data while you swim. In case you’re unfamiliar with AR, it means virtual 3D elements are overlaid on what you see in real life. In the case of the goggles, you can see numbers which display your length/split time, stroke count, total distance swum, total calories, total time, and more.
When you're done with your workout, the goggles sync with your smartphone to send the data to an app. The data can be synced with Apple's own Health app, Strava, TrainingPeaks, and Garmin Connect.
During our test with the goggles, they correctly identified when I was swimming freestyle, backstroke, or breaststroke. They offer a watertight seal, and they're so comfortable, you'll forget you're even wearing them. Although the text you see through the lens is blocky, it's informative and won't distract you. We're confident in their ability to improve your swimming.
Keep tabs on your daily activities, workouts, and more by using one of these tracking devices.