Fitness trackers allow you to monitor your health, exercise regime, how well you sleep, your overall step count, and so much more. These are no longer basic step counters, and most of the best fitness trackers come with powerful heart rate monitors and a plethora of other health tracking tech that can ensure you're at peak physical fitness.
If you're keeping an eye on your weight and overall heart health, or you want a tool to help encourage you to work out more, you will likely find one of the top options for your wrist below. We've taken and tested fitness bands of various prices and styles. We'll be running you through our picks for the best fitness trackers you can buy, and we've got options from household names like Fitbit, Garmin, Samsung, and a few other manufacturers that may surprise you.
Our number one pick for the best fitness tracker is the Fitbit Luxe. It isn't the company's top-end piece of tech, but it is our favorite overall package with a much more affordable price than some other products. We particularly like the sleek design of the Fitbit Luxe and its large AMOLED display. If you're looking for a trim option, the Fitbit Luxe is one of the best picks. It won't weigh down your wrist as most smartwatches do, though the slim design does make it more challenging to see your stats than a device with a wider screen.
If you need to dive deeper into the information, you'll have the Fitbit app. That works well on Android phones, and we particularly like the data it provides for you throughout the day, including resting heart rate, sleep insights, activities, and more. The Fitbit app is among the best, and it's straightforward to use, even for beginners. The heart rate tracker on the Fitbit Luxe is top-notch, and the battery life is impressive, with Fitbit estimating it'll take around five days of use to run out.
The biggest problem with the Luxe is that it doesn't feature GPS. You can pair it with your phone and use its GPS tech to track your location. However, you'll have to exercise with your phone to get that benefit. If that's a must-have feature, you'll likely prefer the following product on our list.
Before buying any Fitbit tracker right now, you should know that the company's got several new wearables coming this fall, including the $100 Fitbit Inspire 3, which is a similar form factor to the Luxe.
The Fitbit Charge 5 is feature-rich, and it's arguably the closest the company has pushed its fitness trackers to a full-blown smartwatch experience. The price is high for the Charge 5, starting at $179.95, but it comes with everything the average person wants from a fitness tracker and more. The design isn't as sleek as the Luxe, but it's still comfortable to wear, and there are many color options.
The OLED screen here is also impressive, with it offering intense brightness levels and great colors, which means it's easy to see your stats directly on your wrist. That's even true in direct sunlight. We particularly enjoyed the extensive fitness features, including an ECG monitor to watch your overall heart health. There's also stress management software to keep track of your daily routine outside of exercise.
In our review, we called the battery life on the Charge 5 exceptional, with it offering at least a week with the always-on display turned off. It can sometimes last longer than that if you're using it sparingly. If you're willing to spend money and like the slightly larger design than the Luxe, the Fitbit Charge 5 is a top choice for a new fitness tracker.
Fitbit's upcoming Versa 4 tracker will retail for $230, though, and should offer a more fulsome, smartwatch-style experience. If that sounds appealing to you, you may want to wait a bit before picking up a Charge 5.
Looking for a cheaper alternative? The Mi Band 6 is remarkably cheaper than many of the other products we'd recommend, and while its features are more limited than the devices Fitbit offers, it still works remarkably well. The design isn't as sleek as what Fitbit offers, but it's still an attractive piece of wristwear. We found a 1.56-inch OLED display offered a tremendous amount of detail, and it's easy to read.
Battery life averages around five days on the Mi Band 6, plus the design is waterproof. There are many fitness features here, including an impressive heart rate tracker. The catch here is that the phone app doesn't work as well as a lot of the alternatives. Plus, the user interface on the tracker itself isn't as reliable as you'll find on products like Fitbit, Garmin, and others. If you're okay with that, though, this fitness tracker is cheaper than a lot of the competition, so it is a perfect choice for some.
The Garmin Lily is a smartwatch designed for those with smaller wrists, and it's the first device in our ranking you'd technically call a smartwatch. Garmin sells fitness trackers, but we'd recommend the Lily ahead of them as it offers everything you need on its screen in a slimline and small form. The design and the watch's bright display are the highlights of the Lily, and if you like both of those elements, you'll enjoy the experience here.
Plus, you get all the benefits of Garmin's specialist app that works well on Android phones. Fitness features here aren't as extensive as you may expect from Garmin with exercise tracking, Body Battery to work out when you're too tired to work out, and sleep tracking. There's no onboard GPS, and you won't get contactless payment technology either, but otherwise, it's a suitable watch for most people. That's especially true as it lasts for five days between charges.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 is a minor revision to last year's Galaxy Watch 4. Nevertheless, it tops the list of our favorite Android smartwatches thanks primarily to its snappy performance and the fact that, along with the Watch 4 series and a profoundly pricey Montblanc watch, it enjoys semi-exclusive access to Wear OS 3. The Galaxy Watch 5 features automatic activity tracking, always-on heart rate monitoring, and body composition and SpO2 testing. It can even take ECG measurements when paired with a Samsung phone.
The smaller 40mm version's battery will last about a day and a half - average for smartwatches but low for fitness trackers. The 44mm version will last slightly longer, but it still doesn't come close to the week-long battery life you'll find in a proper tracker like the Fitbit Charge 5. But although it may not be a fitness tracker first, the Galaxy Watch 5 is an excellent smartwatch that also does a great job tracking your health stats. So if you don't mind charging more often, you can get a great fitness experience here.
Our second pick from Garmin on this list is an excellent mix of features for an affordable price, and it's one of the easiest to recommend products from the company. This watch is built for those who want plenty of fitness features with remarkably accurate GPS tracking, a great heart rate tracker, and various sports modes. If you like to work out with a specific sport in mind, it'll likely be included in Garmin's modes here. There are even options for surfing and the more traditional offerings like swimming, running, and cycling.
The design isn't for everyone, but it has a strong build quality specifically built to be durable. The battery is something to shout about here. If you use GPS tracking, it'll last 24 hours from a single charge. That's remarkable for a running watch. Garmin's Body Battery feature tells you where you have the most energy to work out at the right moments in your day. Plus, stress levels allow you to get a good idea of your mental and physical health. If you want a more specialized fitness tracker, the Forerunner 245 is the best option without spending lots of money.
This list would be remiss without including one of the best smartwatches around. There's no denying that the Apple Watch is among the best products for tracking your health every day, and we've opted for the cheaper Watch SE for our roundup. Before digging into its merits, you must know that this device won't work with an Android phone. You'll need an iPhone to pair the Apple Watch SE, so don't buy this if you're an Android-only household.
If you are ready to dive into an Apple product, you'll get a premium design that pairs perfectly with an iPhone. It works seamlessly with iOS products, and it's one of the best devices on this list for providing you with notifications and more. There's no always-on display here, but its 1.78-inch display looks great on your wrist. It's powerful enough to run any apps from the Apple Watch App Store, plus Apple continues to support this device. Again, don't buy this if you own an Android phone.
The Withings ScanWatch is unlike any other product on this list and has a lot of other top fitness tracker choices. It's designed to look like a traditional analog watch rather than a smartwatch, and it has hidden fitness tracking tech such as a heart rate monitor and a daily step counter. This watch even features an ECG monitor, which is a feature exclusive to top-end devices. The battery life is between two weeks and a month, depending on how much you use it. Again, this is remarkably better than most other products you can buy right now.
What the ScanWatch can do is still limited, and its most significant limitation is the information it can provide you from a simple look at your wrist. There's a step counter toward the bottom of the watch face, and a small screen provides you with some key details. These include your step count, current heart rate, ECG results, etc. It isn't the most expansive set of results, but you can find everything neatly put away in the app on your phone if you want to.
Back to the budget end of the spectrum here, and the Redmi Watch 2 Lite is designed to offer a great pick of features but for a price much lower than other options. It features some basic fitness features, but this is much more for those who want the basics than a top-end Garmin or smartwatch. The design here is durable, but the LCD screen isn't the most eye-catching of any device you'd find on this list. We found it was comfortable to wear, and it certainly looks more premium than its price would suggest.
Fitness modes are impressive on the Redmi Watch 2 Lite as it can track over 50 different types of exercise. These include traditional activities such as running, cycling, swimming, and yoga, among some oddities that we think you might be unlikely to use. There's GPS built-in, and it's remarkably accurate as well. If you're not looking to spend much on your next fitness tracker, the Redmi Watch 2 Lite is a step above the Mi Band 6 for only a touch more money.
Don't want a big screen on your wrist? The Whoop 4.0 is an acquired taste, but it may be designed directly for you with a SpO2 monitor and a temperature sensor as two of the big highlights. Unlike everything else on this list, Whoop 4.0 is paid for through a subscription service. It's not cheap, but it gives you access to Whoop's unique platform and a "free" fitness tracker. The minimum term is 12 months with a monthly cost of $30 per month, or you can sign up for a two-year contract, and it drops to $20 a month. This isn't for everyone, but it is a way to break down an expensive purchase into more affordable monthly payments.
The screen-less design is one of the unique elements here, and we particularly like it for anyone who wants a device that tracks but doesn't distract you during the day. These sensors work throughout the day, and there are even sleep tracking monitoring or menstrual cycle tracking features.
Unlike every other fitness tracker on this list, you can charge the Whoop 4.0 while you're wearing it. That means you won't ever miss a moment of tracking steps and your heart rate. It works through an attachable charger, which you likely won't want to wear for long periods as it makes the device far heftier. It then charges the device in two hours, and Whoop estimates that it'll last for five days from that charge. If you want a screen-less device that can track an incredible array of statistics about your health, this may be the pick for you in this list.
Those are our top 10 picks for the best fitness trackers, and you'll likely find an option in this list that is appropriate for you. Our top two picks come from Fitbit, and there's a reason it is a household name when it comes to wearable technology. The Fitbit Luxe is the best combination of features and style, but we particularly like the Fitbit Charge 5 for that extra onboard GPS and contactless payments. A handful of new Fitbit devices are confirmed to be coming later this year, though: the Inspire 3, the Versa 4, and the Sense 2. None are a direct replacement for the Luxe or the Charge 5, but they'll offer similar functionality. So if you're not in a rush, you'd do well to wait and see whether any of the upcoming devices appeal to you.
If Fitbit isn't for you - and those products are expensive - you may want to opt for the Xiaomi Mi Band 6, which comes with many of the same features in a package that is often a quarter of the price of the Charge 5. If money concerns you, there's also the Redmi Watch 2 Lite. It comes from the same company and offers a similar experience. However, that lower price means the experience isn't as slick as Fitbit, so it isn't for everyone.
Those looking for a smartwatch-like experience should opt for the Garmin Lily or make the full jump into the best Wear OS, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5. Of course, the price will creep up for these, and battery life isn't as long, but it's an excellent option for everyone who wants more from their wrist-based devices. If you're willing to wait a while longer, the Google Pixel Watch is on the way later this year, and we may also see a Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 alongside other contenders for this list and our ranking of the best Android smartwatches.
Finally, if you're looking for something different - or, depending on your tastes, more familiar - the Withings ScanWatch and its hybrid design can be quite compelling. The ScanWatch is the smartwatch to buy if you want to be able to wear it without anyone noticing you're tracking your health; a lot of people will believe this is an everyday watch. If you want to go the opposite way, we've spoken about the Whoop 4.0, which offers a unique design on this list, and it's perfect for anyone who doesn't want to be distracted by their health companion.