Having tested a very wide variety of fitness trackers with different price tags and features, we can confirm that a decent device can help with everything from motivating you to step outside walk more often to draatically improving your personal bests. But which one should you get? At the moment the market is flush with options. Just check out the stock list of any online retailer and you’ll see everything from affordable band design trackers for counting your daily steps and little else to uber-expensive GPS wearables made for hardcore triathletes who compete in all conditions. Here to make sure you get a wearable that’s right for you, we’ve created this guide detailing the top performing fitness trackers we’ve tested that are still on sale. Every tracker on this guide has been used by one of our team of reviewers for at least a week. During that time, we made sure to have tested every feature on offer to ensure they deliver accurate tracking data, decent battery life, a robust build quality, and good value for money. Knowing that one size doesn’t fit all, we’ve also made sure to include a good variety of trackers that cover different markets and price points to give readers a full spectrum to suit their needs best. If you do know what you’re after and are on the lookout for some more narrowly focused advice then you can also check out our best running watch, best Garmin Watch, Best Fitbit and best smartwatch guides for more tailored ideas.
Which is the best fitness tracker?
Best for serious athletes: Garmin Fenix 7 – check priceBest for iPhone owners: Apple watch series 7 – check priceMost fashionable option: Garmin Venu 2S – check priceThe most discrete: Fitbit Luxe – check priceBest for entry level athletes – Amazfit GTS 3 – check priceBest value – Xiaomi Mi Band 6 – check priceBest for cardio: Garmin Forerunner 955 solar – check priceBest for Wear OS: Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro
Garmin devices are consistently high scorers when we get them in for review, as the firm’s overt fitness focus and strong location tracking always impresses our testers. The Fenix 7 continues this legacy, and according to our testing it’s the best option currently on the market for hardcore athletes. The Fenix 7 is one of the top products in Garmin’s current wearable lineup, sitting above its Forerunner and Venu watches. Though it’s not going to win any awards at fashion ceremonies, during testing we found it’s the best fitness tracker on the market at the moment. The chunky metal chassis may look large, but despite its size we found it to be incredibly comfortable to wear, with the rubber strap never chafing or causing irritation even during prolonged and animated workouts. The Sapphire Glass variant we reviewed was also near indestructible. During our test period, the watch survived everything from an accidental encounter with a climbing wall rock to being hit full blast with a tennis ball with zero damage. Garmin’s accurate distance and heart rate tracking also let the watch track pretty much every activity under the sun, ranging from indoor or outdoor running to cross country skiing and surfing. This plus the stellar two-week battery life and robust post workout analytics (which include useful metrics such as VO2 Max estimates, recommended rest periods and suggestions for what you should do for your next exercise) make it the best tracker you can buy right now. Reviewer: Michael SawhFull review: Garmin Fenix 7 Review The problem with a lot of the hardcore fitness trackers we test, like the Fenix 7, is that while they’re great as sports watches, they’re also not that fashionable and don’t have well-developed smartwatch functionality. If you care about these two factors and you own an iPhone, then we’d recommend the Apple Watch 7 over a pure fitness tracker. Despite being primarily designed as a smartwatch, Apple’s wearable has a surprisingly developed and useful portfolio of fitness and wellness tracking services. As an added bonus you also get full access to Apple’s WatchOS app ecosystem which is significantly more developed than Garmin, Fitbit and pretty much every other fitness brand. We found support for all the apps any fitness fanatic would need, including Strava, Runkeeper, Spotify, Deezer and Tidal. The only downside is that, because of its smartwatch focus, the Apple Watch 7 doesn’t offer as good battery life as the other dedicated trackers on this list. We didn’t manage to squeeze more than 18 hours of battery life out of the wearable, which isn’t very good going. Reviewer: Max ParkerFull review: Apple Watch 7 Review The Venu 2S is the latest entry into Garmin’s Venu line of trackers, which are intentionally designed to look as much like a normal timepiece/smartwatch as possible. We found it to be a great upgrade on the previous generation, featuring a small OLED screen that’s wonderfully bright and colorful, especially when compared to the LCD panels seen on most other fitness trackers. The fit was also wonderfully comfortable, with the watch remaining free of irritations even during prolonged exercise periods and showing no signs of damage or wear and tear after 2 weeks of intensive use. Like the Fenix 7, we did find its app offering to be very limited compared to what’s on offer with an Apple Watch, but it’s still good enough for entry and mid-level athletes. The biggest addition to this version is offline Spotify support, which let our tester listen to music while running without having to lug their phone along too. Add to this the watch’s snappy GPS connectivity, reliable distance tracking and clear post-workout analytics, plus 10 day battery life, and the Venu 2S is an easy recommendation for most entry to mid level runners. The only real downside is that it doesn’t support tracking for as many workouts as the Fenix, and the lack of a Sapphire glass option means it’s not as rugged for more adventurous activities. Bash it into a climbing wall or wall and it will crack. It’s because of this we recommend the Fenix 7 over it for more developed and adventurous athletes. Reviewer: Thomas DeehanFull review: Garmin Venu 2S Review If that sounds like the sort of wearable you’re after, then the Fitbit Luxe is the best option we’ve reviewed at the moment. The Luxe comes with a solid array of band options and its colorful AMOLED panel is the brightest and sharpest we’ve seen on a band design fitness tracker its price. This made it much more pleasant to use than many of the competing band design trackers we’ve used recently, including the Garmin Vivosmart 5, which has a more basic black and white display. The key selling point here is the Fitbit OS easy to understand and use software and navigation system which offers basic, but easily digestible snippets of workout data that are really good at motivating, rather than intimidating, users. This makes it a really solid option for people who are just getting started or just care about boosting their daily step count. The 5 day battery life we enjoyed during testing also means you’ll generally get through the work week before needing to give it a top up charge. The only downside is that we found it’s not terribly well suited to even semi-serious athletes, with Fitbit locking the more in-depth data regular runners need behind a paywall and its connected GPS providing less accurate distance tracking than we’d like. Reviewer: Michael SawhFull review: Fitbit Luxe Review Out of the box, the GTS immediately impressed our reviewer, with it featuring a similar, premium looking design to the Apple Watch despite costing a fraction of the price. The aluminium alloy used in the chassis feels rugged and we’re big fans of its physical crown control which can be used to power the screen up and navigate menus is wonderfully intuitive to use. The AMOLED screen is also wonderfully bright and remained legible when we used it to track our runs outside, during very bright summer days. It’s also one of the only wearables at this price we’ve tested to offer accurate distance tracking without being paired to a smartphone, with it featuring an inbuilt chip that supports five satellite systems, including GPS. Testing it against the Fenix 7 we were surprised how well it performed with it never being more than 0.3km out of sync with the more premium wearable. We were also pleased by the appearance of a few other health tracking sensors traditionally seen on more premium trackers, like an ECG. This let the tracker deliver estimates for more serious metrics, like VO2 Max, that you simply don’t get on most trackers at this price. The only downside is that the heart rate sensor and data isn’t quite as uniform and reliable as what we detected on the Fenix 7, so we wouldn’t recommend it to serious athletes. Reviewer: Michael SawhFull review: Amazfit GTS 3 Review Despite costing less than $50/£50 the tracker has a colorful, sharp AMOLED screen and offers a waterproof design that let our reviewer comfortably wear it 24/7 with zero irritation. Battery life also proved sold with it uniformly lasting at least a full week, even with power hungry functions like constant heart rate tracking. If you just want the basics it also performs well, considering its price. Our tests showed that its three-axis accelerometer and a three-axis gyroscope were good enough to offer suitably reliable step counting and heart rate monitoring for basic things, like walking and treadmill running. The main downside is that it doesn’t have an inbuilt GPS. During our tests, we found this meant that, even when connected to a phone’s GPS, distance tracking was nowhere near as reliable as what we got on the Fitbit Luxe and Vivosmart 5. Reviewer: Jon MundyFull review: Xiaomi Mi Band 6 The Forerunner is a smaller cardio-focused wearable from Garmin that shares a lot of the best features seen on the more premium Fenix 7. This potent combination seriously impressed our reviewer during testing. With it being the first 9-series Forerunner we’ve tested to feature multi-band GPS, the watch offered top-tier distance tracking accuracy. As well as locking a connection in seconds, the watch proved incredibly accurate during our 5km run tests. Running around a track we know is 5.3km, the watch offered a maximum variance of just 0.1km, which is excellent. Add to this its local map support, which let us get turn-by-turn directions on routes we didn’t know and inbuilt music support for both local and Spotify/Deezer and it becomes an easy recommendation at a hardware level. But what truly sets it apart from competing devices, like the Polar Vantage V2 and its ilk, is its advanced post workout and training analytics. Unlike some brands, such as Fitbit, Garmin offers users complete access to their workout and health data free of charge. So, like the Fenix you get nicely uniform VO2 Max estimates, SpO2 readings and guidance on how effective your workouts have been. But as an added bonus the 955 can also factor races and events you’ve added to your calendar to the coaching advice it gives. This, plus new HRV and Training Readiness metrics make it great at helping avoid overtraining. The latter is a custom feature that tells you how well-prepared your body is to train. What’s great is that it also tells you why you may not be in an optimal state for a run. Our tester was frequently told to get more sleep ahead of his next training session and race, an insight that helped him change his routine to improve results. Reviewer: Alastair StevensonFull review: Garmin Forerunner 955 Review The Watch is a sportier version of the base Galaxy Watch 5 that adds a few key features we loved while reviewing it. For cyclists and hikers, the biggest is the addition of GPX file support. This is a big feature traditionally seen on Garmin and Polar trackers, and it lets you use apps like Strava to plot routes and then load them onto the watch. Once on (which can admittedly be a finicky process) they let the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro offer turn by turn navigation when cycling or hiking, ensuring you never get lost. On top of this, the device’s BioActive sensor offers a few useful features, like the ability to get information on your body fat and skeletal muscle, which is useful for people with specific fitness goals, such gaining muscle or losing weight. These features, plus its OLED screen and use of Wear OS, which outside of Apple has the best application offering on this list, make it the best hybrid smartwatch-come-tracker for people without iPhones. Reviewer: Alastair StevensonFull review: Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro review 2,373 Wearable & Fitness
