10 Best Fitness Trackers and Smart Devices That Stand the Test of Time

If you’re aiming to get a head start on your fitness goals, you should certainly try investing in an efficient fitness tracker. These are nifty wearable devices that can closely monitor almost every aspect of your health – from sleep and calorie expenditure to respiratory rates and blood oxygen levels. In fact, some of them can even track the electrical activity of your heart! They are amazing companions that will make your fitness journey all the more exciting and rewarding.

Fitness trackers are a bit different from smartwatches in that they generally have a watered-down set of features in terms of notifications, music streaming, NFC payments, and more. As a result, they have superior battery life and tend to be more affordable. These devices are available in different shapes, sizes, and designs to suit all types of customers.

With a wide selection of fitness trackers becoming available in the contemporary market, choosing one has become more difficult than ever.

Don’t worry, though; I’ll help you narrow your options and find the best device according to your requirements and budget. In this article, I’ll discuss the ten best fitness trackers available today.

10 Best Fitness Trackers and Smart Devices

Let us now go through my picks for the top 10 fitness trackers and smart devices for you to choose from. Since these devices are highly personal, your selection should be based on your specific requirements, training goals, and preferences.

1. Fitbit Luxe

The Fitbit Luxe is one of the most popular fitness trackers available today by virtue of its attractive design, efficient health monitoring tools, and robust Fitbit app that works alongside it. The device regularly tracks your everyday activity, sleep, heart rate, respiratory rate, and more. Its impressive heart rate monitoring accuracy easily rivals that of much more expensive running watches.

The Luxe presents your daily data on a brilliant color AMOLED display that includes plenty of detail in a relatively small space. It comes with a stainless steel case, buckle, and a choice of either a gold-toned stainless steel bracelet or a soft silicone band. As a result, you can comfortably wear it for extended periods of time and get a wholesome picture of your activity and sleeping habits.

Unfortunately, the device lacks an inbuilt GPS; instead, you need to connect it to your phone. If that bothers you too much, you may go for the slightly more expensive Fitbit Charge 6.

Read: Best Running Apps for Android and iOS to keep track of your fitness

2. Fitbit Charge 6

The Fitbit Charge 6 is the most advanced band-style fitness tracker Fitbit has to offer currently. It comes with much more features than the Fitbit Luxe we discussed above. It is an excellent choice if you want a tracker to suit various different needs and workout types.

The Fitbit Charge 6 includes some impressive high-end features, such as ECG heart health readings and an EDA stress sensor. Although it is a decent tracker, it’s arguably not the overall best Fitbit model because the GPS tracking is rather abysmal. Although there shouldn’t be any significant issues if you run with a phone, the tracker isn’t anywhere near the best running watches in the market.

Nevertheless, the device’s sleep tracking ability is as good as you’d expect from a Fitbit product. For users who just want a casual wearable tracker that performs admirably well, the Fitbit Charge 6 remains a great option.

3. Xiaomi Smart Band 9

With the release of its Smart Band 9 model, Xiaomi remains the best option for affordable fitness trackers in 2024. It follows the footsteps of its predecessors – the Smart Band 8 and 8 Pro – in maintaining a low price and significant ease of use. It features a 1.62-inch AMOLED display that refreshes at 60Hz and features 1200 nits of max brightness – a colossal upgrade over the older models.

Although the Smart Band 9 lacks a GPS, it does provide an impressive 21 days of battery life on a single charge. It’s very much a by-the-numbers fitness tracker and offers a TPU band as standard. It also includes 155 fitness modes to track a wide range of workouts. Moreover, it delivers your metrics using the state-of-the-art Mi Fitness app.

If the lack of a GPS isn’t a deal-breaker for you, the Smart Band 9 has much to offer for an admirably low cost.

4. Apple Watch SE 2

The Apple Watch SE 2 is Apple’s cheapest offering till date and, unlike most other products on this list, is a true smartwatch. As a result, you can pair it smoothly with your iPhone to receive a more wholesome communications experience instead of just stripped-down notifications. Although the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is the overall best choice from a technical point of view, most people wouldn’t be enthusiastic about spending $799 on a premium adventure watch.

The SE2 is relatively more expensive than some of the fitness bands I’ve discussed here, but it’s a robust fitness tool with a large collection of excellent third-party apps like Smartgym and AllTrails. It also comes with its own native Workout app that comes in handy for running and cycling, especially since the watchOS 10 update.

The device also includes ample safety features such as Car Crash Detection, making it the fitness tracker of choice for iOS users.

5. Samsung Galaxy Ring

The Samsung Galaxy Ring is widely considered to be the best smart ring and, by extension, the best fitness tracker for sleep. After all, smart rings in general are comfortable to sleep in and provide highly accurate measurements beyond your wrist, with your skin temperature, blood oxygen, and heart rate sensing allowing them to effectively monitor sleep stages.

Impressively, the Samsung Galaxy Ring offers sleep insights powered by AI to give you a Sleep score and Energy score each morning. It also assigns you a “sleep animal” or chronotype, with each of them providing a different set of actionable advice. Apart from that, Samsung estimates steps and automatically logs your walks and runs.

Unfortunately, the device doesn’t log workouts outside of the above profiles, and its form factor could become a hurdle during gym sessions. Nevertheless, it remains a nice set-and-forget tracker.

6. Garmin Vivosmart 5

The Garmin Vivosmart 5 is a band-shaped fitness tracker. Although it’s a somewhat dated product, it remains a decent option if you want a band-based activity tracker with Garmin’s excellent Garmin Connect app. Although it lacks an inbuilt GPS, the device manages to deliver a powerful set of features to monitor your everyday health and well-being.

One of the Vivosmart 5’s most useful features is sleep tracking, which monitors your sleep stages throughout the night and gives you useful advice to maximize your sleep time. Unlike Fitbit devices, you won’t have to deal with any additional paywalls here. Also, the Garmin Connect app offers plenty of deep insights, such as the ability to check out historic data, generate training plans, monitor your recovery, and more.

7. Garmin Lily 2

The Garmin Lily 2 is specifically designed for women and is notable for its trademark jewelry-like design. Apart from its attractively patterned face, it comes with an aluminum bezel and case and a slim 14mm quick-release band that allows you to wear it alongside other bracelets. The device is highly functional as well; it can effectively track health stats such as your energy level, calories burned, respiration, heart rate, sleep, SpO₂, stress, steps, and workouts.

The Lily 2 also includes standard smartwatch features such as music playback controls, phone notifications, and helpful calendar and weather widgets. It is water-resistant up to 164 feet and can run up to five days on a single charge. Although it doesn’t include some features of the more affordable Fitbit Charge 6, such as an integrated GPS, it is more aesthetically pleasing and comfortable for small wrists than bulky sports watches.

Overall, the Lily 2 is a great choice for people who need a fitness tracker that smoothly transitions from gym sessions to parties.

8. Garmin Venu Sq 2

Garmin’s Venu Sq 2 stands apart from its rivals for its practicality. Despite being the lowest-priced model in the Garmin Venu 2 line of products, it has a lovely square-shaped design that significantly improves text legibility and a powerful battery that can last for up to nine days after charging. Unfortunately, it doesn’t track the number of floors you climb and lacks animated workout graphics. However, it does offer all the health and fitness features included in the round Venu 2 for $150 less, including on-demand SpO₂, a built-in GPS, and Garmin Pay.

Although the comparably priced Apple Watch SE has more apps and lifestyle features than the Venu Sq 2, it can’t last as long on a charge. If you want a reasonably priced smartwatch that focuses strongly on fitness, the Garmin Venu Sq 2 is a very recommendable option.

9. Polar Pacer Pro

The Polar Pacer Pro is a robust running watch that helps you level up your training with a wide range of tools and features designed to maximize your workouts safely. These include ascent and descent tracking, sleep and recovery stats, running power measurements, personalized recommendations, and more. The wrist-based power meter allows you to smoothly monitor your real-time output, which is a helpful metric for sprints and hilly terrain.

The Pacer Pro is comfortable to wear 24/7 and provides up to a week of battery life. It also includes a running test that calculates your VO2Max and custom training zones. Although it is more expensive than the Polar Pacer, it’s worth it for advanced runners by virtue of its extra insights, such as Komoot turn-by-turn route guidance, wrist-based running power measurements, and Hill Splitter ascent and descent tracking.

10. Oura Ring 4

The Oura Ring 4 is a well-designed and comfortable smart ring that discreetly measures your sleep, activity, and stress levels. With smaller and more accurate sensors than its predecessors, it constantly monitors your heart rate, respiratory rate, blood oxygen levels, skin temperature, and more. It can track your movement throughout the day and detect 40 different types of exercises.

The device is notable for its focus on women’s health; it provides cycle insights, pregnancy insights, and fertile window estimates. It provides six days of battery life and includes a handy companion app that charts metrics like sleep regularity and cardiovascular age over time to help you easily spot trends. It also interprets the data for you and provides personalized recommendations to improve your well-being.

The Oura Ring 4 is one of the best finger-based fitness trackers out there, especially for users who help reduce stress and sleep better.

Conclusion

Fitness trackers help you keep tabs on your exercise while monitoring your overall health by reporting on your activities, calories, steps, sleep, and more. However, there is a wide selection of fitness trackers with different designs, sizes, and functions available in the market now, and all of them have their own unique pros and cons. I hope this article helps you narrow down your options and choose an apt fitness tracker suited to your needs in your journey to achieve optimal health.

Last update on 2024-11-21 using Amazon Product Advertising API.