You should also make sure your tracker’s strap is snug and firmly strapped on before starting a tracked exercise session. While a perfect choice for hitting your PBs, it is also useful for more mundane activities. While still a sizeable watch, the Garmin Fenix 8 is not as heavy and bulky as its older sibling, making it comfortable to wear all day round. For example, it lets you download music and podcasts from some of the most popular music services, including Spotify and Deezer. But it is not without its faults; the watch is only compatible with iPhones and battery life only lasts for one day. Still, we think the model is the best combination of value, features and performance available on the market.
Best for users seeking a budget-friendly fitness tracker with in-depth sleep insights and basic fitness metrics. If you’re looking madmuscles.com review for a traditional-looking watch with hidden fitness tracking and innovative health features, the ScanWatch should be right up your street. It boasts all-day heart rate tracking, sleep monitoring, and top-grade medical features like ECG and breathing quality monitoring.
How I Tested The Best Fitness Trackers And Watches
Of course, like the Charge 6, some data points require Fitbit Premium. During testing we extensively study the battery life of all these devices. Simply wearing them for a few days isn’t enough, so we always make sure to run them down completely to get a true feel for how long battery lasts in a given fitness tracker. Obviously your mileage may vary, but we always use them the way most regular people would to give a fair assessment. The most basic metric most fitness trackers measure is steps taken each day.
A great way to challenge each other or celebrate successes on social media. But it’s the level of the stats you can pore over on the app which really wowed us. Take the heart rate for instance; by holding your finger on the digital crown for a few seconds, you can get an ECG-like trace of your heart (the sort you would have in a cardiac unit) on the watch face. Other apps reveal when you’re in a setting with excessive decibels that could affect your hearing, while another tracks your menstrual cycle and tells you when you’re most fertile. As you would expect from Apple, this watch looks stylish (it has 30 different watch faces to pick from) and is intuitive to use too.
Running Power Feature Optimizes Workouts
Conversely, all Apple Watches look roundly similar aside from how much of the front is covered by a screen. The Fitbit Versa and Sense watches get much closer to the Apple Watch style. However, even these last significantly longer than Apple’s watches off a charge. We always recommend a full GPS watch to runners in particular, but there is a second type of GPS. This is where the tracker does not have its own GPS chip, but can take GPS data from your phone, over Bluetooth. Right now there’s only one mainstream consumer wearable that has true standalone blood pressure monitoring, the Huawei Watch D. And it is not widely available.
At the least, each tracker needed to last the better part of a day (i.e., a full night’s rest and a workout the following day) or to have a fast-charge option available for convenience. After a strength-training session, the Lily’s post-workout app summary listed the types of exercises I performed, from barbell squats to sumo-stance deadlifts. While I’m not much of a runner myself, I still found some of these functions useful. The training readiness score recommends workout intensity based on the quantity and quality of your sleep, stress levels and heart rate variability. After a poor night of rest, for instance, my training readiness score wasn’t nearly as high as after I’d had a good night’s sleep, which told me it probably wasn’t the best day for an intense session.
People with this condition often sleep for fewer hours and have worse quality of sleep than individuals without sleep apnea. For example, they tend to spend less time in deep (non-REM) sleep, the stage of sleep critical for growth and recovery, she said. Researchers pulled results from 60 studies and found that, on the whole, fitness trackers tended to underestimate energy expenditure, especially during sedentary and household tasks. They also noted that different wearables can produce vastly different readings. Most fitness trackers can tell you how many calories you burn, and some models can even guide you on the choice of activity that matches your energy requirements.
The Best Fitness Tracker Overall: Garmin Forerunner 245
I got a little less in testing at around 25 days, but that’s still much better than the vast majority of flagship smartwatches. This also looks way more stylish than beefier multisport watches with similar battery life. On the most basic level, the best fitness trackers offer GPS connectivity to help you stay on your training course and basic activity tracking.
Samsung Galaxy watch Active 2 Under Armour
The Whoop is less of a fitness tracker and more of a 24/7 personal coach—if your coach were a data-obsessed genius. After wearing it for several months, I realized its greatest asset is its ability to help you optimize your overall performance and recovery. Its strain and recovery scores are the type of feedback that can move the needle in terms of meeting your goals, especially if you’re the type who struggles to know when to push harder or when to rest.
Best affordable watches in 2025 for wallet-friendly style
Look for a device that can run for at least a week without charging. This way, you won’t need to recharge it too often, even during long swims or busy training days. Picking the right swim tracking features on your fitness device can help you see your progress better. Some devices can even automatically start tracking when mad muscle review you hit the water and tell which stroke you’re doing.
- That includes Google services like YouTube Music, Google Wallet, and Google Maps. {
- The Amazfit Active measures your heart rate, heart rate variability, body temperature, blood oxygen, steps, breathing rate, stress level and sleep quality. |}
- The Fitbit Luxe is our number one fitness tracker thanks to its excellent health monitoring tools, stylish design, and the strength of the fantastic Fitbit app that works alongside it. {
- The Forerunner watches have won our seal of approval multiple times, even despite the ever-increasing retail prices. |}{
- Offering a whole host of workouts based on your current fitness and what you want to achieve, it’s like having your own PT instructor on your wrist urging you on. |}
- They focus on essentials like step counting, heart rate tracking, sleep analysis, and sometimes SpO2 and stress monitoring.
Are Cheap Smartwatches Durable?
|}We’ll test its activity-tracking capabilities along with the Apple AirPods Pro 3 and update this guide with our findings. Best for dedicated runners and athletes who value precise pacing, detailed training insights, and customized tracking features. Best for anyone who’s new to wearing a fitness tracker and wants a lightweight, basic device that still gets the job done. We did have the Forerunner 265 listed here, but the Forerunner 165 fits the brief of a fitness tracker/running watch far better. It’s unobtrusive, and you can wear a watch (or smartwatch) on the other wrist without looking like a total nerd.
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|}Swimmers who want a waterproof tracker need to keep in mind that not all water-safe trackers actually record swimming data. Runners should probably choose a watch that displays at least time, distance, pace, and lap time. If you want good accuracy for those metrics without also carrying a smartphone, you need a runner’s watch with built-in GPS. Some dedicated sleep trackers attach to your mattress, but we haven’t found them to offer an appreciable advantage over wrist-based trackers. However, if you’re not fond of wearing something on your wrist to bed, you can opt for the Sleep Number 360 Smart Bed or the Eight Sleep Pod Pro Cover smart mattress topper instead. As a more affordable option, the second-generation Nest Hub can track your sleep from the bedside table without being in contact with your body.
The Zepp Coach feature in the companion app can create training plans for you. So if you are working towards something with your fitness goals, Zepp can set up an effective plan based on your metrics. A strong, durable battery shows the tracker will work well over time. This means your tracker stays accurate, and you can stay motivated to reach your swim goals without interruptions.
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|}The screen itself is nice and bright at 2,000 nits and you get an estimated 10 days of regular use on a single charge. (In testing, I got closer to eight to nine days as a power-user.) European users also get NFC payments. The Galaxy Watch 7 also delivers the features you expect in high-end smartwatches. Nailing these features (as Samsung does) is extra-critical in 2025, partly because the Galaxy Watch 7 has some new competition for Android users (namely, from Google’s Pixel Watch).
