Fitness trackers are easy and accessible tools that can help guide us towards healthier habits. However, they’re far from being perfect solutions.
Some trackers don’t accurately count steps or estimate calories burned, while others suffer from GPS reliability issues, and some lack critical features like sleep monitoring or stress tracking.
Apple Watch Series 9
The Apple Watch Series 9 is the best fitness tracker for future-proofers. First introduced in 2023, its product life cycle will end by September of 2024 with enhanced display brightness, faster processor speeds, and the latest features like Double Tap. Plus, it boasts a convenient “Readiness” feature to help you prioritize between exercising and resting!
Garmin Forerunner 265 running tracker is designed for outdoor enthusiasts seeking rugged durability, GPS accuracy, and advanced training and recovery metrics. Equipped with dual-band GPS with long battery life and military-grade durability – its smartwatch functionality works in conjunction with third-party apps for a comprehensive fitness experience.
The Oura 3rd Generation may look more like jewellery than a fitness tracker, but it is one of the most sophisticated sleep and workout trackers available today. Additionally, it’s one of few that also integrates menstrual health monitoring – which can be particularly useful for women looking to understand their bodies better. Like many of these trackers listed here, this tracker utilizes wrist-worn heart rate sensors to monitor sleep quality, calories burned during workouts, hydration levels and any other factors affecting wellbeing – with colour touchscreen displays and smartwatch functionality for everyday use as well. Available sizes mean it fits any wrist type perfectly.
Garmin Forerunner 265
The Garmin Forerunner 265 is an all-encompassing fitness watch from Garmin that can do it all: track runs, bike rides and outdoor activities via GPS while also offering advanced fitness metrics such as running dynamics and VO2 Max estimations, plus offering a Morning Report that analyzes sleep quality, heart rate variability and training load to provide a personalized fitness score each day.
Garmin’s Forerunner 265 wearable now comes equipped with its Elevate V4 sensor, which uses green lights to record heart rate, while red ones detect blood oxygen levels (Pulse Ox) to assess breathing rate, HRV and stress. In addition, its Morning Report offers personalized fitness scores that reflect factors like sleep quality, recovery and training load to help determine if today is a suitable day to push harder in the gym or take things easy.
The Forerunner 265 features a high-resolution AMOLED display that adds vibrancy to Garmin’s familiar layout, making it easier to read details during workouts. Plus, this waterproof device supports 50 meters for swimming or diving! Plus, it comes equipped with a fantastic weeklong battery life, a built-in music player compatible with Spotify, Deezer and Amazon Music streaming services, as well as downloadable maps – and its exclusive Body Battery function gives a snapshot of your health status! It even comes equipped with Garmin Coach, which lets users select workout goals and then receive personalized plans based on those goals over specific amounts of time!
Oura 3rd Generation
Oura is in an exciting place. As the only ring-based tracker that does away with displays to track fitness data instead through tiny sensors around your fingertip, Oura stands alone among trackers as an innovative solution to measure sleep quality as well as period prediction when used together with Natural Cycles.
Our Gen 3 rings — Heritage and Horizon models shown here — come equipped with an impressive array of sensors that monitor everything from heart rate throughout the day to minute changes in skin temperature. All this data is displayed on an app designed to make sense of all this data and provide personalized recommendations on improving your health.
Oura offers an ideal balance between accuracy and user-friendliness, which makes interpreting its data easy without feeling pressured to take immediate action. I especially enjoy its automatic tracking of workouts from Apple Health and Google Fit as well as housework; in spite of requiring both an expensive hardware purchase and ongoing subscription in order to access its complete set of features, Oura Ring remains one of my go-to fitness trackers.
However, Oura Gen 3 does have some minor drawbacks. For example, its sizing kit only sometimes accurately assesses ring sizes (mine was wrong!), leading to inaccurate readings. Furthermore, Airplane mode only sometimes turns on when going to bed, which may prove annoying for those wishing to take a nap or use their phone in bed with them.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 6
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 is an outstanding fitness tracker. Boasting GPS-powered workout tracking, sleep monitoring, guided meditations and stress level tracking with an impressive 14-day battery life and AMOLED display screen, its 14-day battery life makes for stress level tracking as well as offering wellness apps to enhance post-exercise recovery and promote mindfulness in daily living.
The Galaxy Watch 6 builds upon its existing tools with additional advanced features, such as its innovative new feature called Personalized Heart Rate Zones, which automatically identifies intensity levels you should reach during workouts and alerts you when you fall outside or into them. Furthermore, general heart rate accuracy has also been improved, making it easier to keep an eye on your heart rate even while moving through physical activities or workouts.
Samsung’s Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) sensor makes quick body composition scans even simpler; now, it offers features to reveal your skeletal muscle, fat mass, water weight, basal metabolic rate, and more!
Irregular heart rhythm notifications are another great addition, helping you detect abnormal heartbeat patterns that could indicate atrial fibrillation. While similar features are available on other fitness trackers (including Oura Ring and the Fitbit platform on Pixel Watch), having them all together makes for a more effortless user experience.
Fitbit Charge 6
The Fitbit Charge 6 offers great value to those in search of a fitness tracker with GPS and an engaging display, along with various sensors to sync up with most smartphones and provide connectivity during workouts. Furthermore, its lightweight construction and comfortable wearability make it suitable even during water activities such as swimming.
The Charge 6 is an upgrade from its predecessor, and one of the most sought-after fitness watches on the market. This year’s model adds features missing on previous versions, such as side button functionality (which was missing on Charge 5) as well as more Google apps and gym equipment integration, more accurate heart rate sensors that claim to be 60% more precise during HIIT, spinning, rowing workouts; however, this improvement only applies during these specific workout types and doesn’t improve accuracy during other activities like running.
As with other trackers on this list, the Charge 6 features an abundance of valuable features to help you meet your fitness goals. It can monitor heart rate during exercise and sync easily with smartphone applications; its bright touchscreen makes reading it on sunny days easy; additionally, it logs your steps and even counts your after-work jog without issue.
Most of this tracker’s advanced features, including daily readiness scores and sleep details, require a $10 monthly premium subscription; though more costly than its rivals, it remains reasonable given their usefulness.
Amazfit Balance
The Amazfit Balance is an affordable fitness tracker packed with advanced wellness and fitness features. Designed to help users strike a balance between activity and recovery, its comprehensive sleep-tracking features and wellness apps help users strike that ideal equilibrium. Furthermore, this device comes equipped with its daily readiness score that assesses physical preparedness by monitoring various metrics.
The Amazfit Balance’s GPS capabilities are another stand-out feature. Equipped with a circularly polarized antenna capable of picking up multiple satellite signals simultaneously, this fitness tracker is far more accurate than others available on the market. Furthermore, this device can track over 150 sports and activities and boasts an incredible 14-day battery life!
Users of the Amazfit app can use it to customize workout templates and set goals, track various exercises automatically, display Training Effect and VO2 Max metrics that help users better understand their performance, take calls using Amazon Alexa voice control services and manage compatible smart home devices. The Amazfit Balance also comes equipped with support for Amazon Alexa so users can take phone calls, perform web searches and remotely control compatible smart home devices – making for a truly personalized workout experience!
Many fitness trackers monitor a wealth of data, which can make interpreting it all problematic. Therefore, it’s crucial that users carefully consider which features of each device align with their fitness goals and consult a professional regarding how best to implement and interpret its results.