The Best Fitness Trackers for 2024

The Fitbit Charge has long been among the most value-rich fitness trackers, and the sixth-generation model extends that legacy. It offers 40 sports profiles (up from 20 the previous generation) and a feature that lets you send your heart rate via Bluetooth to gym equipment. In addition, the Charge 6 has a color touch screen, a 5ATM water-resistance rating, multi-day battery life, a built-in GPS, sensors to monitor key overnight health metrics like skin temperature and SpO2, and support for on-demand ECG heart health and EDA stress readings. Though it’s primarily for fitness and health tracking, the Charge 6 features several Google lifestyle apps, including Google Maps, Google Wallet (which replaces Fitbit Pay), and YouTube Music. Its companion app clearly displays your data, and can be customized to highlight metrics related to your goal.

With ample tools for monitoring your activity and health, key lifestyle features, and a fantastic companion app, the Charge 6 is the best standalone fitness tracker for most people. Fitbit’s latest tracker is compatible with most phones running at least Android 9.0 or iOS 15 via the Fitbit app (which requires a Google Account to log in).

The Apple Watch Series 10 offers a broad suite of built-in fitness, health, and safety tools, along with the best selection of third-party apps (such as AllTrails, Nike Run Club, Peloton, and Strava) for any smartwatch. This generation adds water depth and temperature sensors, features that debuted on the more expensive Apple Watch Ultra. It also features a larger screen and a slimmer case than its predecessor and a new lightweight titanium premium case option instead of stainless steel.

In testing, the Series 10 offered accurate workout pulse readings compared with a chest strap and a dedicated optical armband heart rate monitor. While many wrist-based optical heart rate trackers exhibit a slight lag when detecting rapid pulse change during workouts, Apple Watches tend to be spot on.

Its Activity, Exercise, and Stand rings can help motivate you to get moving, and its companion Fitness+ workout streaming service ($9.99 per month or $79.99 per year after a three-month trial) offers a variety of studio-style classes with excellent music and instruction for the home or gym. It goes beyond the basics with a multisport tracking option for triathletes and advanced running metrics such as real-time power, stride length, ground contact time, and vertical oscillation.

On the health front, it accurately tracks your activity, body temperature deviations, fertility windows, menstrual cycle, overnight respiration, sleep, and more. The Series 10 can alert you if it detects a high or low heart rate, irregular heart rhythm, and loud sounds that can damage your hearing. It also supports Emergency SOS and international emergency calling, as well as automatic calls for help if it detects a hard fall. We also appreciate its automatic 20-second handwashing timer.

The Apple Watch Series 10 is best for iPhone users in search of a capable fitness tracker with excellent connectivity features. It requires an iPhone XS or later with iOS 18, so it’s not an option if you use Android. It’s a particularly excellent choice for runners, swimmers, and cyclists. Its wrist-based running power measurements help you gauge your effort in real-time; a WR50 rating makes it safe for shallow-water activities like swimming in a pool or the ocean; and automatic bike ride detection ensures you never lose credit for an outdoor cycle workout. The Apple Watch Ultra 2, which features a more rugged build and longer battery life, strongly appeals to outdoor adventurers, endurance athletes, and ocean enthusiasts with deep pockets.

Note that Apple Watches sold in the US since Jan. 18, 2024 do not allow for blood oxygen saturation monitoring. If that’s a key feature you’re after, look to other options on this list, like the Fitbit Charge 6, the Garmin Lily 2, or the Oura.

With long battery life, a color AMOLED touch screen, and all the basic activity and sleep features you need, the Fitbit Inspire 3 is the best fitness tracker you can get for less than $100. Unlike the pricier, jewelry-inspired Fitbit Luxe, its design screams basic, but we appreciate its bright screen that can stay on all day. The tracker’s simple interface and well-designed companion app make monitoring key fitness and health metrics easy, including your steps, heart rate, calories burned, sleep, overnight SpO2, and more. Despite a slight decrease in battery life compared with the previous model, it’s still the most affordable and longest-lasting Fitbit. 

The Fitbit Inspire 3 is a top choice for fitness beginners who are just starting on a path to better health and those on a budget. It lacks a built-in GPS, so it must connect to your phone to accurately track your pace and distance during outdoor walks, runs, hikes, and bike rides. This won’t be a problem if you plan to tote your phone during outdoor workouts, but it may be a drawback if you prefer to disconnect while you work up a sweat.

Designed specifically for women, the Garmin Lily 2 stands out for its classic, jewelry-like design. It features a beautiful, patterned face, an aluminum bezel and case, and a 14mm quick-release band that’s much slimmer than most smartwatch straps, so you can wear it alongside other bracelets. More than just attractive, the Lily 2 can track health stats such as your calories burned, energy level, heart rate, respiration, sleep, SpO2, steps, stress, and workouts. It also offers smartwatch features such as phone notifications, music playback controls, and useful calendar and weather widgets. It’s water-resistant to 164 feet and can last up to five days on a charge. 

If you want a fitness tracker that seamlessly transitions from fitness classes to fancy dinners, the Garmin Lily 2 is a top choice. Though it lacks some features of the more affordable Fitbit Charge 6, including an integrated GPS and the ability to sync your heart rate to gym equipment, the Lily 2 is a much more aesthetically pleasing wellness wearable and much more comfortable for small wrists than a bulky sports watch.

In the crowded fitness tracker market, Garmin’s Venu Sq 2 stands out for its practicality. It’s the least expensive of the excellent Garmin Venu 2 lineup, with a squarish design that improves text legibility and a battery that lasted for up to nine days in testing. It doesn’t track the number of floors you climb and lacks animated workout graphics, but otherwise offers all the excellent health and fitness features of the round Venu 2 for $150 less, including an integrated GPS, support for on-demand SpO2 readings, and Garmin Pay.

If you’re looking for a reasonably priced smartwatch with a fitness focus, the Garmin Venu Sq 2 is worth checking out. The similarly priced Apple Watch SE offers more apps and lifestyle features but can’t last nearly as long on a charge. If you prefer a round design, the Garmin Vivoactive 5 is an excellent alternative to the Venu Sq 2 that costs $50 more but adds onboard music storage.

The Oura Ring 4 is a stylish and comfortable smart ring that discreetly measures your activity, sleep, and stress from its position on your finger. With smaller and more accurate sensors than its predecessor, it tracks blood oxygen, heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, skin temperature, and more. It can track 40 different types of exercises, movement throughout the day, sleep duration and stages, and stress levels. It’s also a step ahead of the pack in women’s health with cycle insights, pregnancy insights, and fertile window estimates. The ring’s polished companion app charts metrics like cardiovascular age, sleep regularity, and more over time, making it easy to spot trends. It also interprets the data for you with holistic readiness, sleep, and activity scores while offering detailed and personalized recommendations to improve your well-being.

With a comfortable design, six days of battery life, and an excellent companion app, the Oura Ring 4 is the best finger-based fitness tracker. It is a top choice if you need help reducing stress and/or sleeping better. The Oura Ring 4 also offers basic exercise tracking, but it’s not as detailed as many wrist-based options, so stick with a capable and affordable model like the Fitbit Charge 6 if you’re primarily interested in activity insights. For holistic health monitoring, however, the Oura Ring 4 is tough to beat.

Samsung’s smartwatches offer some of the most innovative health-tracking features we’ve seen, including wrist-based body composition measurements and overnight snore tracking, tools that are not available on the Apple Watch. After a 15-second scan, the watch displays your skeletal muscle mass, fat mass, body fat percentage, body mass index (BMI, a measure of body size based on your weight and height), body water mass, and basal metabolic rate (BMR, or the minimum necessary energy needed in an inactive state). It also shows whether your results for each metric fall within the low, normal, or high range.

When you wear the watch to bed and place a compatible smartphone on your nightstand, they can work together to listen for snoring and even record it. The watch also tracks your sleep duration, stages (awake, light, deep, and REM), and overnight SpO2. For fitness tracking, the Galaxy Watch FE supports more than 100 different workouts (everything from walking and running to archery and flying disc) and can automatically detect certain activities. It also gives you access to many third-party fitness, health, and sports apps via the Play Store, including C25K, Cardiogram, Golf GPS Rangefinder, Komoot, MyFitnessPal, Seven Minute Workout, and Strava.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch FE is best for Android users who want a feature-rich smartwatch with cutting-edge fitness and health-tracking tools. Unlike the Apple Watch, which only works with iOS devices, the Galaxy Watch FE is exclusive to Android. For an alternative Android watch with stellar battery life, the OnePlus Watch 2R offers most of the same sensors and health-tracking features for a similar price.

The Galaxy Watch FE is our Editors’ Choice for its overall value, but for even more health insights, consider Samsung’s flagship Galaxy Watch 7, which offers AI-powered workout advice based on your current energy level. As a more rugged option, the Galaxy Watch Ultra offers longer battery life, increased endurance, customizable triathlon tracking, and a brighter screen. It’s a nice choice for mountain bikers, runners, hikers, those who work outdoors, and anyone who wants a fully-featured Android-compatible smartwatch that lasts more than a single day on a charge.

The Watch SE is Apple’s smallest and least expensive smartwatch. Except for an always-on display and a few health sensors (ECG, wrist temperature, water depth, and water temperature), it offers the same connectivity, safety, and fitness features as the Series 10 for $150 less. 

The second-generation SE, which launched in the fall of 2022, looks just like its predecessor, but costs $30 less and packs some nice under-the-hood upgrades, including a faster processor, a new motion sensor for Crash Detection, and significantly more battery life. It offered excellent performance overall in testing, with a responsive touch screen and 37 hours of battery life per charge.

The Apple Watch SE is a solid option for its target audience of first-time smartwatch users, children, teens, and older adults. The Series 10 is our top pick for most Apple Watch buyers, but the second-gen SE is a worthy alternative for staying active, connected, and safe on a budget. Also, keep in mind that Apple has disabled blood oxygen saturation monitoring on Series 10 and Ultra 2 units currently being sold in the US, narrowing the gap between them and the Watch SE, which has always lacked that sensor.

It notably works with Apple’s Family Setup feature, which lets you set up and manage an Apple Watch for a family member who doesn’t have an iPhone. During the setup process, the iPhone-based Watch app asks if you’re setting it up for yourself or a family member, then guides you through the process.

The Garmin Vivoactive 5 strikes the right balance between a capable smartwatch and a detailed fitness tracker. It offers notifications, mobile payments, and apps, along with detailed and accurate exercise, sleep, and stress tracking. The Vivoactive 5 considers all three of those health metrics when calculating your Body Battery energy level approximation. Recent smartwatches from Google and Samsung offer a similar holistic health score, but Garmin’s is unique in that it updates dynamically throughout the day. It’s the only Garmin on this list with onboard music storage, so you can download songs and playlists to the watch and listen without your phone.

As is common from Garmin, the Vivoactive 5 is a reasonably priced smartwatch with a fitness focus. It has similar features and a bright and colorful AMOLED touch screen like the Venu Sq 2 but with a more classic round design. Both are reliable choices, but the Vivoactive 5 is more advanced with onboard music storage, HRV tracking, sleep coaching, and additional activity profiles, including ones for boxing, racket sports like pickleball, and team sports.

The Polar Pacer Pro running watch helps you level up your training with a number of tools and features designed to safely maximize your workouts, including running power measurements, ascent and descent tracking, sleep and recovery stats, personalized recommendations, and more. The wrist-based power meter lets you seamlessly monitor your real-time output, a useful metric for sprints, short intervals, and hilly terrain. It’s also comfortable to wear 24/7 and lasts up to a week on battery.

If you want to run faster or have another goal in mind, such as achieving a six-minute mile or completing a 5K in less than 30 minutes, the Polar Pacer Pro is a worthy training companion. If you’re new to running, the more affordable Pacer is a compelling option, with most of the same features as the Pro model, including the running test that calculates your VO2Max and custom training zones. But for advanced runners, the Pro version is easy to recommend for its extra insights, including wrist-based running power measurements, Komoot turn-by-turn route guidance, and Hill Splitter ascent and descent tracking.

The Fitbit Ace 3 is a fun fitness band for younger kids that keeps tabs on activity and sleep without a monthly subscription fee. It focuses on basics such as step counts and rest, but it doesn’t offer location or GPS tracking. The Ace 3 is safe for swimming and offers about eight days of battery life per charge.

If you’re interested in ensuring your child is getting adequate activity during the day and enough sleep at night, the Fitbit Ace 3 does that reliably and affordably. Parents who want to keep tabs on their children from afar should consider a dedicated tracking device such as the Verizon Gizmo Watch 3 or the gaming-focused Fitbit Ace LTE.