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Best All-Around
Fitbit Charge 5
Runner-Up
Garmin Vivomove Trend
Best If You Have an iPhone
Apple Watch Series 8
Best Budget Tracker
Fitbit Inspire 3
Like every piece of gear you wear on your body day in and day out, fitness trackers are incredibly personal. They have to be comfortable and attractive, sure, but they must also fit your lifestyle, as well as when and how you like to work out. Do you bike, row, or do strength training? Do you run on trails for hours at a time, or do you just want a reminder to get up every hour?
No matter what your needs are, there’s never been a better time to find a powerful, sophisticated tool that can help you optimize your workouts or jump-start your routine. We’ve tested dozens over the years to bring you these picks. While you’re at it, don’t forget to check out our Best Smartwatches and Best Running Gear guides.
Updated August 2023: We added the Garmin Epix Pro, added more information about Fitbit and the Pixel watch, added information about WatchOS 10, and updated links and pricing throughout.
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Photograph: Fitbit
Best All-Around
Fitbit Charge 5
Even as Fitbit has faced stiff competition from other manufacturers—most notably, the Apple Watch—its trackers have always won me over. They hit a very specific sweet spot between attractiveness, affordability, accessibility, and ease of use. They’re perfect for everyone who isn’t an ultra-marathoner or a semipro powerlifter trying to hit a PR.
The Charge line has consistently reached the top of our rankings, and the Charge 5 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is no exception. 2021’s iteration introduced softer lines, a bright AMOLED screen, and almost every sensor you could want, from stress scans to electrocardiograms. Like the Apple Watch does with iPhones, the Charge 5 fast-pairs to Android phones and has onboard and connected GPS so you can track outdoor workouts without a hitch. It also now has an FDA-cleared feature to detect atrial fibrillation via Fitbit’s new Heart Rhythm Notifications feature. The major downside is that you still have to pay $10 per month ($80 per year) for a Fitbit Premium subscription to access most of Fitbit’s best features. Fitbit is also now owned by Google. While Fitbits still use the Fitbit app, we’re starting to see indications that the switch to Wear is coming, like this newly redesigned app.
For the moment, however, the hardware is still less expensive and easier to use than others on this list. Still not sure if this is the right Fitbit for you? Check out our guide to the Best Fitbits.
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Photograph: Garmin
Runner-Up
Garmin Vivomove Trend
One of the biggest pain points with fitness trackers is how each has its own proprietary charger. If you’re used to the convenience of charging your phone and earbuds on all-purpose Qi wireless charging pads, hunting for your proprietary charger can be a real annoyance. The Vivomove Trend (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is the first Garmin to have wireless charging, and it works!
Like 2022’s Vivomove Sport ($180), it has an analog watch face and connected GPS via your watch. Start an activity by swiping and tapping the analog watch face or waiting for Garmin’s startlingly accurate Move IQ to pick it up. You get access to Garmin’s most convenient fitness features, like incident detection, contactless payments, sleep tracking, and continuous heart rate monitoring. Garmin also has some of the most helpful comprehensive fitness algorithms available—I’ve always found its Body Battery metric to be startlingly accurate, even catching when I’m getting sick or getting PMS.
The only downside is that the Vivomove Sport is much cheaper and looks almost the same. But you will probably make up the difference in six months when you don’t have to replace the chargers.
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Photograph: Apple
Best If You Have an iPhone
Apple Watch Series 8
People tend to hold on to their Apple Watches for years, and rightfully so—it is far and away the best fitness tracker if you have an iPhone. So if you want one, you’re best off with the latest Series 8 (8/10, WIRED Recommends). It comes with new body temperature sensors that are aimed at tracking menstrual cycles. It also has new safety features, such as Crash Detection. In the event of a severe car accident, the Series 8 will use a powerful new accelerometer and gyroscope as well as the barometer, GPS, and microphone to detect a car crash and alert emergency services if the user has not responded within 10 seconds.
If you have a watch, you can look forward to new sports features this fall with WatchOS 10. These include more cycling and hiking features, like new topographic maps, and mental health and visual health features like those that measure how much time you spend in daylight and how close you’re holding your iPad to your face. These features will also be available on the Apple Watch SE, which has the latest S8 chip and will have Crash Detection, but you still don’t get wrist-based body temperature sensing or some older features, like the blood oxygen or ECG app. Finally, with the exception of Fitbit, the watch has the widest array of gorgeous, if sometimes overpriced, third-party accessories.
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Photograph: Fitbit
Best Budget Tracker
Fitbit Inspire 3
If all you want is a simple health tracker that will track your steps and your sleep and let you know when someone is calling, the internet’s marketplace is awash in knockoffs of this fitness tracker. For $80, you might as well get the original instead. This year, Fitbit released the latest version of its hugely popular Inspire, which thankfully (in my opinion) does not use Wear OS. Instead, it continues to use Fitbit’s clear and easy Fitbit app, has a pedometer and tracks SpO2 and sleep, and comes with a wide array of watch faces and accessories.
It wasn’t all easy-peasy. I had some connectivity issues and had to restart my phone when the Inspire 3 wouldn’t update the time zone for a day or two. The Inspire 3 also regularly overestimated how much sleep I’d gotten, which made me mistrust the new Sleep Profile feature. For two months, I had a chronic nighttime cough; the Inspire 3 regularly logged me at seven hours a night because I was lying still, when switching to a more sensitive fitness tracker put me at a much more accurate five. However, if you have no health issues, it is more reliable and accessible than a knockoff Inspire 3, and Fitbit also regularly puts its trackers on sale.
