If you're looking for a smartwatch or a more affordable fitness tracker, Fitbit is probably one of the most notable brands on your radar. This company has just about every segment of the market covered, so you're bound to find a device that will work for you and help you reach all your fitness goals.
The variety of Fitbits out there is a bit overwhelming, and to help narrow your search, we’ve made a comprehensive list of the best products they offers. Whether you're looking for something that'll just count your steps or a device with a more robust list of health tracking, like 24/7 heart rate monitoring, blood oxygen levels, or GPS, there's a Fitbit for you. Some premium models can even guide you through workouts, with each activity displayed on the watch's screen. While others offer text, phone notifications, and even voice assistants, so you're never disconnected. Check out our favorite Fitbits below.
TL;DR – These are the Best Fitbits:
- Fitbit Charge 5
- Fitbit Versa 4
- Fitbit Sense 2
- Fitbit Inspire 3
- Fitbit Ace 3
- Fitbit Luxe
- Apple Watch Series 8
Fitbit Charge 5
Best Fitbit Fitness Band
Fitbit continues adding to its lineup of fitness trackers and smartwatches with fitness features at its heart, but the Fitbit Charge 5 still gives you the most bang for your buck. This device is just as capable as the company's more expensive smartwatches, and you’ll just be sacrificing some screen space, voice control, and storing music on the device. But you’re getting it for fitness anyways, so the most important part is the tracking, and this model offers some serious tracking for everything from exercise and your heart rate to your stress, sleep, and even your heart rhythm with its ECG function. And it all is displayed across a bright, colorful AMOLED touchscreen.
The Fitbit Charge 5 does a whole lot more than just the basic tracking you’d expect. It automatically detects a variety of activities, while a built-in GPS lets you attach locations and distances to your exercises. But unfortunately, you don’t get an altimeter to see how high you climb on hikes. Beyond fitness, this Fitbit can display notifications from your phone and let you send quick replies through Android devices. Support for Fitbit Pay means you can leave your cash and cards at home when you go for a run or bike ride and still stop to buy a calorie booster midway with just your band. You won’t have to recharge it often either, as you get up to seven days worth of battery life. Though if you prefer to have the time just a glance away, then the always-on display feature may be worth the tradeoff to battery life.
Fitbit Versa 4
Best Fitbit Smartwatch
The Fitbit Versa 4 is the smartwatch-meets-fitness tracker you've been looking for. Rocking a vibrant and sharp AMOLED touch display with an easy-to-use interface, you’ll see all the details of your exercises, phone notifications, and more. It’s also got a battery life that outdoes many other smartwatches, delivering six days of juice with light use. But if you want to take advantage of the screen’s always-on mode and more advanced tracking, that number drops significantly.
When it comes to fitness, the Versa 4 offers a combination of sensors like a heart rate(which isn’t as accurate as we’d like), blood oxygen saturation, and even GPS, allowing you to track tons of different exercises. It can even guide you through various workouts and keep tabs on your fitness goals. If you pair the watch with your phone, you can get push notifications from apps, smart assistant support, and contactless payments, but unfortunately, it lacks any type of music support.
Fitbit Sense 2
Best Health Monitoring Fitbit
If you like everything the Fitbit Versa 4 offers, the Fitbit Sense 2 takes all of that and adds a dash of extra health monitoring. This smartwatch not only automatically recognizes various fitness activities, monitors your heart rate, and tracks your blood oxygen saturation levels but also accurately measures skin temperature variation and detects atrial fibrillation. There's even a GPS built-in to keep track of distance and pace, whether you're hiking, biking, or running.
Your mental health is just as crucial as your physical well-being, so Fitbit includes a sensor to track your stress levels throughout the day using continuous electrodermal activity (cEDA) responses. It then prompts you to reflect on how you’re feeling during those stressful times and suggests ways to decompress, ensuring you’re in better shape inside and out. Beyond health, you get a decent six-day battery life with light use and your typical smartwatch features, though there’s no music functionality or third-party app support.
Fitbit Inspire 3
Best Budget Band
Don’t worry, the Fitbit Inspire 3 may be budget-friendly at under $100, but it’s just as capable as many pricier bands. This generation of Inspire delivers a bright, colorful AMOLED display featuring responsive touch technology along with two haptic buttons for easy navigation. That improved screen makes it easy to see pings from your connected phone’s supported apps, and you still get an impressive ten-day battery life—though that’s less when taking advantage of the always-on display mode.
As for fitness, the Fitbit Inspire 3 counts your steps, measures sleep quality, and automatically detects various exercises to track and catalog them for you. Though you lose out on the GPS with this model, it still measures your heart rate and blood oxygen saturation. While a water-resistant design can go down to 50 meters below, so you're safe to take it in the pool and shower.
Fitbit Ace 3
Best Band for Kids
Fitbits for kids? Giving your kids a fitness tracker might seem a bit extra, but you'll be surprised at how it'll challenge and excite them about getting up and moving around. For tracking, this fitness band includes the basics with a pedometer to keep track of steps, fitness activity monitoring, and sleep tracking. Since this model is for kids, it lacks some more premium features like a heart rate monitor, calories burned, and other advanced sensors, but that keeps the list price down to $80, and you can often find it for much cheaper.
This fitness band is built for kids from the ground up with the colorful bands to the cutesy animated clock faces featuring a bunny, a cat, a martian, or a spaceship design. Aside from being a fashion item, kids can also use it to challenge family and friends to step competitions and send messages in the app. Or they can challenge themselves by setting activity goals and receiving little digital badges for reaching them. It has also been ruggedized for school life with a swim-proof design, silicone around the screen, and battery life that stretches out to eight days.
Fitbit Luxe
Best Stylish Fitbit
Admittedly, fitness trackers aren’t the epitome of fashion, but to keep track of your steps and health with a little more style, go for the Fitbit Luxe. It takes Fitbit’s tracking tech and packs it into a classy little number that flies under the radar with its bracelet-like design. You’ll get your choice of stainless steel frames in soft gold, black, or platinum. That frame blends smoothly with the rounded glass AMOLED display of the tracker, and you can customize your watch face using an app, making it unique to you. There are even multiple band options to snag, like a silicone band that comes in several color options, including orchid, black, and white, or go for the soft gold link band from jewelry designer Gorjana. You’re bound to find an option that best fits your aesthetic.
The small footprint of the Fitbit Luxe keeps it subtle on your wrist. But it still delivers capable tracking that can keep up with you throughout the week, thanks to the 5-day battery life. It’ll even monitor your heart rate nonstop. If you want to see how you’re sleeping, it’s ready for that, too. In total, it tracks 20 different exercises, and you won’t need to take it off when you shower after (or go for a swim) with water resistance down to 50 meters. Unfortunately, you don’t get GPS on this model, but you can connect the Fitbit to your phone to get more detailed information on runs and hikes. You can also get notifications about calls and texts on the device when your phone is nearby.
Apple Watch Series 8
Best Fitbit that’s Not a Fitbit
Fitbit has cornered the market on fitness trackers, but Apple runs the smartwatch game, and that’s proven once again with the Apple Watch Series 8. You’ll get a host of handy features, from 24/7 heart rate tracking, step counting, and fitness tracking to more advanced sensors like an ECG and fall detection. This generation also introduces highly accurate skin temperature sensors and crash detection, contacting emergency services when you’ve been in a car accident.
The Apple Watch Series 8 still struggles to compete with the multi-day battery life of most Fitbits, even with the new low-power mode that extends its 18-hour battery life to about 36 hours. However, you get a big, bright always-on OLED display with a tiny QWERTY keyboard or microphone to respond to messages, emails, and phone calls. It's even got 32GB of storage, which is handy for downloading music, so you can leave your phone at home during a workout—and music functionality is something many of the latest Fitbits lack.
What to Look for in a Fitness Tracker
If you’re in the market for a fitness tracker, the good news is that most Fitbits share the same set of core features. Most fitness trackers track steps, exercise, and activity level, as well as provide at least a rudimentary sort of sleep tracking—and some trackers approximate a calorie count as well. From that basic set of features, though, trackers can vary quite a bit, with simpler models clocking in under $100 and advanced smartwatch models costing $200 or more.
These days, virtually all fitness bands can conveniently detect when you’re starting common kinds of exercise, but not all trackers are equipped to measure every kind of exercise. If you’re a swimmer or want to track stairs, your options will narrow significantly. And if you want to leave your phone at home when you go for a jog, look for models with integrated GPS (and perhaps even the ability to store music).
The key takeaway is that you don’t need a tracker bristling with sensors that can do everything—it depends upon what you want to track. If you never swim, you obviously don’t need swim tracking. And if you’re mainly trying to get your 10,000 steps in and don’t do intense workouts, you probably don’t need a heart rate monitor.
Since most fitness trackers go on your wrist, some try to replicate some smartwatch functionality. Many bands can display phone call and text notifications, for example, but the best smartwatch experience comes from a fitness tracker that’s actually shaped like a watch, with a large screen, support for apps, and perhaps even the option to show on-screen workout while you exercise.
Finally, keep an eye on battery life. While most Fitbits run for at least four days on a charge, some can go as long as a week. And that’s not necessarily true of non-Fitbit trackers. The Apple Watch, for example, needs to be charged daily.
While the Fitbit device itself is a big part of the equation, don't forget that Fitbit also has a large community of active users. Getting a Fitbit will let you join the community, sharing exercise tips, troubleshooting issues with devices, and plenty more. There's also Fitbit Premum, which can offer guided workouts to help you reach your fitness goals.
Dave Johnson has been writing about gaming and tech since the days of the Palm Pilot. See him shout into the Twitter void @davejoh.
Danielle Abraham is a freelance writer and unpaid music historian.
