The best fitness trackers and wearables of 2026

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The best fitness trackers can help you train smarter and better understand your body's signals. Top wearables go far beyond counting steps — they also measure heart rate, recovery, sleep quality, and strain. This all helps you know when to push harder or when to rest. But fitness trackers aren't all built the same. Some prioritize smartwatch features, while others double down on big-picture health. There are also different styles, including wrist watches and smart rings.

As a longtime fitness writer, I've spent the last year testing more than 15 fitness-focused wearables head-to-head. I compared them while strength training, hiking, skiing, and even just sitting at a desk. The Garmin Vivoactive 6 stands out as the best fitness tracker for most people thanks to its highly accurate data, sleek aesthetic, and long battery life. Meanwhile, the Fitbit Inspire 3 is my favorite budget option. It's not as advanced as pricier models but offers all the basics for under $100.

Below, you can also find picks for users focused on smartwatch capabilities or running, as well as people who prefer a smart ring or screen-free design.

Our top picks for the best fitness trackers

Best overall: Garmin Vivoactive 6 - See at Amazon

Best on a budget: Fitbit Inspire 3 - See at Amazon

Best smartwatch: Apple Watch Series 11 - See at Amazon

Best smart ring: Oura Ring 4 - See at Amazon

Best for runners: Garmin Forerunner 265 - See at Amazon

Best screenless: Whoop 5.0 - See at Amazon

Best overall

After testing 15+ wearables over the last year, the sleek Garmin Vivoactive 6 stood out as the best fitness tracker overall. It hits the sweet spot between ease of use, tracking accuracy, and robust fitness functionality, enabling it to grow with you as your training changes.

Garmin is known for its top-performing GPS and heart rate tech, which means it's super accurate on tracking workout effort and sleep health. The Vivoactive 6 supports over 80 trackable activities, from running and strength training to pickleball and swimming.

While it doesn't auto-track activity, I found the workout stats it displays to be spot-on, easy to read mid-exercise, and customizable enough to highlight what you actually care about (like heart rate zones or pace splits). The daily suggested workouts, pace guidance, and smart wake alarms make it feel like a personal coach on your wrist — not just a step counter.

Outside workouts, the Vivoactive 6 quietly keeps tabs on your overall well-being: It tracks stress levels, sleep stages, menstrual health, respiration, and recovery via Garmin's "Body Battery" score, which I've found to be helpful for knowing when to push and when to rest. It even uses your skin temperature and heart rate to alert you to early signs of illness, so you know when to take it easy.

Garmin watches are also known for their long battery life, and the Vivoactive 6 is no different. It lasts for a full 11 days (even with GPS running regularly), which means you rarely have to charge it — convenient not only for a busy life but also for not missing sleep tracking or step counts. (For perspective, the Apple Watch Series 11 needs to be charged basically once a day.)

The Vivoactive 6 also has a sleek design with customizable watch faces, so it doesn't scream "sporty" during business meetings. It also delivers texts, emails, and phone alerts on your wrist, although that's about its limit as a smartwatch.

Yes, there are more affordable options, as well as more specialized watches for runners or triathletes, but the Garmin Vivoactive 6 is the best fitness tracker for most needs. It's a great fit for active people who want to stay on top of their daily movement, workout intensity, and recovery.

Read our full Garmin Vivoactive 6 review.

Visit our guide to the best Garmin watches.

Best on a budget

If you're looking for an affordable wearable to help you move more, stay on target during workouts, and get meaningful health insights, the Fitbit Inspire 3 is the best fitness tracker for under $100. It strips down to the essentials, but handles all the basics exceptionally well, especially for the price.

Fitbits have long excelled at heart rate-driven insights, and that's exactly where the Inspire 3 shines. It has reliable continuous heart rate tracking, particularly during HIIT or interval-style workouts where your effort changes quickly; in fact, during testing, I found it was better at tracking rapid heart rate changes than most Garmin watches.

That heart rate accuracy powers two of Fitbit's most useful motivation tools: Active Zone Minutes, which show whether you're actually working hard enough to improve cardio fitness, and Reminders to Move, gentle nudges that encourage you to hit at least 250 steps each hour. In real-world use, I found these features were surprisingly effective at keeping me consistent.

With a slim screen and light weight, the Inspire 3 is comfortable, and you'll probably forget you're even wearing it. It has a clean, sleek design, albeit with a more "tracker"-y aesthetic than a more traditional round-face watch. The Inspire 3 also has a great battery life, lasting up to 10 days on a charge, making it easy to wear 24/7 without constantly thinking about power.

Despite its simple screen, the Inspire 3 tracks a lot behind the scenes. It monitors steps, workouts, sleep stages, stress levels, respiration, and menstrual health, giving you a clear picture of both activity and recovery. I've found Fitbit's sleep tracking to be especially strong, with easy-to-understand trends that show how rest affects your energy and workouts the next day.

However, there are a few things you don't get at this price. Namely, the Inspire 3 is light on smartwatch extras and advanced training metrics. There's no built-in GPS (it uses the one on your phone), and it has limited on-wrist data during workouts. Some of the device's deeper insights are also locked behind a Fitbit Premium membership. And its smaller screen means you can't easily read texts on your wrist. You can only see one training metric at a time during a workout, but that's the trade-off for an entry-level tracker.

If you're just getting started with fitness tracking or you want a low-profile device to keep tabs on daily movement, workout intensity, and sleep, the Fitbit Inspire 3 offers outstanding value and proves you don't need a fancy watch to build better habits.

Read our full Fitbit Inspire 3 review.

Visit our guide to the best Fitbits.

Best smartwatch

For iPhone users who want the best balance of smart features and fitness tracking, the Apple Watch Series 11 is the most seamless, full-featured option on the market. It covers nearly everything you'd expect from a fitness tracker — and much of what your phone can do — in a sleek, lightweight package.

The biggest upgrade from the Series 10 is battery life: You now get up to 24 hours on a single charge, a noticeable improvement over the previous 18. That extra time makes it far more reliable for sleep tracking, GPS workouts, and getting through long days without reaching for a charger.

The cellualr model is also the first 5G-equipped Apple Watch, offering better signal strength and faster load times — a useful upgrade if you like to run or head to the gym phone-free. Available in 42mm and 46mm sizes, it's thin and comfortable to wear 24/7, with health tracking features like heart rate, wrist temperature, respiratory rate, sleep score, and hypertension alerts — all rolled into the new Vitals dashboard for a quick overview of how you're doing each day.

While this is definitely a smartwatch first and foremost, the fitness tracking is polished and beginner-friendly. Training Load tracks your effort over time, while Sleep Score gives a snapshot of your rest based on duration, consistency, and interruptions. While the Apple Fitness app is fairly limited, you can enhance your tracking by turning on Precision Start, enabling Detect Gym Equipment, or syncing with third-party apps like TrainingPeaks for custom workouts.

What really sets the Series 11 apart is its tight integration with iOS — an area many fitness-focused watches, like the Garmin Venu 3 or the Fitbit Versa 4, fall short. You can answer calls, dictate texts, use Apple Pay, control music, and access widgets — all from your wrist, no unlocked phone required. The new wrist-flick gesture adds another layer of convenience for quickly dismissing notifications or silencing alarms.

If you can find it discounted, the Apple Watch Series 10 is still a solid pick for anyone looking to save money, but its shorter battery life could be frustrating for active people. Meanwhile, the pricier Apple Watch Ultra 2 and 3 offer more advanced fitness features, but their bulk makes them harder to wear 24/7. As an alternative, Android users should consider the Google Pixel 3 or 4, which are powered by Fitbit's technology. But if you have an iPhone and want a fitness tracker that doubles as your everyday smartwatch, nothing beats the Apple Watch Series 11.

Best smart ring

If you want to track your health and fitness without a bulky or buzzing watch, smart rings are a discreet, non-distracting way to stay on top of your health. After several months testing various smart rings — often alongside top Garmin and Fitbit wearables — the Oura Ring 4 consistently delivered the most accurate health metrics and most helpful insights.

The Gen 4 model uses upgraded "smart sensing" technology with 18 internal sensors (compared to eight in the Gen 3), leading to stronger signal stability and more consistent data collection. The result is accurate, uninterrupted information on heart rate, skin temperature, activity, and recovery — all distilled into easy-to-understand scores like Readiness and Sleep. I've even gotten alerts to rest before I started feeling sick, which helped me adjust early and bounce back faster.

Its menstrual tracking is among the most advanced in wearables, too, using manually entered data and continuous skin temperature reading to predict ovulation, cycle phases, and even early pregnancy signs. It also autotracks most daily activities (including housework) and gradually learns your patterns, becoming more accurate over time.

While the ring looks a bit chunky at first glance, the titanium build is light and comfortable enough to wear all day and night. I barely notice it except during heavy barbell lifts. It's also more discreet than any watch, which makes it ideal if you prefer a minimalist setup.

But what really sets Oura apart is its app. While the majority of smart rings I tested deliver your health data in a hard-to-decode app, Oura's interface is clean, intuitive, well-organized, and surprisingly deep. It has just three tabs (Today, Vitals, and My Health) with the key takeaways up front and biohacking-level metrics like cardio age, VO₂ max, and AI-powered health tips just a tap away.

While I've come to really love wearing the Oura Ring 4 for daily step and sleep tracking, it's not suitable as a full-fledged workout tracker — it lacks mid-workout data and post-workout analysis. Also, a $6/month subscription is required to unlock most of its insights. But if your main focus is recovery, readiness, sleep, and subtle daily movement, the Oura Ring 4 is the smartest, sleekest way to stay in sync with your body — and well worth the price.

Read our full Oura Ring 4 review.

Visit our guide to the best smart rings.

Best for runners

Whether you're gearing up for a 5K or a full marathon, the Garmin Forerunner 265 is the best fitness tracker for dedicated runners. It keeps your training smart, structured, and on track — while also keeping up with your day-to-day life and recovery.

I tested this watch for two months in my daily active lifestyle and also lent it to a friend to train with for a 30K trail race. We both agree: What makes the Forerunner 265 so great for active folks is its exceptional accuracy, intuitive design, and features that go beyond just collecting data to actually help you train better.

The Forerunner 265 uses Garmin's best-in-class GPS and heart rate tech to deliver highly reliable metrics during every workout. During runs, the watch shows just the right amount of information — pace, time, distance, splits, and heart rate zones — all on a crisp AMOLED display. It even has a Garmin Run Coach that, when synced with your headphones, will tell you to slow your pace for a more sustainable heart rate.

Post-run, it delivers training effect scores, run power zones, and suggested recovery times. The watch also offers daily workout suggestions each morning and an on-watch countdown to your next race. The built-in altimeter, barometer, and full GPS make it a great pick for trail runners and other mountain athletes.

The Forerunner 265 has more than 30 workout modes, so it tracks cross-training and strength training just as accurately. It also has built-in music storage (Spotify or Amazon Music) and can be used phone-free thanks to onboard GPS. With up to 13 days of battery life (or 20 hours in GPS mode), it easily keeps up with multi-week training blocks without the constant need to be charged.

It doesn't have full smartwatch functionality (you can only read texts, not reply), and its sporty look won't appeal to everyone, but for runners who care about performance and recovery more than lifestyle perks, the Forerunner 265 is the most well-balanced Garmin you can get without stepping into ultra-athlete territory.

Check out our full Garmin Forerunner 265 review.

Best screenless

If you want to track your fitness and recovery without the constant buzz of notifications or the distraction of a screen mid-yoga, the Whoop 5.0 is a reliable wearable that offers distraction-free tracking, helping you train smarter and recover better.

Unlike most fitness trackers, the Whoop has a minimalist, screen-free design — it's essentially a wristband with a computer chip that records your heart rate, skin temperature, and other metrics. It's comfortable to wear, and the data is coalesced into the well-organized, intuitive Whoop app.

I've tested both the Whoop 4.0 and, more recently, the Whoop MG (the 5.0 with enhanced health capabilities). In all iterations, I found Whoop to be remarkably intuitive and low-maintenance. The app interface is clear and helpful, surfacing daily sleep scores, recovery insights, and strain levels right up front. I love that it auto-detects workouts of all lengths and intensities (you can also manually add these in after if it missed a session), and then you can review your performance afterward in the app.

Compared to other fitness trackers, Whoop focuses less on heart rate zones and more on total-body strain, which I found to be an interesting shift in perspective. I was surprised to find that my strength sessions didn't add much strain to my day, but an hour-and-a-half yoga class did. Similarly, a full day of casual skiing was reported to be more taxing on my body than one 30-minute intense run.

While most trackers these days take into account your sleep quality, workout efforts, and overall body strain to tell you if you should push or rest, this is the central focus of Whoop — and, as someone who is active most every day, this made me think about my recovery a lot more than any other wearable. I found Whoop helped me become a more balanced, better-rested everyday athlete.

There are a few other standout features to note: The AI-powered Whoop Coach is particularly helpful for answering questions like, "How hard should I train today based on my recovery?" and it helped me reframe effort during workouts. It also has a customizable daily journal that asks about yesterday's habits like alcohol use, screen time, or stress, then lets you see correlations between these choices and your recovery scores. I found this accountability to be subtle but genuinely helpful, making it easy to spot the reason my sleep or recovery was shot. One other small nice-to-have: You can set an alarm to wake you up with a quiet but rousing buzz. This is great if you and your bed partner are on different schedules.

Whoop offers a few different devices and, as of 2025, a new annual subscription model. The best option for most people is the Whoop 5.0 with Whoop Peak membership ($239/year), which includes advanced longevity features like Health Monitor, Stress Monitor, and Whoop Age. If you just want the basics, Whoop One ($199/year) offers the core metrics, while the premium Whoop Life plan ($359/year) pairs with the more advanced Whoop MG, capable of tracking blood pressure and ECG heart rhythms.

How we test fitness trackers

To find the best fitness trackers, I tested more than 15 models over the course of a year. I wore each device 24/7 for multiple weeks at a time, often back-to-back or side-by-side, to compare the accuracy of metrics like heart rate, recovery, step count, and sleep quality in real-world use.

I live in the Colorado Rockies with an active routine that includes gym-based strength training, daily dog walks, and a rotation of seasonal high-altitude sports such as skiing, mountain biking, and hiking — alongside everyday work and the occasional rest day. I also travel across the country roughly once a month. Each wearable was tested during workouts of varying intensities, while sleeping, while showering, and during long days on the go.

For each device, I evaluated:

• How accurate its data was (GPS, heart rate, and recovery metrics)
• How intuitive each wearable was to set up and navigate
• How motivating or helpful its insights felt
• How well it fit into a daily routine
• How comfortable it was to wear 24/7
• The clarity and usefulness of the companion app
• How well the battery life held up to real-world use

Fitness tracker FAQs

What type of fitness tracker should you buy?

Determining which type of wearable you should buy largely comes down to how much data you want access to, and whether you want it all on your wrist.

• Fitness watches (like Garmin and Fitbit) are great for all-day tracking and workouts, with simple displays and long battery life. These usually balance activity, sleep, and recovery, but are limited in terms of smartwatch capabilities and don't integrate as smoothly with iOS or Android systems as smartwatches do.
• Smartwatches (like Apple Watch or Google Pixel Watch) add texting, calls, music, and third-party apps — but usually sacrifice battery life, don't have the most robust fitness features, and can feel like wearing your phone on your wrist.
• Smart rings (like Oura) skip screens altogether for a minimalist, low-distraction option that still tracks recovery, sleep, and activity in the background.

What should you consider when choosing a fitness tracker?

Battery life: How often you want to charge your device can be a dealbreaker. Most smart rings and Garmin watches last seven to 14 days. Apple and Google smartwatches often require daily charging. Anything shorter than 24 hours means you're probably missing out on step count or sleep data in order to charge it.

Workout-tracking features: Consider which activities you do most often. Some trackers only log basic workouts, while others track strain, auto-detect movement, or even coach you with pace and recovery insights. If you're a runner or mountain athlete, prioritize built-in GPS, heart rate zones, race training tools, and an altimeter for elevation. The more built-in activity modes a watch has, the more it can grow with you as you get into new sports, too.

Recovery and sleep data: Look for a wearable that helps you understand when to push and when to rest. Devices like Whoop, Oura, and Garmin track heart rate variability, body temperature, and sleep stages to give daily recovery scores or readiness indicators.

Display and comfort: Bigger screens are easier to read mid-workout, but bulkier watches can be annoying to sleep in. Slim trackers or rings may be better for all-day comfort, especially for smaller wrists or anyone sensitive to wearing devices overnight.

App experience: The best fitness wearable is only as good as the app behind it — especially for minimal or no-screen devices like smart rings. Look for one that's easy to navigate, clear in its insights, and motivating over time. Garmin and Oura offer detailed but digestible data; Fitbit and Apple are cleaner and beginner-friendly; Whoop offers AI-powered insights and habit tracking.

Which fitness tracker brand is the best?

No single fitness tracker brand is the best at everything, but they all have key strengths and weaknesses.

• Garmin is best for fitness tracking first, with 30+ activity modes in most models, top-tier GPS, deep health metrics, long battery life, and a free training coach.
• Fitbit balances affordability with solid tracking, especially for heart rate during intervals and sleep insights.
• Whoop is great for people focused on recovery and long-term strain, and it stands out with its distraction-free screenless design.
• Apple and Google offer the most well-rounded smartwatches with excellent integration into their ecosystems — but fitness tracking often takes a backseat to lifestyle features. That said, Google now owns Fitbit, so its Pixel Watch has a solid fitness foundation.