the best fitness trackers and watches we Fitness trackers have evolved significantly, offering a wide range of features that cater to various fitness goals and lifestyles.
the best fitness trackers and watches we
Introduction to Fitness Trackers
Fitness trackers have come a long way from the simple bands that tracked steps and little else. Modern trackers can monitor everything from your heart health to how well you’ve recovered from a hard bout of training. Even flagship smartwatches, which used to be lackluster trackers, have become adept workout companions. Whatever your fitness goals are, there’s probably a fitness tracker that can help you achieve them.
Compared to some other gadgets, wearables are incredibly personal, which means there are a few extra considerations you’ll have to take into account before reaching for your wallet. It makes it hard to say that any one fitness tracker is the best for everyone. Thankfully, the best thing about fitness trackers in 2025 is that there’s enough variety to fit into every kind of lifestyle.
Best Fitness Trackers and Watches
Best Fitness Tracker Overall: Amazfit Active 2
The Amazfit Active 2 delivers outsized value for the price. It looks stylish and has a wide array of health tracking features, plus built-in GPS and AI chatbots to provide extra context to your data.
- Score: 7
- Pros: Stacked feature set for the price, stylish design, good battery life
- Cons: Touchscreen and voice commands are finicky, can’t edit workouts, AI chatbots are underwhelming
Where to Buy: $99.94 at Amazon, $99.99 at Walmart, $99.99 at Amazfit
Size: 43mm with 20mm straps; Weight: 29.5g for standard, 31.7g for premium; Battery life: Up to 10 days; Display type: OLED touchscreen; GPS: Five GNSS systems; Connectivity: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi; Water resistance: 5ATM; Music storage: N/A
The Amazfit Active 2 is the best all-rounder on the block. Smartwatches are definitely getting more high-tech, but the Active 2 keeps the spirit of a humble fitness tracker — a good price, all the basic health features with a holistic tracking approach, and a comfy yet stylish design. At $99.99 for the standard version, and $129.99 for the premium version with a leather band, you get an incredible amount of bang for your buck.
The hardware and design are surprisingly chic for the price. The standard version has a stainless steel case and tempered glass screen, while the premium version bumps you up to sapphire crystal and gets you an extra leather strap. The screen itself is nice and bright at 2,000 nits, and you get an estimated 10 days of regular use on a single charge. In testing, I got closer to eight to nine days as a power user. European users also get NFC payments.
As far as health features go, you get all the basics like continuous heart rate monitoring, blood oxygen rate, heart rate variability, stress tracking, alerts for abnormally high and low heart rates, and skin temperature tracking. It’s also got a daily readiness score and detailed sleep tracking if you’re into recovery metrics. There’s also a Zepp Aura AI chatbot if you ever want to get more in-depth insights into your recovery metrics; it costs an extra $77 yearly including taxes, but it’s also totally optional.
For workouts, it supports 160 different sport types, including HYROX and a new strength training mode that automatically counts reps. The Active 2 also adds offline maps, turn-by-turn directions, the ability to connect to third-party peripherals, and Zepp Coach — an AI-powered coach that can generate custom training plans for you. Built-in GPS with five satellite systems is also included.
My biggest gripes are that the touchscreen is hard to use with sweaty fingers and the onboard AI assistant for voice commands sometimes requires you to enunciate. You do lack advanced health features, like EKGs or sleep apnea detection, but that’s not really the point of something like the Active 2. This is meant to be a classic, basic fitness tracker that happens to look like a watch — and it does that with aplomb.
Best Fitness Watch for Casual Users: Garmin Venu Sq 2
The Garmin Venu Sq 2 is a great replacement for a Fitbit smartwatch. Not only do they look similar, but the Venu Sq 2 has way more fitness features, long battery life, and no subscription.
- Score: 8
- Pros: Bright display, long battery life, tons of training and health features, no subscriptions
- Cons: Cluttered app, proprietary USB-A charger
Where to Buy: $249.99, $179 at Amazon, $249.99 at Walmart, $249.99 at Garmin
Sizes: 40mm with 20mm straps; Weight: 38g; Battery life: Up to 11 days; Display type: OLED touchscreen; GPS: All-systems GNSS; Connectivity: Bluetooth, Ant Plus; Water resistance: 5ATM; Music storage: 4GB (for Music Edition)
The $250 Garmin Venu Sq 2 is the watch I recommend for anyone looking to replace their aging Fitbit Versa 2, 3, or 4. It’s got a similar look and vibe, with a much nicer OLED display and longer battery life.
Garmin is known for its comprehensive fitness tracking, and that’s not an exception here. Of course, you get the basics, like steps and calories burned, but you get a whole lot more, too. There’s built-in GPS for tracking walks, runs, and bike rides, as well as plenty of other sports profiles like yoga and strength training. For smart features, you get push notifications, timers, contactless payments, and a bunch of safety features like Garmin’s Incident Detection, which is its take on fall detection. (You will need to carry your phone with you, however, as this doesn’t have LTE.)
If you want the option of onboard music, you can shell out $50 extra for the Music Edition, which comes with enough storage for about 500 songs. I wouldn’t recommend it, however, as you’ll most likely have your phone on you since this isn’t a true standalone watch.
What I like most about this watch is that it’s one that you can grow with. On top of recovery metrics and sleep tracking, it also has Garmin Coach — a built-in, free training program for beginner and intermediate-level runners hoping to tackle a 5K, 10K, or half marathon. For health tracking, you can monitor heart rate, blood oxygen, intensity minutes (how many minutes of moderate exercise you get per week), stress, hydration, respiratory rate, and menstrual cycles. None of these existing data features are locked behind a paywall; however, Garmin introduced a premium tier earlier in the year that provides personalized AI-powered insights and additional features for $6.99 a month (or $69.99 a year).
One note: there is a Venu 3, which adds a newer heart rate sensor and nap detection. I liked it quite a bit, and it ticks off a lot of the right boxes — except for price. It’s $450, which puts it outside what I’d consider ideal for casual users. Another option is Garmin’s Forerunner 165 — it’s a $249 budget training watch that’s quite similar to the Venu Sq 2 feature-wise, albeit with a sportier vibe.
Basically, go with what you find within your budget. I firmly believe older models are still a good choice if all you want is the fitness-tracking basics. This is especially true since newer software updates often make their way to older Garmins. Garmin users also tend to hang onto their devices for a good while. Strava’s 2023 year-end survey found that the most popular smartwatch among its users was an eight-year-old Garmin!
Best for Serious Outdoor Athletes: Garmin Fenix 7S Pro
The Garmin Fenix 7 Pro line has an updated optical heart rate sensor for improved accuracy. It also has excellent battery life, a slightly brighter MIP display, solar charging, and the option of upgrading to sapphire crystal.
- Score: 8
- Pros: Hands-free flashlight, long battery life, multiband GPS, upgraded heart rate monitor
- Cons: Improved MIP display is still not the easiest to read in dim lighting, too similar to the standard Fenix 7
Where to Buy: $899.99, $736.97 at Amazon, $899.99 at Best Buy, $899.99 at Garmin
Sizes: 7S Pro: 42mm with 20mm straps; 7: 47mm with 22mm straps; 7X: 51mm with 26mm straps; Weight: 7S Pro: 63g (Solar), 58g or 65g (Sapphire Solar, titanium or stainless steel); 7: 79g (Solar), 73g (Sapphire Solar); 7X: 96g (Solar), 89g (Sapphire Solar); Battery life: 7S: up to 11 days, 14 with Solar; 7: up to 18 days, 22 days with solar; 7X: up to 28 days, 37 with solar; Display type: MIP touchscreen; GPS: All-systems GNSS and dual-frequency GPS; Connectivity: Bluetooth, Ant Plus, Wi-Fi; Water resistance: 10ATM; Music storage: Up to 32GB
Garmin’s Fenix 7 series is no joke, and the Fenix 7 Pro lineup takes it up a notch. It’s got built-in multiband GPS, solar charging on all models, the option of touchscreen or button navigation, topographical maps, and extensive data tracking capabilities. Plus, every Fenix 7 Pro model has a hands-free LED flashlight, an upgraded heart rate sensor, and an improved memory-in-pixel display that’s slightly easier to read in low lighting.
Garmin wearables are also known for providing extensive in-depth metrics, and the Fenix 7 Pro lineup is no exception. You get excellent recovery metrics as well as helpful training guides and coaching programs. The best part is that Garmin doesn’t charge extra for those features. That’s good news, as these are expensive watches.
I appreciate how quickly these Fenix 7 watches can pick up a GPS signal. That’s a must if you’re training in the dead of winter. These watches can also take a beating. All models are built to military-grade standards and feature up to 10ATM of water resistance. That means they’re more than capable of a dunk in the ocean.
Although the screen is brighter, MIP displays still aren’t my absolute favorite — the OLED on the Garmin Epix 2 and the Epix Pro are much easier on the eyes. It’s admittedly tough to pick between the Fenix 7, Fenix 7 Pro, Epix 2, and Epix Pro lineups — especially now that the Epix Pro also has great battery life, the LED flashlight, and now comes in multiple sizes. What it boils down to is whether you prioritize a brighter display, longer battery life, or price.
Personally, I prefer the Epix Pro for better readability, but the Fenix 7 Pro is the better choice if this is your first introduction to Garmin’s platform. You’ll get better battery life, the same LED flashlight, all the same training features, and a lower starting price. You should also consider Garmin’s Forerunner 570 and Forerunner 970, which were released in late May for $549.99 and $749.99, respectively.
Both watches have an OLED screen, built-in microphone and speaker system, skin temperature sensors, and the ability to generate a daily report that includes information about your upcoming workouts, events, estimated sleep needs, and the weather. The new watches also support Garmin Coach, a free tool that helps you train for fitness events like marathons. The 970 has three exclusive fitness features called running tolerance, running economy, and step speed loss, which analyze your running efficiency and give you suggestions on how many miles to run each week. Some of these features require Garmin’s $170 HRM 600 chest strap, which provides non-wrist-based heart rate metrics.
Technically, there’s the Fenix 8 series on the block. That said, I still think the standard Fenix 7 or 7 Pro lineup is the better overall value. The Fenix 8 adds diving features and voice assistant capabilities, but it also ups the standard Fenix 7’s starting price of $650 by an additional $350. That’s tough to swallow, especially since retailers may offer discounts on older models to get rid of existing
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Last Modified: October 17, 2025 at 1:39 am
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