Of all the brands of fitness trackers on the market, Fitbit takes the trophy for being the most well known, and for good reason. The company has been iterating and spinning out different versions of its original Fitbit Ultra smart pedometer since 2011 (2008 if you start counting since the initial public concept reveal). Its latest and most advanced fitness tracker to date, the Fitbit Surge ($249.95), is a rather sophisticated piece of machinery in the form of a touch-screen wristwatch. It not only tracks your steps and sleep, but also alerts you to incoming phone calls and text messages, keeps tabs on your heart rate with a built-in optical heart rate monitor, uses GPS to track outdoor activity, and has much more functionality especially for runners.
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The new Basis Peak ($199) is the best activity tracker for fitness you can buy on the market today. It looks like an ordinary watch, and a slightly sporty one at that. But the magic is in how it automatically detects when you're walking, running, sleeping, and bicycling to measure all those activities when you do them. And "automatically" is the operative word there. You never have to put it into sleep mode or running mode. It does that part for you.
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Though there are dozens of oddball exercise monitors on the market that measure lactic acid buildup or quantify how high you jump, the very best fitness trackers make sense in your real life. They may sell the promise of motivation to exercise more, but they are truly useful in the sense that they give you better insight into your current lifestyle—not the one you wish you led. The new Fitbit Charge HR ($149.95) works for everyone. It measures things that universally matter to everyone's health, like steps, heart rate, and sleep. The Charge HR is nearly identical to the Fitbit Charge$109.00 at Amazon, except includes an optical heart rate monitor (HRM), which brings a whole lot more value than the $20 price difference would indicate. Both are slim, comfortable, and secure on the wrist,
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There's a lot to love about the Mio Fuse, a new wrist-worn activity tracker with an optical heart rate monitor (HRM) that's designed for truly active people, like runners and those who do interval training. Unique features make it undeniably the best and most convenient wrist-worn HRM on the market, and the fact that it also tracks steps, distance, and calories burned makes it useful on rest days, too. For that, plus its very attractive selling price of $149, the Mio Fuse$104.00 at Mio is our Editors' Choice among activity trackers for sports enthusiasts.
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The Misfit Flash Link is basically a Misfit Flash$29.99 at Dell without a wristband. It's only $19.99, making it one of the least expensive fitness trackers on the market. You can track activity like steps and miles, set fitness goals, and—new to Misfit—control music, take selfies, and flip through slide presentations by pressing its button. Those new features will be made available across the rest of the Misfit wearable line like the original Flash and the Misfit Shine$39.99 at Amazon, but for now they're only on the Link. If you want to dabble in self-quantification, but don't want to spend more than a night at the movies, you'll find a lot to like in the Flash Link. It's our Editors' Choice for low-cost fitness trackers.
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On Tuesday, the first day I set up my Garmin Vivoactive ($249), I assumed I'd be recharging it come Friday afternoon. I had plans for this mighty little wristwatch activity tracker, after all. I would use its built-in GPS to record outdoor runs, let it monitor my tossing and turning each night while I slept, and feel its vibrations every time it received a notification from my smartphone. It also vibrated every so often to remind me to move. Between all those functions, plus checking the weather on the watch frequently and asking it to locate my phone, I was downright amazed, come Monday morning, when the Garmin Vivoactive$174.93 at Amazon still had 40 percent of its battery power remaining.
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A special class of fitness trackers appeal to people who have mastered taking 10,000 steps per day and want more information about their bodies than what a basic tracker provides. The Polar A360 ($199.95) fits right into this category, and it's one of the more attractive options available. The waterproof, wrist-worn A360 includes an optical heart rate monitor (HRM) and a number of smart features that coach you toward meeting your goals every day. It also supports push notifications from Android and iOS. And the way the A360 displays heart rate both on the band during activity and in the app after makes it easy for novices to actually put that data to use. While Polar's companion app, Flow, used to be finicky and difficult to use, recent updates have improved it measurably. That mak
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The best activity trackers are the ones that make users want to keep using them. They fit into your life effortlessly so that you don't think about all the silent work they're doing throughout the day: counting your steps, tracking your sleep, reminding you to move when you're idle too long. A new activity tracker called Orbit ($119), from the European fitness company Runtastic, could quietly become one such background player for monitoring your health and fitness. It collects most of the same data as other similarly priced fitness trackers, but also has a few special features.
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The TomTom Spark Cardio + Music is a fitness tracker for just about everyone: Bicyclists, gym rats, runners, and swimmers can all record their workouts and monitor their heart rates with it. But for $249.99, you're paying for more than just the ability to track your trip to the gym—you're also getting the ability to listen to music during your workout without your phone nearby. In addition to a large monochrome display, a lightweight design, and good battery life, the Spark has local storage for your favorite tunes. It's a solid choice if you're looking to seamlessly incorporate music into your workout, though our top activity tracker is still the Fitbit Surge$199.00 at Amazon for its robust companion app and its ability to deliver messages and notifications from your smart
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