Fitness
Which Fitbit fitness tracker should you buy in 2024?
Fitbit
The Fitbit is one of the most popular fitness trackers on the market. But with five different options — plus the special basic Fitbit Ace 3 for kids — it can be hard to know which Fitbit makes the most sense for you, especially when a lot of the features overlap. For example, every Fitbit is water resistant down to 50 meters so you can work up a sweat or even take a swim while keeping your smartwatch or fitness tracker on your wrist.
They all offer a smart wake alarm, too. This handy feature that lets you set the general time you want to wake up in the morning and when it gets close to that time, your Fitbit will monitor for the optimal sleep stage and wake you up. That way, you can start your day feeling refreshed, rather than groggy.
So what are the important differences between each of the latest Fitbits on the market in 2024? Here’s a quick guide to help you figure out what each one can do so you can decide which one fits you best.
Best Fitbit for daily use: Fitbit Versa 4
Amazon
The Fitbit Versa 4 is a smartwatch and fitness tracker in one, featuring built-in Google apps like Google Maps and Google Wallet, along with the ability to make on-wrist calls when it’s connected to your phone via Bluetooth. You can also get text and calendar notifications as well as notifications from your other favorite apps.
The fitness tracker can track heart rate, skin temperature, breathing rate and blood oxygen levels while also tracking steps, calories burned, distance and other activity metrics throughout your day. It can track more than 40 exercises and even give you a personalized cardio fitness score based on how well your body uses oxygen during a workout. That way, you can get a better sense of what your current fitness level is and what you should focus on to improve it.
This makes it a great choice for anyone who wants a watch that can track their workouts and provide key performance and fitness insights but also gives you the versatility and functionality of an everyday smartwatch. The 4.4-star rated Fitbit Versa 4 is $200 on Amazon.
What we like about the Fitbit Versa 4:
- Convenient smartwatch features like on-wrist calling and app notifications, built-in Google Maps and your choice of Google Wallet or Fitbit pay.
- Track your heart rate, blood oxygen, skin temperature, breathing and activity levels.
- Track heart rate variability and get notifications when your resting heart rate changes, which can be an early indicator of poor sleep quality, stress, overtraining or a potential heart condition worth consulting your doctor about.
$200 at Amazon
Best Fitbit for stress management: Fitbit Sense 2
Amazon
The Fitbit Sense 2 is the smartwatch that does it all. Answer calls on your wrist. Pay with Fitbit Pay or Google Wallet using your watch. Track your routes with built-in GPS. And, of course, it comes with all your essentials like heart rate, blood oxygen and activity tracking.
On top of those features, the Sense 2 adds an EDA sensor so you can take an ECG to get a more accurate heart rate reading. But the most standout feature that separates the Sense 2 from the pack is the all-day body response tracking.
Using the EDA sensor, skin temperature sensor and heart rate sensor, the Sense 2 constantly monitors for fluctuations in your stress level throughout the day. When it spikes, you’ll get a notification so you can pause to reflect or use the built-in mindfulness and breathing exercises to relax.
At the end of the day, you’ll get a report that shows when your physical stress levels spiked and dropped so you can better identify patterns around when, where and why you’re feeling stressed.
Regularly listed at $300, it’s usually the most expensive Fitbit in the lineup but those advanced health and wellness features make it worth the price for anyone who’s trying to improve their overall wellness alongside their workout performance.
Right now, you can get the premium stress management smartwatch at Amazon for just $200.
What we like about the Fitbit Sense 2:
- With on-wrist phone calls, built-in Alexa and notifications from your calendar, email and other apps, the Sense 2 is a fully-functional smartwatch with all the bells and whistles.
- The all-day body response tracking uses advanced tracking features to continuously monitor your physical stress levels so you can look for patterns and identify the best ways to reduce your stress.
- Use Fitbit Pay or Google Wallet with your watch.
$200 at Amazon
Best Fitbit for intense workouts and training sessions: Fitbit Charge 6
Amazon
The Fitbit Charge 6 is a slim, lightweight wearable — more so than other Fitbits. So it won’t feel clunky even when you’re running or lifting weights. It has Fitbit Pay and built-in GPS so you can go on a run without your phone, and still be able to navigate your way home (or pay for a coffee).
This makes the Charge 6 the ideal fitness tracker for athletes who don’t like the bulk of a smartwatch but still want some of that functionality.
The Charge 6 also has a skin temperature sensor and an electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor so you’ll get detailed insights into your health and wellness. You can even take an ECG for a more accurate read on your heart. That said, the Charge 6 won’t continuously monitor changes in your skin’s electrical charge for an all-day body-response tracking like the Sense 2 above or the Pixel Watch 2 below.
You can get the popular fitness tracker for $140 on Amazon (reduced from $160). No wonder it’s earned over 2,000 five-star ratings on Amazon after being out for less than a year.
What we like about the Fitbit Charge 6:
- This fitness tracker includes all the most advanced features for health, fitness, stress and sleep tracking.
- The Charge 6 is the only Fitbit aside from the Sense 2 that comes with an EDA sensor so you can monitor your stress levels.
- The built-in GPS lets you track your route and navigate back home during your run or bike ride without your phone in tow.
$140 at Amazon
The best Fitbit for beginners: Fitbit Inspire 3
Amazon
The Fitbit Inspire 3 is a great introductory fitness tracker for people who are trying to incorporate more exercise into their routine. It’s lightweight and unobtrusive so you’ll barely notice it’s there, but it can still give you comprehensive insights into your overall health and fitness levels along with periodic reminders to get moving if you’ve been sitting too long.
The slim, lightweight Inspire 3 can go up to 10 days in between charges, giving it the longest battery life of any Fitbit. Part of that extended battery life is the result of ditching the built-in GPS you get with the Versa 4, Sense 2 and Charge 5. But you can still connect to your phone’s GPS via Bluetooth so you don’t completely lose that functionality.
Aside from GPS, the Inspire 3 is also missing a temperature sensor and EDA sensor but it still packs many of the advanced health and activity tracking features you look for in a Fitibit. That includes heart rate, blood oxygen levels and your daily activity levels. It can even send you notifications when your heart rhythm shows signs of being irregular.
At $100, the 4.4-star rated fitness tracker is also the most budget-friendly option from the Fitbit lineup (with the exception of the Fitbit Ace 3 which is built for kids).
What we like about the Fitbit Inspire 3:
- The battery lasts up to 10 days in between charges.
- The budget-friendly fitness tracker still offers the essentials like heart rate, blood oxygen and activity tracking.
- The slim, lightweight design is super comfortable for wearing all day long.
$100 at Amazon
A stylish Fitbit that doubles as jewelry: Fitbit Luxe
Amazon
The Fitbit Luxe is a fitness tracker designed for people who don’t like the look of fitness trackers. It’s slim, sleek and comes with a variety of stylish bands including a timeless gold stainless steel link band that looks more like a bracelet than a fitness tracker. You can also change the clock face on the display to better coordinate with your outfit for the day.
It’s not all about the looks, though. The Luxe also boasts all your fitness tracking essentials like heart rate, blood oxygen and activity. In terms of functionality, it’s on par with the Inspire 3 but with a shorter battery life.
Get the stylish fitness tracker while it’s on sale at Amazon for $98, reduced from its usual price of $130.
What we like about the Fitbit Luxe:
- The sleek, stylish fitness tracker that looks more like fashion accessory.
- Aside from the battery life, the fitness tracking features you get are on par with the Inspire 3.
- Customize the watch face to coordinate with your outfit.
$98 at Amazon
Honorable mention: Google Pixel Watch 2
Amazon
While it doesn’t have the Fitbit name, the Pixel Watch 2 does have Fitbit technology since Google bought the leading fitness tracker brand in 2019. That includes blood oxygen tracking, a skin temperature sensor and a continuous electrodermal activity (cEDA) sensor. Like the Sense 2, the Pixel Watch 2 continuously measures changes in the electrical currents on the surface of your skin to help track your stress levels.
Those new sensors give the Pixel Watch 2 the ability to offer new health insights like a sleep score and daily readiness score. One of the most impressive additions is “body response,” a measure of stress and excitement that can send you a notification when it detects heightened stress and take you through guided breathing or mindfulness exercises to help you find your calm.
Beyond stress management, the new Pixel Watch 2 packs tons of new fitness tools. You can now do heart rate zone training with real-time feedback and coaching during your workout when you go above or below your target zone. You can also do pace training, with similar real-time alerts when you go above or below your target pace.
Get the stylish smartwatch at Amazon for $350.
Top features of the Pixel Watch 2:
- New Gmail and Calendar integrations let you reply to emails and accept or decline invites from your watch.
- Safety Check lets you set a timer for your watch to check in and, if you don’t confirm you’re ok, it will send your real-time location to your emergency contacts or contact emergency services for you.
- Google Assistant lets you request health and fitness insights with your voice.
- Automatic exercise detection is available for seven exercises.
- The improved aluminum housing is 30 grams lighter, making it more comfortable to wear while working out.
$350 at Amazon
Shop more top-rated fitness trackers on Amazon:
People with high cardiorespiratory fitness were 36% less likely to experience depression and 39% less likely to develop dementia than those with low cardiorespiratory fitness. Even small improvements in fitness were linked to a lower risk. Experts believe that exercise’s ability to boost blood flow to the brain, reduce bodywide inflammation, and improve stress regulation may explain the connection.
Fitness
These 20-Minute Burpee Workouts Replaced His Entire Gym Routine – and Transformed His Physique
While many swear by them, most people see burpees as a form of punishment – usually dished out drill sergeant-style by overzealous bootcamp PTs. Often the final blow in an already brutal workout, burpees are designed to test cardiovascular fitness, muscular endurance and mental grit. Love them or loathe them, they deliver every time.
For Max Edwards – aka Busy Dad Training on YouTube – they became a simple but highly effective way to stay fit and lean during lockdown. Once a committed powerlifter, spending upwards of 80 minutes a day in the gym, he was forced to overhaul his approach due to fatherhood, lockdown and a schedule that no longer allowed for long, structured lifting sessions.
‘Even though I was putting in hours and hours into the gym and even though my physique was pretty good, I wasn’t becoming truly excellent at any physical discipline,’ he explained in a YouTube video.
‘I loved the intentionality of training,’ says Edwards. ‘The fact that every session has a point, every rep in every set is helping you get towards a training goal, and I loved that there was a clear way of gauging progression – feeling like I was developing competence and moving towards mastery.’
Why He Walked Away From Powerlifting
Despite that structure, Edwards began to question whether powerlifting was sustainable long-term.
‘My sessions were very taxing on my central nervous system. I was exhausted between sessions. It felt as if I needed at least nine hours of sleep each night just to function.’
He also noted that his appetite was consistently high.
But the biggest drawback was time.
‘I could not justify taking 80 minutes a day away from my family for what felt like a self-centred pursuit,’ he says.
A Simpler Approach That Stuck
‘Over the course of that year I fixed my relationship with alcohol and I developed, for the first time in my adult life, a relationship with physical training,’ says Edwards.
With limited time and no access to equipment, he turned to burpees. Just two variations, four times a week, with each session lasting 20 minutes.
‘My approach in each workout was very simple. On a six-count training day I would do as many six-counts as I possibly could within 20 minutes. On a Navy Seal training day I would do as many Navy Seal burpees as I could within 20 minutes – then in the next workout I would simply try to beat the number I had managed previously.’
This style of training is known as AMRAP – as many reps (or rounds) as possible.
The Results
Edwards initially saw the routine as nothing more than a six-month stopgap to stay in shape. But that quickly changed.
‘I remember catching sight of myself in the mirror one morning and I was utterly baffled by the man I saw looking back at me.’
He found himself in the best shape of his life. His energy levels improved, his resting heart rate dropped and his physique changed in ways that powerlifting hadn’t quite delivered.
‘It has been five years since I have set foot in a gym,’ he says. ‘That six-month training practice has become the defining training practice of my life – and for five years I have trained for no more than 80 minutes per week.’
The Burpee Workouts
1/ 6-Count Burpees
20-minute AMRAP, twice a week
How to do them:
- Start standing, feet shoulder-width apart
- Crouch down and place your hands on the floor (count 1)
- Jump your feet back into a high plank (count 2)
- Lower into the bottom of a push-up (count 3)
- Push back up to plank (count 4)
- Jump your feet forward to your hands (count 5)
- Stand up straight (count 6)
20-minute AMRAP, twice a week
How to do them:
- Start standing, feet shoulder-width apart
- Crouch down and place your hands on the floor
- Jump your feet back into a high plank
- Perform a push-up (chest to floor)
- At the top, bring your right knee to your right elbow, then return
- Perform another push-up
- Bring your left knee to your left elbow, then return
- Perform a third push-up
- Jump your feet forward
- Stand or jump to finish
Kate is a fitness writer for Men’s Health UK where she contributes regular workouts, training tips and nutrition guides. She has a post graduate diploma in Sports Performance Nutrition and before joining Men’s Health she was a nutritionist, fitness writer and personal trainer with over 5k hours coaching on the gym floor. Kate has a keen interest in volunteering for animal shelters and when she isn’t lifting weights in her garden, she can be found walking her rescue dog.
You check your smartwatch after a run. Your fitness score has dropped. You’ve burnt hardly any calories. Your recovery score is really low. It’s telling you to take the next 72 hours off exercise.
The worst bit? The whole run felt amazing.
So why is your watch telling you the opposite?
Ultimately, it’s because smartwatches and other fitness trackers aren’t always accurate.
Smartwatches can shape how you exercise
Using wearable fitness technology, such as smartwatches, has been one of the top fitness trends for close to a decade. Millions of people around the world use them daily.
These devices shape how people think about health and exercise. For example, they provide data about how many calories you’ve burnt, how fit you are, how recovered you are after exercise, and whether you’re ready to exercise again.
But your smartwatch doesn’t measure most of these metrics directly. Instead, many common metrics are estimates. In other words, they’re not as accurate as you might think.
1. Calories burned
Calorie tracking is one of the most popular features on smartwatches. However, the accuracy leaves a lot to be desired.
Wearable devices can under- or overestimate energy expenditure (often expressed as calories burned) by more than 20 per cent. These errors also vary between activities. For example, strength training, cycling and high-intensity interval training can lead to even larger errors.
This matters because people often use these numbers to guide how much they eat.
For example, if your watch overestimates calories burned, you might think you need to eat more food than you really need, which could result in weight gain. Conversely, if your watch underestimates calories burned, it could lead you to under-eat, negatively impacting your exercise performance.
2. Step counts
Step counts are a great way to measure general physical activity, but wearables don’t capture them perfectly.
Smartwatches can under-count steps by about 10 per cent under normal exercise conditions. Activities such as pushing a pram, carrying weights, or walking with limited arm swing likely make step counts less accurate, as smartwatches rely on arm movement to register steps.
For most people, this isn’t a major problem, and step counts are still useful for tracking general activity levels. But view them as a guide, rather than a precise measure.
3. Heart rate
Smartwatches estimate your heart rate using sensors that measure changes in blood flow through the veins in your wrist.
This method is accurate at rest or low intensities, but gets less accurate as you increase exercise intensity.
Arm movement, sweat, skin tone and how tightly you wear the watch can also impact the heart rate measure it spits out. This means the accuracy can vary between people.
This can be problematic for people who use heart rate zones to guide their training, as small errors can lead to training at the wrong intensity.
4. Sleep tracking
Almost every smartwatch on the market gives you a “sleep score” and breaks your night into stages of light, deep and REM sleep.
The gold standard for measuring sleep is polysomnography. This is a lab-based test that records brain activity. But smartwatches estimate sleep using movement and heart rate.
This means they can detect when you’re asleep or awake reasonably well. But they are much less accurate at identifying sleep stages.
So even if your watch says you had “poor deep sleep”, this may not be the case.
5. Recovery scores
Most smartwatches track heart rate variability and use this, with your sleep score, to create a “readiness” or “recovery” score.
Heart rate variability reflects how your body responds to stress. In the lab it is measured using an electrocardiogram. But smartwatches estimate it using wrist-based sensors, which are much more prone to measurement errors.
This means most recovery metrics are based on two inaccurate measures (heart rate variability and sleep quality). This results in a metric that may not meaningfully reflect your recovery.
As a result, if your watch says you’re not recovered, you might skip training — even if you feel good (and are actually good to go).
6. VO₂max
Most devices estimate your VO₂max — which indicates your maximal fitness. It’s the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during exercise.
The best way to measure VO₂max involves wearing a mask to analyse the amount of oxygen you breathe in and out, to determine how much oxygen you’re using to create energy.
But your watch cannot measure oxygen use. It estimates it based on your heart rate and movement.
But smartwatches tend to overestimate VO₂max in less active people and underestimate VO₂max in fitter ones.
This means the number on your watch may not reflect your true fitness.
What should you do?
While the data from your smartwatch is prone to errors, that doesn’t mean it is completely worthless.
These devices still offer a way to help you track general trends over time, but you should not pay attention to daily fluctuations or specific numbers.
It’s also important you pay attention to how you feel, how you perform and how you recover. This is likely to give you even more insight than what your smartwatch says.
Hunter Bennett is a lecturer in exercise science at Adelaide University. This piece first appeared on The Conversation.
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