10 Best Fitness Tracker Watches in 2022 (Personal Trainer-Reviewed)

Gentry Washburn is the manager and head personal trainer for her local fitness facility. She graduated from college with her bachelor's in Exercise Science and has been in the industry for the past five years since. She's super passionate about fitness and how our bodies work!

With all of that experience under her belt, we wanted to ask Gentry to review our buying guide below and provide any extra tips she could from the eyes of a personal trainer. Read on to see her insight, and follow her on Instagram for a peek into her work and life.

We chose the 10 best fitness tracker watches based on the following criteria:

• What data it tracks
• GPS capability
• Battery life
• Resistance to damage, such as being waterproof and shatterproof
• Which group of people they're best for, such as fitness experts, beginners, and children

For more detailed information, be sure to check out our Buying Guide below the 10 best list!

This list of the 10 best fitness trackers to buy online was chosen with your physical fitness goals and overall lifestyle as the focus.

*Please note that these products were chosen after extensive research by mybest writers. The choices are not necessarily affiliated with or recommended by Gentry Washburn unless explicitly said so.

There are a variety of factors you need to consider before buying your fitness tracker watch. Aside from how the device looks and feels on your wrist, its core purpose is key part of your purchasing decision. This purpose can usually be discovered when looking at the five factors below.

Fitness trackers should mainly be chosen on the specific lifestyle goals you have and the analytics you care about tracking. You don’t need something high-end if you aren’t an athlete and you just want to stay fit after working in the office.

Most fitness tracker watches use an optical heart rate monitor that tracks pulse through changes in light. Although they are not as accurate as chest straps, wrist-based heart rate monitors are more convenient for all exercises.

Having a fitness tracker watch that reports reliable heart rate data is vitally important for knowing when you are overtraining or undertraining. 

Generally, a moderately intense workout will have your heart rate at 50 to 70 percent of its maximum and a vigorously intense workout will have your heart rate at 70 to 85 percent of its maximum. To calculate your maximum, simply subtract your age from 220. For example, a 45-year-old's maximum heart rate is 175.

Consider how the watch monitors your heart rate. Many indicate this visually, but if it's better for your uses, some watches will send you an alert if your heart rate goes outside the normal scope of activity.

Fitness watches that include a calorie tracker can provide useful information on the calories you burn. After entering personal data into the watch such as your weight, body mass index (BMI), height and age, the watch will estimate your basal metabolic rate. Basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the caloric amount your body burns at rest.

Knowing your BMR will help the watch give you a somewhat accurate estimate of the calories you burn in a day or the calories you burn during certain activities. This can aid you in monitoring overall health or help you lose weight.

Data is collected by the amount and type of sensors in the device. Accelerometers, magnetometers, and heart rate sensors are some of the sensors that fitness tracker watches have now. 

These sensors help you get more accurate data when you're swimming, running, sleeping, and at rest. With that said, there are different categories of data that someone may want to track on a daily basis, including but not limited to:

• Pedometer, for counting your daily footsteps
• Distance traveled, useful for those counting miles or kilometers on walks and hikes
• Vo2 Max, measures the volume of oxygen your body utilizes while exercising
• Sleep data, useful for tracking the amount of sleep you're getting or if your sleeping cycles are regular
• Stress monitoring, usually measures your heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV) to give you a reading on your body's stress levels
• Menstruation cycle tracking, for keeping track of one's menstrual cycle and ovulation times

GPS Tracking on your fitness watch can be a useful tool. It can help you figure out routes while walking or running and can aid you in navigating should you get lost on a hike. Emergency services have even utilized GPS-enabled fitness watches to save trapped hikers.

There are two types of GPS options in a fitness tracker: connected GPS and built-in GPS. If your fitness tracker has connected GPS, you have to carry your phone around with you or have it near you while you are exercising. For athletes who don’t want to carry their phones around, finding a fitness tracker watch with built-in GPS functionality is a necessity.

Having a device that is resistant to certain environments will bring peace of mind while you're wearing it. Water-resistance is one of the most common resistances folks look for. You can look for the IPX rating or ATM rating on your tracker, which helps you find out the level of water resistance a certain watch has. 

IPX is a rating used for water resistance and ATM rating is used for depth resistance, although ATM is much more common to find listed, as it also implies water resistance.

IPX6, for example, protects against general splashing or rain, but IPX8 can be submerged and used for swimming. However, ATM rating is used to determine how deep one can go in the water. Simply look for the number listed and multiply it times ten.

One ATM is used up to 10 meters, three ATM is used up to 30 meters, five ATM is used up to 50 meters, and so on. Five ATM is a very common rating on fitness trackers.

Certain fitness tracker watches are built with Gorilla glass displays to prevent scratching, a brand of strengthened glass made by Corning. There are other resistances to look for if you are doing more extreme sports. Resistances to snow, sand, dirt, and mud are needed if you are going to do obstacle course racing or go skiing down a mountain.

Before purchasing a fitness watch, one must consider their own personal needs. A lot of complicated data may just get in your way if you're getting it for casual calorie burning or purchasing it for a child. 

You will want to consider a simple interface, simple features, and how easy it is to find and access the features you choose. Some fitness trackers come with automatic features you don't even have to activate, such as automatic calorie counting and step counting.

A more fitness-minded individual may want a more detailed and complicated watch, with deeper features and more technical, data-driven information. Some watches let you set goals, like taking 10,000 steps or burning 500 calories. Devices may also be pre-loaded with tracking for your favorite sport or workout or have hydration tracking.

Although, with some watches giving an alert when you've been sitting for too long or offering ideas for stretches you can try, fitness trackers can also be useful for more sedentary people.

The battery life when choosing your fitness tracker watch can be a dealbreaker if it's too low. If you don’t mind having to charge your device’s battery often, then this isn’t a concern. However, folks such as athletes who go on long hikes or people who tend to forget to charge their devices would prefer something that has the ability to run for days on end.

It's also good to consider watches that have fast charging capabilities, which will increase charging speed, some taking the watch from zero percent to eighty percent in only 45 minutes. Method of charging is also useful to look for, as it can vary from USB, USB-C, wireless and more. Be mindful of proprietary chargers, as they can only be used with the device they came with, and are not universal.

In the age we live in, fitness trackers are for much more than fitness. Look for extra useful features that can be useful in everyday life. Bluetooth music controls can be found on some watches, enabling you to sync your watch to playlists on Spotify, Apple Music, and more. This is great for exercising to music but can also be useful for any casual wearer.

Some fitness trackers include cashless payment options as well, allowing you to easily pay for items without worrying about carrying your wallet or purse with you. Features like Apple Pay allow you to sync your credit cards to your watch to make purchases quick and simple.

Still have some questions about fitness tracker watches? Here's what Gentry had to say in answer to a commonly asked one!

Gentry says, "This is a question that I get asked a lot by my own clients. For the most part, yes. But, remember, it all depends on the metrics that you put in depending on your personal weight, height, and more. When I work out with clients and do the same exact workout, our calories burned are always different."

This fitness watch is great for not only physical health but mental health! Photographer and mental health advocate Michelle Tirronen recommends this fitness tracker for those trying to manage heart rate and stress.

Your fitness goals don't (and shouldn't) end at just owning a fitness tracker. Here are some other products you can use to achieve maximum health.

If you're looking for some more recommendations or perhaps you don't know where to begin, check out Amazon's best-selling fitness trackers for inspiration.

Author: Kenny Soto

Updated by: James Bunes, 12/9/2021

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