Best Fitbit 2022

If you're looking for a smartwatch or a more affordable fitness tracker, Fitbit is probably one of the most notable brands on your radar. This company has just about every segment of the market covered, so you're bound to find a device that will work for you and help you reach all your fitness goals.

The variety of Fitbits out there is a bit overwhelming, and to help narrow your search, we’ve made a comprehensive list of the best products they offers. Whether you're looking for something that'll just count your steps or a device with a more robust list of health tracking, like 24/7 heart rate monitoring, blood oxygen levels, or GPS, there's a Fitbit for you. Some premium models can even guide you through workouts, with each activity displayed on the watch's screen. While others offer text, phone notifications, and even voice assistants, so you're never disconnected. Check out our favorite Fitbits below.

TL;DR – These are the Best Fitbits:

1. Fitbit Charge 5

Best Fitbit Fitness Band

Fitbit continues adding to its lineup of fitness trackers and smartwatches with fitness features at its heart, but the Fitbit Charge 5 still gives you the most bang for your buck. This device is just as capable as the company's more expensive smartwatches, and you’ll just be sacrificing some screen space, voice control, and storing music on the device. But you’re getting it for fitness anyways, so the most important part is the tracking, and this model offers some serious tracking for everything from exercise and your heart rate to your stress, sleep, and even your heart rhythm with its ECG function. And it all is displayed across a bright, colorful AMOLED touchscreen.

The Fitbit Charge 5 does a whole lot more than just the basic tracking you’d expect. It automatically detects a variety of activities, while a built-in GPS lets you attach locations and distances to your exercises. But unfortunately, you don’t get an altimeter to see how high you climb on hikes. Beyond fitness, this Fitbit can display notifications from your phone and let you send quick replies through Android devices. Support for Fitbit Pay means you can leave your cash and cards at home when you go for a run or bike ride and still stop to buy a calorie booster midway with just your band. You won’t have to recharge it often either, as you get up to seven days worth of battery life. Though if you prefer to have the time just a glance away, then the always-on display feature may be worth the tradeoff to battery life.

2. Fitbit Versa 3

Best Fitbit Smartwatch

The Fitbit Versa 3 is the smartwatch-meets-fitness tracker you've been looking for. This model offers a sizable AMOLED touch display, letting you see all the details of your exercises alongside notifications and plenty more in bright, full color. And you can swap around watch faces to suit your style or needs throughout the day. This display also helps save on battery life compared to the LCD options found on some other smartwatches — we're talking over six days. There’s even a quick charge feature, giving you an entire day's worth of juice in just 12 minutes.

Now, the Versa 3 is packing smarts for both fitness and everyday use. You get a combination of sensors and a GPS, allowing you to track tons of different exercises, including swimming, thanks to the water resistance down to 50 meters. It can even guide you through exercises by displaying various workouts. Of course, you’ve got a suite of other sensors for collecting health data, including heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, and sleep. And you can set reminders when it’s time to get up and move around or keep tabs on your fitness goals. When paired with your phone, you can get push notifications from apps, while the support of Alexa or Google Assistant allows you to perform various actions with just your voice. Google Assistant even talks back to you over the watch’s integrated speaker. If you want to leave your phone at home during a workout, the watch offers a small amount of storage to add some music or podcasts for on-the-go listening, too.

3. Fitbit Sense

Best Health Monitoring Fitbit

If you like the Fitbit Versa 3, the Fitbit Sense takes all of that and adds a dash more health monitoring. This smartwatch not only automatically tracks various fitness activities and monitors your heart rate, but it will also check your blood oxygen saturation levels and skin temperature. There’s even a monitor to measure your stress using electrodermal activity (EDA) responses, and it takes into account both your physical and emotional stress. After the quick scan, you’re prompted to enter how you’re feeling, and you can then go back and review everything, looking for trends. So this watch doesn't only aid in monitoring your physical health but also your mental wellbeing.

Combining many of these features with 6-day battery life, the Fitbit Sense will let you monitor your health day and night. There's even a GPS built-in to keep track of distance and pace whether you're hiking, biking, or running. And additional features like meditation tools and exercises you can follow along to ensure you’re in the best shape inside and out. Beyond health, you get a variety of smartwatch features to make it a great all-in-one device, including the ability to receive and respond to notifications, the use of Alexa or Google Assistant, and making payments with a tap using Fitbit Pay.

4. Fitbit Inspire 2

Best Budget Band

When buying a budget fitness tracker, you want to ensure that it's doing more than the bare minimum: step counting. While it can be handy to check your baseline activity by monitoring how many steps you're getting each day, the Fitbit Inspire 2 goes well beyond that while still remaining affordable at under $70. The small, unobtrusive screen isn’t colorful like other Fitbits but is easy to swipe through and find vital information. It can even notify you about incoming phone calls or pings from your phone’s apps, so you can decide if it’s worth taking a break from your workout to check out.

As for fitness, the Fitbit Inspire 2 counts your steps and automatically detects various exercises to track and catalog them for you. Though you lose out on the GPS with this model, it can still monitor your heart rate to see just how hard you're working. With a water-resistant design that can go down to 50 meters below, you're safe to take this fitness band in the pool and shower. Honestly, you really never have to take it off except roughly every ten days to recharge the battery. That means you can take advantage of the sleep tracking on board to get the best zzzs of your life.

5. Fitbit Ace 3

Best Band for Kids

Fitbits for kids? Giving your kids a fitness tracker might seem a bit extra, but you'll be surprised at how it'll challenge and excite them about getting up and moving around. For tracking, this fitness band includes the basics with a pedometer to keep track of steps, fitness activity monitoring, and sleep tracking. Since this model is for kids, it lacks some more premium features like a heart rate monitor, calories burned, and other advanced sensors, but that keeps the list price down to $80, and you can often find it for much cheaper.

This fitness band is built for kids from the ground up with the colorful bands to the cutesy animated clock faces featuring a bunny, a cat, a martian, or a spaceship design. Aside from being a fashion item, kids can also use it to challenge family and friends to step competitions and send messages in the app. Or they can challenge themselves by setting activity goals and receiving little digital badges for reaching them. It has also been ruggedized for school life with a swim-proof design, silicone around the screen, and battery life that stretches out to eight days.

6. Fitbit Luxe

Best Stylish Fitbit

Admittedly, fitness trackers aren’t the epitome of fashion, but to keep track of your steps and health with a little more style, go for the Fitbit Luxe. It takes Fitbit’s tracking tech and packs it into a classy little number that flies under the radar with its bracelet-like design. You’ll get your choice of stainless steel frames in soft gold, black, or platinum. That frame blends smoothly with the rounded glass AMOLED display of the tracker, and you can customize your watch face using an app, making it unique to you. There are even multiple band options to snag, like a silicone band that comes in several color options, including orchid, black, and white, or go for the soft gold link band from jewelry designer Gorjana. You’re bound to find an option that best fits your aesthetic.

The small footprint of the Fitbit Luxe keeps it subtle on your wrist. But it still delivers capable tracking that can keep up with you throughout the week, thanks to the 5-day battery life. It’ll even monitor your heart rate nonstop. If you want to see how you’re sleeping, it’s ready for that, too. In total, it tracks 20 different exercises, and you won’t need to take it off when you shower after (or go for a swim) with water resistance down to 50 meters. Unfortunately, you don’t get GPS on this model, but you can connect the Fitbit to your phone to get more detailed information on runs and hikes. You can also get notifications about calls and texts on the device when your phone is nearby.

7. Apple Watch Series 7

Best Fitbit that’s Not a Fitbit

Fitbit has cornered the market on fitness trackers, but Apple runs the smartwatch game. And that continues to be proven over and over again. This time with the Apple Watch Series 7 and most likely with the Series 8 expected to launch later this year. This device is packed to the brim with technology to better understand your habits and health, giving Fitbit a run for its money. The always-on display provides you with loads of useful features, including blood oxygen saturation, ECG measurements, sleep tracking, a heart rate monitor, GPS, and an altimeter. Plus, with IP6X dust and water resistance, this fitness tracker can go with you just about anywhere.

The Apple Watch Series 7 still struggles to compete with the multi-day battery life of most Fitbits, offering only 18 hours of use with each charge. However, you get convenient add-ons like 32GB of storage to put music, podcasts, and additional health tracking apps on the device. There’s even a tiny QWERTY keyboard and microphone so you can respond to messages or emails. And, if you’re worried about losing all your Fitbit app data, by syncing the watch to Strava or myFitnessSync, the app can draw on Apple Watch tracking data, so you can continue using the Fitbit app even after switching to Apple.

What to Look for in a Fitness Tracker

If you’re in the market for a fitness tracker, the good news is that most Fitbits share the same set of core features. Most fitness trackers track steps, exercise, and activity level, as well as provide at least a rudimentary sort of sleep tracking—and some trackers approximate a calorie count as well. From that basic set of features, though, trackers can vary quite a bit, with simpler models clocking in under $100 and advanced smartwatch models costing $200 or more.

These days, virtually all fitness bands can conveniently detect when you’re starting common kinds of exercise, but not all trackers are equipped to measure every kind of exercise. If you’re a swimmer or want to track stairs, your options will narrow significantly. And if you want to leave your phone at home when you go for a jog, look for models with integrated GPS (and perhaps even the ability to store music).

The key takeaway is that you don’t need a tracker bristling with sensors that can do everything—it depends upon what you want to track. If you never swim, you obviously don’t need swim tracking. And if you’re mainly trying to get your 10,000 steps in and don’t do intense workouts, you probably don’t need a heart rate monitor.

Since most fitness trackers go on your wrist, some try to replicate some smartwatch functionality. Many bands can display phone call and text notifications, for example, but the best smartwatch experience comes from a fitness tracker that’s actually shaped like a watch, with a large screen, support for apps, and perhaps even the option to show on-screen workout while you exercise.

Finally, keep an eye on battery life. While most Fitbits run for at least four days on a charge, some can go as long as a week. And that’s not necessarily true of non-Fitbit trackers. The Apple Watch, for example, needs to be charged daily.

While the Fitbit device itself is a big part of the equation, don't forget that Fitbit also has a large community of active users. Getting a Fitbit will let you join the community, sharing exercise tips, troubleshooting issues with devices, and plenty more. There's also Fitbit Premum, which can offer guided workouts to help you reach your fitness goals.

Dave Johnson has been writing about gaming and tech since the days of the Palm Pilot. See him shout into the Twitter void @davejoh.

Danielle Abraham is a freelance writer and unpaid music historian.

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