Best Fitness Tracker 2025: Hit New Year fitness goals with these top picks

The best for serious athletes

The Garmin Fenix series has long been our go-to choice for athletes (both amateur and professional) who want a serious wearable to keep track of their fitness routine. These watches are packed with the best of what Garmin’s fitness tracking software has to offer, with suggested workouts, impressive strength training analysis and more.

All of this is only further improved with the Garmin Fenix 8 which finally graduates from the low-power memory in pixel display of previous entries, offering an AMOLED version that’s more easily read in darker environments, not to mention a far sight better at showing off Garmin’s collection of watch faces.

The onboard navigation system also saw an upgrade with the ability to adjust routes accordingly so that you reach the desired distance you wish to run, ensuring that there’s nothing left on the table when it comes to practice runs ahead of a big event.

Reviewer: Michael Sawh
Full review: Garmin Fenix 8 Review

The best for iPhone owners

The Apple Watch Series 10 didn’t end up being the complete overhaul that was rumoured but there’s no denying that it shows off Apple’s fitness tracking tech in its best light yet.

The biggest upheaval comes in the form of the larger display (30% larger to be exact), which coincides with a size bump in the chassis, with 42mm and 46mm options available. Having that larger screen means that the Series 10 can not only pack more info at a glance, but it also makes text and graphs easier to read, handy for when you’re on the go.

If you’re worried that sleep apnea might be intruding upon your fitness goals then you’ll be glad to know that the Apple Watch Series 10 now has the ability to detect the affliction. Given just how important sleep is to an effective fitness routine, this feature could be a game changer for many.

The only area where the Apple Watch still lacks is in battery life, now consistently being outdone by flagship Wear OS watches from the likes of TicWatch and OnePlus.

Reviewer: Max Parker
Full review: Apple Watch Series 10 Review

The best for fashion conscious buyers

Even though Garmin is one of the most established brands in the world of fitness tracking, the company isn’t exactly a trendsetter when it comes to making fashionable wearables. The average Garmin watch is definitely feature-rich, but form tends to get left on the wayside in favour of function – that is until the Garmin Vivomove Trend hit the scene.

This stylish wearable combines the trappings of a traditional analogue watch with the fitness tracking features that have made Garmin so successful. The tracking in question is shown on a display that sits beneath the watch’s physical dials, so you can discreetly start your next workout or check up on a few notifications.

As an added bonus, the Garmin Vivomove Trend is also one of the few wearables out there to support wireless charging, so if you have a Qi wireless charging station to hand then you can pop the Vivomove Trennd on it and get on with your day.

The watch also does a great job at keeping an eye on your overall wellness and mental health, with stats such as heart rate variability and respiration levels that can be key indicators of overall stress levels.

Reviewer: Michael Sawh
Full review: Garmin Vivomove Trend Review

Fitness trackers tend to be split into watch and band form factors. Watches offer a larger screen to interact with and generally have more developed hardware. But for entry level athletes, or people that don’t want a large wearable on their wrist 24/7, there’s a lot to be said for the smaller band design.

If that sounds like the sort of wearable you’re after, then the Fitbit Luxe is the best option we’ve reviewed at the moment.

The Luxe comes with a solid array of band options and its colorful AMOLED panel is the brightest and sharpest we’ve seen on a band design fitness tracker its price. This made it much more pleasant to use than many of the competing band design trackers we’ve used recently, including the Garmin Vivosmart 5, which has a more basic black and white display.

The key selling point here is the Fitbit OS easy to understand and use software and navigation system which offers basic, but easily digestible snippets of workout data that are really good at motivating, rather than intimidating, users. This makes it a really solid option for people who are just getting started or just care about boosting their daily step count. The 5 day battery life we enjoyed during testing also means you’ll generally get through the work week before needing to give it a top up charge.

The only downside is that we found it’s not terribly well suited to even semi-serious athletes, with Fitbit locking the more in-depth data regular runners need behind a paywall and its connected GPS providing less accurate distance tracking than we’d like.

Reviewer: Michael Sawh
Full review: Fitbit Luxe Review

Even though the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 is great for those on a budget, anyone who’s looking to buy their first fitness wearable and can spare a bit more money will be better suited with the Huawei Watch Fit 3.

Unabashedly taking its design cues from the Apple Watch, the Watch Fit 3 feels far more premium than its £139.99 price tag would have you believe, and there’s a fashionable array of colours and watch straps to pair with it, making it less likely to clash with your wardrobe in a way that some fitness trackers have in the past.

Beyond the design, the Watch Fit 3 offers standalone GPS tracking which, along with its heart rate readings, provide surprisingly accurate results. Race finish estimates did prove to be off the mark during testing, but otherwise this is a solid wearable for understanding key bits of health data.

The only major caveat is that because of Huawei’s ecosystem, the Watch Fit 3’s functionality is limited to users in the west. There are no major third party apps to install so if you want a smarter experience away from the gym then you’re better off opting for a Wear OS device, or one of the latest Apple Watches.

Reviewer: Conor Allison
Full review: Huawei Watch Fit 3 Review

Xiaomi has proven time and time again that you can get a solid wearable device for well under £50/$50, even if the company’s ambition doesn’t quite match the final product. What we mean by this is that the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 isn’t lacking for features, but only some of them are really worth writing home about.

For instance, step counts and calories burned tend to be underreported, and we found the statistics of the training load and VO2 Max rating to be unreliable, so if you’re after a full slate of quality health statistics then you’re better off with something like the Garmin Forerunner 165.

However, the Smart Band 8 more than held its own when reporting on maximum BPM rates during a workout, and the device really shines in Xiaomi’s Pebble Mode. Here, via the use of an accessory, the Smart Band 8 can attach to your running shoes and accurately report on your foot-strike pattern. You do need to stay connected to your smartphone in this mode, but it’s definitely handy for runners on a budget.

Sleep tracking times were also on the money, and when paired with the solid battery life of up to 16-days on a single charge, the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 offers plenty of value for money.

Reviewer: Conor Allison
Full review: Xiaomi Smart Band 8

If you don’t need an ultra rugged design that’ll survive the odd accidental encounter with a climbing wall or ocean rock then the Forerunner 955 is the best premium fitness tracker we’ve tested. 

The Forerunner is a smaller cardio-focused wearable from Garmin that shares a lot of the best features seen on the more premium Fenix 7. This potent combination seriously impressed our reviewer during testing.

With it being the first 9-series Forerunner we’ve tested to feature multi-band GPS, the watch offered top-tier distance tracking accuracy. As well as locking a connection in seconds, the watch proved incredibly accurate during our 5km run tests. Running around a track we know is 5.3km, the watch offered a maximum variance of just 0.1km, which is excellent. 

Add to this its local map support, which let us get turn-by-turn directions on routes we didn’t know and inbuilt music support for both local and Spotify/Deezer and it becomes an easy recommendation at a hardware level.

But what truly sets it apart from competing devices, like the Polar Vantage V2 and its ilk, is its advanced post workout and training analytics. Unlike some brands, such as Fitbit, Garmin offers users complete access to their workout and health data free of charge. So, like the Fenix you get nicely uniform VO2 Max estimates, SpO2 readings and guidance on how effective your workouts have been. But as an added bonus the 955 can also factor races and events you’ve added to your calendar to the coaching advice it gives. 

This, plus new HRV and Training Readiness metrics make it great at helping avoid overtraining. The latter is a custom feature that tells you how well-prepared your body is to train. What’s great is that it also tells you why you may not be in an optimal state for a run. Our tester was frequently told to get more sleep ahead of his next training session and race, an insight that helped him change his routine to improve results.

Reviewer: Alastair Stevenson
Full review: Garmin Forerunner 955 Review

It’s taken a few generations but Google has finally nailed its wearable concept in the Pixel Watch 3. The watch fixed the biggest issue we had previously which was that its predecessors were simply too small for most wrists, so the ability to nab the Pixel Watch 3 in either a 41mm or 45mm option is a huge boon.

The larger option of the two also brings with it a substantial degree of longevity, with a battery that can run for up to two days whilst bearing an always-on-display. While not as impressive as the TicWatch Pro 5 Enduro, it definitely outlasts the Apple Watch Series 10.

When comparing the Pixel Watch 3’s performance against a dedicated chest-worn heart rate monitor, the former was in sync with the latter quite often, so you can rest assured that you’re getting a proper look at your workout performance. Speaking of which, thanks to Fitbit integration, the Pixel Watch 3 has the most accessible fitness tracking software of any Wear OS watch right now.

Reviewer: Conor Allison
Full review: Pixel Watch 3 review

With plenty of affordable fitness trackers and high-end smartwatches to its name, Huawei is no stranger to the wearables market but it has still managed to deliver something new and exciting in the Huawei Watch D.

Blood pressure tracking, while an important metric in the medical community for judging one’s overall bill of health, has yet to take off on the consumer wearables market. This hasn’t perturbed Huawei however, as the Watch D can expand and contract its unique watch band to conduct a blood pressure test from your wrist.

Beyond its capabilities in the realm of blood pressure tracking, the Watch D can also offer fairly accurate ECG tests to pick up any signs of arrhythmia, the presence of which could be indicative of underlying health issues.

As a cherry on top, the Huawei Watch D also benefits from a week-long battery life so that you can cruise through a fairly substantial workout routine before needing to top the device up.

Working against the Watch D is the fact that it doesn’t depict Huawei’s HarmonyOS in the best light. If you want to see the full extent of Harmony OS’s capabilities then you’re better off checking in on one of Huawei’s more premium smartwatches like the Huawei Watch 3.

The Watch D isn’t much of a looker either, so if you’re in the market for a fitness tracker that also doubles as a fashionable wearable for night out then unfortunately, this isn’t it. Still, if you can look past its industrial design and less than brilliant interpretation of HarmomyOS then there’s still plenty to get excited about, not the least because it currently leads the charge in blood pressure tracking on the go.

Reviewer: Michael Sawh
Full review: Huawei Watch D review

Wrist-based fitness trackers won’t be for everyone, so if you want to have a means of tracking your health and fitness data without being weighed down by a watch then look no further than the Ultrahuman Ring Air.

As its name suggests, this fitness tracker does away with convention as it can be worn on your index finger, just like how you might adorn a traditional ring except this one has tons of great features hidden under the surface.

Despite its discreet nature, the Ring Air can track your heart rate throughout the day and pick up on any potential anomalies therein. It can even be worn to bed as the Ring Air uses a temperature sensor to record the quality of your sleep, giving you a recovery score similar to what you’ll find on the Whoop Strap 4.0.

One of the most impressive features of the Ring Air doesn’t have anything to do with the tech, but rather the price. At present, the Ring Air’s biggest competitor is the Oura Ring 3 and while that is a great smart ring in its own right, it does utilise a subscription service for users to access their data after the initial upfront cost, which can add up over time.

By comparison, the Ultrahuman Ring Air has a one-time payment of £329/$349 and then no additional costs to speak of. This is a huge win for consumers as the continuing trend towards subscription models just isn’t practical for those tied to a strict budget who simply want to keep a better eye on their health and fitness.

One issue however is that the Ring Air doesn’t track workouts automatically and the process needs to be initiated from within the accompanying app. Still, it’s a minor issue that’s outweighed by just how discrete the Ultrahuman Ring Air manages to be in daily use.

Reviewer: Lewis Painter
Full review: Ultrahuman Ring Air review

If there’s one area where most fitness trackers fumble, it’s in prioritising recovery as part of a healthy fitness routine. Companies like Samsung and Huawei have made some strides here within the context of sleep tracking, but it pales in comparison to what’s available on the Whoop Strap 4.0.

It’s no wonder that the Whoop Strap is a favourite amongst a handful of professional athletes as no other fitness tracker goes so in-depth into one’s recovery, which is essential avoiding injury.

With no screen to speak of, there’s very little interaction on the Whoop Strap itself (outside of needing to tap it to stop an alarm) with the bulk of interactivity kept to the accompanying Whoop app. Here you’ll find an immediate look at how well rested you are, giving you an idea of how much you’re able to take on in a single day, alongside the strain that you’ve exerted since waking up.

This system gives you a better idea of the goals you need to hit in a day, ensuring that your strain never greatly outweighs your recovery. The app can also let you know the exact times for when you need to go to bed in order to excel or simply get by in the following day.

There’s even a stress monitor which shows fluctuations in your heart rate at specific times, giving you a better understanding of what causes you the most stress so you can take moves to mitigate it.

The Whoop Strap is able to achieve all of this by honing in on your ‘Heart Rate Variability’, which indicates the time variance between your heartbeats, a metric that Whoop claims is far more telling when determining your overall bill of health.

There’s a lot to like here, but there is one big caveat for the Whoop Strap 4.0 and it’s the price. While the device itself is free, you have to fork out for the Whoop membership (essentially access to the app) at £229/$239 a year. There are more cost effective options including a payment every two years, but it’s still a considerable expense that’s really best saved for professional athletes and those who want to get serious about prioritising their recovery.

Reviewer: Chris Smith
Full review: Whoop Strap 4.0 review