These Picks Are The Best Fitness Trackers of 2021
When it comes to finding the best fitness trackers, it can be difficult to navigate the seemingly endless options available. You might be tempted to just go with the most convenient option, but doing a little research goes a long way. That's because in reality, wearable tech that helps you understand and analyze your fitness performance, healthy habits, and patterns is a big investment in your health. Here are some of the most beloved products on the market in 2021, their pros and cons, and who they're right for.
Photo via Apple
Apple Watch (From $199)
Why It's Great
The Apple Watch is a great investment primarily because it's so easy to seamlessly integrate into the technology you probably already use every day. If you have an iPhone, Mac, and/or iPad, the watch will connect with all of your other Apple devices so you never miss a beat.
What It Does
The Apple Watch will track your heart rate, steps, standing time, and total active time, which it reflects back to you with an easy-to-use interface that tells you how close you are to meeting your goals in those categories each day. At night, it will track your heart rate and breathing rate as you sleep, allowing it to know how many hours you're actually asleep for each night.
Based on these simple metrics, it will give you valuable insights into your cardiovascular fitness, heart rate variability, and other markers of health. It will also detect patterns based on the data you put in (such as what kind of workout you're doing) so it knows when you're running, doing HIIT, cycling, or walking your dog.
Finally, getting the Apple Watch enables you to sign up for Apple Fitness+, a program that delivers coached workouts to you through your headphones. Whenever you're wearing your watch, you can open up Fitness+ and choose from countless workout options, from meditation to HIIT. New workouts are added all the time, and your watch will keep track of your steps, heart rate, and other fitness stats throughout the workout so you can measure your performance.
Who It's For
The Apple Watch is a great all-around tracker for anyone who already uses Apple products. Its beautiful design and seamless integration give it a fast learning curve, making it great for pretty much anyone.
Photo via Fitbit
Fitbit (From $80)
Why It's Great
The Fitbit is almost as ubiquitous as the Apple Watch, and hence will be super easy to integrate with your current devices. Because Fitbig offers both smart watch and fitness tracker options, you can decide whether or not you want to a product that will sync with your phone and give you a full smart watch experience. Fitbit has nine different fitness tracking products available at the time of this writing (three smart watch models and six trackers), not to mention smart scales and other accessories to help you reach your fitness goals.
What It Does
One upside (or downside, if you hate making decisions) of getting a Fitbit is that there are so many options to choose from. While the most advanced smart watch from FitBit will give you most of the same data as the Apple Watch (cardio and workout tracking, sleep tracking, etc.), some other models have fewer functions for those who want a more bare-bones approach. Take the quiz on Fitbit's website to see which model is the best fit for you.
Who It's For
The Fitbit comes in so many different models, it's hard to limit its clientele to one designation. In general, the Fitbit is an ideal option for you if you want time-tested, fully integrated technology that allows you to pick from a number of different options to find your best-fit tracker.
Photo via WHOOP
WHOOP Strap (From $28/month)
Why It's Great
WHOOP prides itself on being "your personal digital fitness and health coach," and for a very good reason. The WHOOP strap goes above and beyond what most fitness trackers offer in order to deliver really insightful data about your personal workout recovery and fitness needs. It's a tracker made by and for athletes, and gives you nitty-gritty details you can put to good use. It will help you figure out, for example, how much sleep you need to get to adequately recover from your most recent workout and build muscle — and other "fitness nerd" information of a similar vein.
What It Does
Every day, the WHOOP Strap will take in all the data other fitness trackers simply share with you, and use that data to give you recommendations that help you work toward your health and fitness goals. Throughout the day, it will record your heart rate, blood oxygen content, and respiratory rate throughout workouts and activities, and use that information to calculate your total strain. At night, it will use those same factors to determine whether or not you've sufficiently recovered form the previous day's strain, so you can decide whether you need to take a rest day or go hard during your workouts.
But WHOOP doesn't stop there - it will also compile all your personal data to determine your individual "baseline" of health, so you'll know if you're getting more or less healthy over time.
Who It's For
The WHOOP Strap is for athletes, full stop. Unless you're either deeply invested in fitness or supremely interested in health nerdery, you will probably find all of this information unnecessary. If you ARE all about fitness and health data, though, WHOOP is the tracker for you.
Photo via Oura
Oura Ring ($299)
Why It's Great
Don't feel like wearing a large watch for the purposes of tracking your fitness stats? The Oura Ring is, well, a ring! This modern, clean-looking design fits right on your finger and monitors your sleep, health, and wellness just like a larger, bulkier watch.
What It Does
Day and night, the Oura monitors your health stats and generates three scores: Readiness, Sleep, and Activity. At nighttime, the ring is measuring your resting heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), respiratory rate, body temperature, sleep cycles, nighttime movement, and sleep quality, while during the day, it measures your activity levels, calories, steps, inactive times, and naps.
Like the WHOOP Strap, it uses this data to determine whether or not you're well-recovered and ready for your next workout.
Who It's For
Because it uses your health data to generate a Readiness score, the Oura Ring is probably also a great fit for athletes. But its tiny finger-size design also makes it a great tracker for someone who simply doesn't like the feeling of wearing a watch every day.
Photo via Polar
Polar (From $149)
Why It's Great
Polar is a GPS-enabled tracker brand that offers a number of different products for people with different fitness interests. Runners and triathletes particularly love Polar, because its technology allows them to plan their runs for distance and measure their progress.
What It Does
Another athlete-focused company, Polar offers a number of different products, so you should visit Polar's website to make sure you're looking into the right tracker for your needs. But some general notes are that Polar trackers are compatible with most accessories (so you can listen to music through them), and like the two trackers above, calculate a recovery measurement to let you know you've adequately refueled between workouts.
Polar trackers are highly visual, displaying the results you want to see in easy-to-understand graphs. This makes it a great product for anyone who wants to measure detailed information about their body, but also wants it recorded in easy-to-understand ways.
Who It's For
Runners, triathletes, and cross trainers love Polar trackers.
Photo via Wyze
Wyze Band ($25)
Why It's Great
We're going to cut right to the chase: This tracker is literally hundreds of dollars less than most of the other products on this list. If that's not a big enough benefit for you, consider the fact that with a Wyze Band, you can control your smart home. It seamlessly integrates with Wyze smarthome products (think lights, electrical outlets, etc.) and also has Alexa build right in.
What It Does
Like we said, the Wyze Band is fantastic for controlling your smart home features if you have a home outfitted with Wyze products. Beyond that, it's a pretty standard tracker... it'll help you monitor your steps, track your heart rate, and analyze your sleep quality. It's not a watch to go beyond the basics in terms of health tracking... but then again, it's literally under $25.
Who It's For
This is a great option for people who want a simple fitness tracker that will help them stay on top of their step goals and also integrate smart home features into their lifestyle.
Photo via Garmin
Garmin (From $80)
Why It's Great
Garmin is a time-trusted brand you can count on for top-of-the-line tech products. The Garmin family of fitness trackers offers something for everyone: And by that, we mean stylistically. These don't look like your standard fitness trackers. They are fashionable watch-style devices with all manner of design elements, from genuine leather bands and vintage-inspired dials to Marvel-branded designs and gold faces.
What It Does
Garmin offers three families of trackers: Pure fitness trackers, smart watch hybrids, and smart watches. Depending on which line you want to go with, you'll enjoy different features. To name a few: Garmin offers advanced health monitoring, more than 25 built-in workouts you can stream on-screen, music, and menstrual cycle tracking.
Who It's For
Go for Garmin if you're looking for a timeless style that looks like a beautiful, expensive watch — but still gives you all kinds of helpful and interesting health insights.
Which of the best fitness trackers of 2021 are you most interested in? Tweet us @BritandCo and let us know!
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