Only a few persons in 2021 might not be aware of Fitness trackers, Aka Activity trackers. If you don’t know what it is, it is a device that will track your fitness activities like running, walking, and all other workouts. It will also record your calorie consumption & heartbeats. These activity trackers are now commonly present in the market as Smart Watches & Smart Bands. Most of the brands in 2021 have their own Smart Bands & Smart Watches. As you guess, these fitness trackers are synced to your smartphone. Most of you guys don’t know the fact these heart rate wearable monitors were available for athletes back in the 1980s. These wearable sensors were earlier used for security, sports and medical science.
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Best fitness trackers for athletes
With all these said, we are here with the best fitness trackers for athletes, which include smartwatches and fitness bands. We will be listing more than seven fitness trackers from different brands. Sit back, and start reading!
Fitbit Charge 4
Like other Fitbit trackers in the past, the new Fitbit Charge 4 also comes with a whole lot of functions. Fitbit Charge series was launched initially in 2014, and the Charge 4 is the fourth generation of the same. That said, it comes with support for standalone GPS, Spotify support, Fitbit Pay, and more tools. Earlier, Fitbit Pay was only available for the Special Edition. The standalone support for GPS means it doesn’t need the help of a phone to map your exercise. It also comes with the backing for new metrics called Active Zone Minutes. Adding to this, it also tracks your sleep. The tracker has a width of half an inch which makes it comfortable to wear. The con is that the display still lacks a color display, and waking up the screen is a bit task. Also, the interface isn’t top-notch. The battery will last for the whole seven days and with five days with GPS on. These all are the Pros and Cons of the Fitbit Charge 4. Moreover, Sixtimesanhour mentioned it as the best Fitbit for men which clearly shows its credibility and likeness among people.
Coros Apex Pro (Premium Multisport GPS Watch)
Coros Apex Pro is a premium multisport GPS watch with a ton of features that will help track your data. The data is accurate, and you can use this to improve your stats. Another thing that is great about the watch is the companion app. The app has everything which one could ask for. And the super impressive thing about this watch is that you can get a maximum battery life of 40 hours even by using GPS. Even you can refill the battery in a short time. The touch screen is also durable, and you can use this despite an athlete, swimmer, cyclist, or any other. That said, the watch is resistant up to 100 meters. Talking about syncs with its app, i.e. Coros app, which works well.
It will offer you everything like speed, distance, pace, elevation, map profile, VO2max, blood oxygen monitoring feature, and many others. The design of the watch is super impressive. The only letdown is that the screen could have been brighter. I saw many users complaining about this to the brand. By now, you have got an idea that this watch isn’t competing with the premium watches. Instead, it focuses on people who want a smartwatch for multiple sports, which we mentioned earlier. We don’t recommend buying this if you are a casual user since it is priced relatively high.
Garmin Vivoactive 4 & Garmin Vivoactive 4S
Garmin Vivoactive 4 & Garmin Vivoactive 4S are two models from the brand Garmin. The Vivoactive 4 is ideal for people with big wrists, and the smaller Vivoactive 4S is for people with short wrists. To make it clear, the Vivoactive 4 comes with a 1.3″ display while the latter has a smaller 1.1″ display. It has all the tracking features like breathing, sleep, and stress, motivating training plans, and much more. Further, it can also support Pulse Oximeter readings, Underwater optical heart rate monitoring, Pilate’s support. It also has a lot of On-screen workout animations. Like all smartwatches, it also supports downloading third-party apps, contactless payments, and storing local music. The watch is quite expensive, that said it starts from USD 350. If you wish to spend a little lower, then you check out the other model mentioned below.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 3
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 is one of the best smartwatches out there, which supports eSIM. Apart from being a smartwatch, it is also one of the best watches out there for fitness. A big shot out to engineers at Samsung for making the watch lighter. The watch runs on a top-notch processor (Exynos 9110), which makes the performance snappy. It runs on Tizen OS. The rotating bezel design is also unique to this watch. Its AMOLED display is vivid and bright enough to be legible outside. Various fitness features include automatically track workouts without starting them manually, and it stops or pauses according to your action. According to the brand, these workouts support auto-detection; swimming, cycling, running, walking, rowing, and dynamic exercises. Further, it comes with SpO2 tracking, ECG readings, stress tracking, sleep tracking, and more. Please do note that the FDA of the US approves ECG readings. As you know, the watch [is expensive, and support for the third party is limited due to its OS. Apart from this, the charging is relatively slow; Samsung shouldn’t have done this considering its price.
Amazfit Bip U Pro
Amazfit watches are one of the cheapest fitness trackers out there, often recommended for first-time buyers. The Amazfit Bip U Pro looks like an affordable Apple Watch. The pricing reflects in its build quality, i.e. a plastic feel. Yes, the pricing of the watch is around USD 70 and comes with a ton of features. Do note that it comes with an LCD panel, so it doesn’t support Always on Display tech. The sleep tracking works well, and since the watch is pretty much slim, it makes it comfortable during the night. The popular sports which support include running, swimming, cycling, yoga, cricket, treadmill, and much more. It is resistant to up to 5ATM and can track swimming, as said. It also has the popular SpO2 sensor and can track stress, heart rate, and support for Alexa. Although the integration of Alexa isn’t tremendous & notifications from apps aren’t perfect either. The app shows the data, but there are some syncing issues for some. The Amazfit Bip U Pro is more or less a fitness tracker than a smartwatch. It’s like a fitness tracker with the shape of a smartwatch. The watch lasts for two weeks, and keep in mind that it depends on your usage.
Garmin Enduro
The Garmin Enduro is the ultimate choice for fitness trackers, which lasts for so long. The battery is insane here, which lasts up to 50 days, depending on your usage. It can charge via Solar, which is a great addition. Usually, watches do come with some compromises, i.e. either on display or battery. But here, the display is legible under sunlight. Few letdowns are that it doesn’t have in-built GPS & the ability to play music. But the major issues are with size; despite having all these features, it is pretty heavy. The watch can track most of the activities, including running, mountain bike, swimming, hike, ski, and much more. It has monitoring for most of the sports out there. You can reply to your messages when connected to Android devices. As you know, Apple Watches can only be used to reply in iPhones. The watch can measure your pulse, which it does with the help of a unique red LED. Apart from the mentioned features, it has all the essential features other fitness trackers do. The interface is also easy to use, and it doesn’t have any issues with syncing.
Polar Vantage V2
Polar Vantage V2 is a watch that works with both Android & iOS. It is also MIL-STD-810G certified and will last up to 40 hours with GPS & up to 100 hours with low GPS. It comes with 130 different sport modes. With that said, the price of the starts at USD 499. This fitness tracker is focused on athletes and provides all information related to fitness. Despite having many features, the watch is light due to its aluminium body. The app works fine without any issues. One limitation of the watch is that it comes with few faces and has more minor features than a smartwatch. It is more or less an advanced fitness tracker. We meant that it doesn’t have features like contactless payments, music storage, like thing. Another thing is that the touch screen feels quite laggy sometimes. It supports tracking for swimming, bike, and running. Sensors include optical heart rate, compass GPS, accelerometer, barometric altimeter. Sadly, it misses out on the popular SpO2 sensor.
Click here to checkout Polar vantage V2
Apple Watch SE
Apple Watch SE is the one that Apple unveiled along with the Apple Watch Series 6. It is a trimmed-down version of Series 6. We recommend Apple Watch SE because it is affordable, and iPhone users can enjoy every feature of this Apple SE smartwatch. As you know, iPhone limits the functioning of non-Apple watches. The watch’s design is the same as all other Apple watches, and it also has an OLED display like its premium brother. However, the misses out Always on Display feature. It also misses out on features like ECG, blood oxygen reading (SpO2) compared to Series 6. Apple has included the handwashing feature, which they introduced with watchOS 7. It can track workouts like running, walking, cycling, yoga, elliptical training, dance, and an improved heart rate monitor. The GPS on the watch works perfectly well. It will last for seven hours with complete GPS on, and there are power-saving modes available. The Apple Watch SE can last for up to forty hours, depending on your usage. Further, the new watchOS 7 comes with VO2 Max, which will help you find the maximum oxygen consumption rate. The price of the Apple Watch SE starts from USD 279. The best thing to note is that Apple hasn’t made any compromises on the watch’s performance.
Samsung Galaxy Fit
Even though the Galaxy Fit was released in 2019, it is still one of the affordable ones from Samsung with a lot of functions. It is a sleek fitness tracker with a beautiful display and a long battery life for just USD 99. The Galaxy Fit has accurate fitness tracking, heart rate monitoring & also tracks step count, distance, heart rate, and sleep. The display is sharp and big enough & the user’s face is simple to use. Although, it feels a bit big for people with small wrists. And another thing is that it requires two different apps on a smartphone which may feel uncomfortable for some people. It uses Real-Time OS so that you can connect to both Android and iOS devices. And attend calls, view notifications, and for Android devices, you can even text Quick replies. The fitness tracker will last for almost seven days.
Fitbit Sense
Fitbit Sense is a smartwatch with a beautiful AMOLED display. It comes with an in-built GPS, SpO2 sensor and runs on the Fitbit OS. A few of the watch’s features are Detailed mood and stress tracking, step counting, ECG sensor, skin temperature, heart rate zones (the time between heartbeats), and many more things. But the major letdown is that some tools in the Fitbit app require a premium subscription. And the strap isn’t of the best quality out there. However, the sleep data is accurate, and most other features too work without any issues. The brand calls the Fitbit Sense an advanced health smartwatch. With Fitbit Sense, they have added the feature of attending calls so that you don’t need to take your device out. Yes, the band comes with both a mic and a speaker. In addition to this, the brand has added support for Google Assistant along with Alexa. Few features which are missing is that it doesn’t have storage to store local music and the stress tracking comes with limited information. The best thing is the battery life which lasts up to 6 days depending on your usage.
Mi Band 6
Xiaomi Mi Band 6 is one of the best budget fitness trackers out there. The same retails for USD 55. Xiaomi has been improving this with every new release of their band. The new Mi Band 6 comes with all features like blood oxygen tracking, breathing quality assessments during sleep, steps counter, calories burned, distance travelled, resting and active heart rate, a ton of sport tracking modes, accurate heart rate readings, etc. By the introduction of these features, it has affected the battery life. So, it isn’t great as it used to be. Also, heart rate readings are not so precise while doing high-intensity workouts. Xiaomi still doesn’t launch the NFC variant outside China. As you know, NFC is a must for contactless payments. In China, the band has support for the company’s assistant. But the Global variant doesn’t have any integration with assistant be it Alexa or Google Assistant. Also, Xiaomi’s partner app Aka Wear app, still needs some more improvements. We hope they will improve it in the coming years. Another thing to highlight about the Mi Band 6 is the 5ATM water resistance. One should not forget about the colorful AMOLED display with the band. That said, we suggest this if you want a band which got the basics right.
Huawei Watch Fit
The Huawei Watch Fit comes with a fabulous AMOLED display and comes at an affordable price tag. It can last up to 10 days on a single charge and is very light, which makes it comfortable to use on a daily basis. The few negatives are that the watch doesn’t have any third-party straps, and pairing your smartphone will be a big task. However, the UI is good and works without any issues. The watch will last for ten days or more, depending on your usage. It will auto track walking, running, elliptical, and rowing. Further, it can track cycling, hiking, running, SpO2 and swimming (both indoor & outdoor). It is water-resistant up to 5ATM. Some may not like the design of the watch; it depends on your taste. Also, it’s worth mentioning that it comes with GPS. The pricing of the watch starts at USD 120 and varies according to your market. By now, you may have got an idea about the watch where it sits, i.e. right above fitness bands and below premium watches. The watch is easy to use and perfect for a beginner. Don’t buy this if you own an iPhone because syncing is not efficient with iPhones.
Honor Band 6
Honor Band 6 is one of the affordable fitness trackers out there. It just costs only USD 50 and comes with a ton of features. As the name suggests, it is a band with an impressive screen and excellent battery backup. But the letdown is with few bugs, which will affect the tracking of your workout. Another thing is that it only comes with a few sport profiles. Like, Mi Band 6, it also doesn’t have GPS. But to the positive side, it comes with the SpO2 sensor and stress management tools. And it will last for 10 to 14 days, depending on the usage. Do note that we don’t recommend this if you are a fitness freak. You can opt for this if you can’t spend over USD 50.
That’s it; these are the various fitness trackers which is best for athletes. As you can see, we have listed 13 fitness trackers which will serve your purpose. Please do note that you can choose fitness trackers as low as USD 50. But keep in mind that you may have to compromise features for budget fitness trackers. All of the listed fitness trackers do serve the primary purpose, i.e., tracks basics workouts. The ones with higher prices come with advanced features which will become handy to advanced users. If you are a first-time buyer, we suggest going with the Amazfit Bip U Pro. The reason is, it comes with all the basic features and will adapt you to fitness trackers. Please do share the article with your friends for a wider reach.
Terry Ts