The 8 Best Fitness Trackers of 2026, Tested and Reviewed

Whether you are training for a marathon or working out for the first time in months, a fitness tracker can show you health and exercise data that can help you better understand your efforts. Most have heart rate, GPS and activity tracking built-in, and many can provide insights into your sleep and recovery. I test fitness trackers and smartwatches regularly, and have tested dozens over the years. Below I’m sharing some of the best ones on the market, and advice on how to find one that fits your needs.

Want more from NBC Select? Sign up for our newsletter, The Selection, and shop smarter.

The best fitness trackers of 2026

My top picks come from well-known brands like Fitbit, Apple and Garmin. Every option on this list was sent to me by the brand for testing purposes.

Best overall: Garmin Vivoactive 6

The Garmin Vivoactive 6 hits a great balance of fitness features, smartwatch capabilities, battery life and price, all packed in an approachable design. During my testing, I was constantly surprised by how many features it has and how rich its features were, especially considering this is one of Garmin’s more affordable watches.

The Vivoactive 6 tracks your health, sleep and fitness activity — with in-depth metrics and analysis for all three. Fitness is particularly impressive, with features like body Battery, workout recovery times, Garmin pace pro and Garmin coach (with running and strength training plans).

One standout feature I love is workout animation — the watch will play short videos of a silhouette performing certain exercises. This is mostly when you are doing Garmin Connect workouts (think HIIT, cardio, strength and yoga), but where I find it the most fun is for Move Alerts — the watch will remind me to move, give me a few movement options to choose from, then play an animation of that movement to follow. It made taking breaks at my desk a lot more fun.

The Garmin Connect app is less intuitive than apps from competitors like Fitbit and Apple, so — give yourself time to get used to it before dismissing it outright.

Best for beginners: Fitbit Charge 6

Many NBC Select staffers use and love Fitbit fitness trackers because of their lightweight designs and easy-to-use features. The Charge 6 is a small, beginner-friendly fitness tracker that’s light on weight and light on price. It feels comfortable to use after only a few minutes of swiping through the watch and app, with bright, colorful and easy to understand metrics and graphs.

The Charge 6 tracks and showcases your heart rate, daily steps, distance traveled, fitness activities, calories burned and nightly sleep. It does not track more advanced running stats like cadence, stride length, ground contact time and vertical oscillation like some of my other picks.

New to the Charge 6 is Google Wallet, Google Maps navigation and YouTube Music controls. It also now has a button on the left side that returns you to the home screen or pause workout screen. One important thing to note though, is that you can’t turn off the device. Instead, it goes into “power-saver mode” after 10 minutes of inactivity.

Best budget: Amazfit Active 2 (Sport)

The Amazfit Active 2 is a ridiculously good value — so much so that I was suspicious of it at first, but after weeks of testing, I absolutely recommend it. The software could use refinement, but everything else is excellent for a fitness tracker at this price point.

The standout is build quality — this does not look or feel like a $100 fitness tracker. It has a medium-sized, bright screen surrounded by a stainless steel case that looks sleek and classy (much more so than the Fitbit Charge 6 or Garmin Vivoactive 6). The watch also has a built-in speaker, so it can announce things like mileage during runs or turn-by-turn directions during navigation.

The downside is software — the Zepp app could use some refinement. Like Garmin, it shows a lot of data and options, but can get confusing the further you dive into everything. You can learn more in my Amazfit brand guide.

Best screenless tracker: Google Fitbit Air

If you want to track your health and fitness stats as simply as possible, get the Google Fitbit Air. It’s a screenless fitness tracker that looks like a simple band, with plenty of colors and styles to choose from and swap between.

Because it doesn’t have a screen, you control everything through your phone and the Google Health app, which showcases stats and scores for things like steps, weekly cardio goals, sleep, readiness and more. It’s simple, intuitive and easy to use, making it ideal for beginners, just like the Fitbit Charge 6.

The band automatically tracks walks and workouts, but it’s not totally accurate or confidence-inspiring: I recommend manually starting and stopping workouts like outdoor runs and bike rides.

There is also the optional Google Health Premium subscription for $9.99 a month, which adds an AI (read: Gemini) powered fitness and health coach to the app. I had a mixed experience with Google Health Premium, I found it took a lot of time to personalize to my needs, and even then, I didn’t find it all that valuable, but you can always try it for a month and cancel if it’s not right for you.

Best smart ring: Oura Ring 5

If you hate wearing watches (or anything on your wrists), a smart ring is the best way to track your health and fitness. The Oura Ring 5 is the best one on the market — I’ve tested it for months, and it’s a big improvement on the already-excellent Oura Ring 4.

It tracks stats like heart rate, body temperature, blood oxygen, sleep stages, stress levels and exercise metrics and stores them in the Oura app. It automatically tracks walks and exercise, but I find it best to manually start and stop outdoor workouts like runs for the best data. The app itself is one of the best I’ve tested, with a detailed but approachable design that’s helpful at a glance and very informative as you dive deeper into things like trend reports.

I love that the Oura Ring 5 is significantly (40%) smaller than the Oura Ring 4, and feels more like a regular ring on my finger instead of a bulky smart ring. It comes in six colors and a range of sizes. If you want more than just the current day’s stats, the Oura Ring requires an Oura Ring membership, which costs $6 a month.

Best for iPhone: Apple Watch SE 3

The Apple Watch is one fitness tracker that almost always stays on my wrist, and this is the brand’s lowest-priced model. It costs much less than the Apple Watch Series 11 and Apple Watch Ultra 3, but has almost all the same fitness tracking features and metrics.

The Apple Watch SE 3 is easy to use, especially if you have used an iPhone before. The apps are similar or identical, and the square shape of the watch makes it easy to scroll through notifications and texts. It shows detailed workout, health and sleep metrics via Apple Health and Apple Fitness with no subscription required. You can also use the Siri voice assistant to make requests and send voice texts, which is much easier than typing a text mid-run, in my experience.

The watch gets up to 18 hours of battery life, according to the brand — that’s less than most competitors. It does charge quickly, though, getting nearly a full charge in just 45 minutes. It also comes in two sizes with many watch band options.

Best for Android: Google Pixel Watch 4

The Pixel Watch has improved each year to the point that it is now one of the best fitness trackers and smartwatches for anyone with an Android phone. It does everything you would expect of all the best smartwatches: notifications, texting, calls, tap-to-pay, media controls, offline maps and more.

For fitness, the watch has built-in tracking with more than 50 workout types to choose from, with more in-depth data compared to other Fitbits like the Fitbit Charge 6. You can build custom workouts, including custom runs with stages, intervals and more. The watch can also automatically detect walks, runs, bike rides, and more, and start a workout all on its own. I often forget to log walks, so this feature is one of my favorites.

New to the Pixel Watch 4 is satellite SOS emergency assistance (on the LTE version), multi-band GPS (which should lead to more accurate GPS data), improved battery life and so much more.

Best for runners: Garmin Forerunner 570

If you are already into your running journeys, the Garmin Forerunner series is for you, and the Forerunner 570 is my top pick. It has more than enough tools for runners and racers and comes in two sizes, so you can get the best fit for your wrist (unlike the Forerunner 70 and Forerunner 970).

My favorite training tools are training readiness, training status and HRV (heart rate variability) status, which work in tandem to help optimize training and recovery. Training Readiness combines multiple metrics to give you a top-level score about how beneficial your training will be. In practice, it helps me decide whether to take a rest day or push myself harder than usual.

It also has advanced running metrics like power, cadence, stride length and ground contact time, as well as multi-band GPS for the most accurate, consistent distance and time stats possible. It is pricey, though: if you are just starting out as a runner, my other top picks (or the Forerunner 70) provide more than enough stats and tools.

Best for athletes: Whoop 5.0 (Peak)

For athletes, Whoop’s minimal design and extra-detailed stress and recovery metrics is a great fit. Like the Google Fitbit Air, it’s a small screenless tracker that’s lightweight and inconspicuous on your wrist. That’s where the similarities end, though.

Whoop differentiates itself by focusing heavily on recovery and strain. It gives all of your activities a strain score between zero and 21, and highlights things like heart rate zones and strength training more than other trackers. Using Whoop makes me think more about the quality and intensity of my workouts rather than distance or time. Again, this is more useful for athletes or people training towards a specific goal.

The required Whoop subscription is very expensive, though. There are three subscription tiers: Whoop One ($199 a year), Whoop Peak ($239 a year) and Whoop Life ($359 a year).