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A best budget fitness trackers is a band with sensors on it that is used to keep an eye on your fitness and health. Fitness trackers can be as simple as a band that counts your steps or as complex as a device that can track your heart rate, sleep, and location. Simple fitness trackers have a screen that shows the information they have collected.
But many of the more advanced fitness trackers save the information in an app. Use this to compare information and track your fitness over time. There is, of course, special gear for you if you are an experienced runner or cyclist and want to look at your information in detail.
Most of the time, the best smartwatches and running watches have more advanced stats and features than these cheaper all-in-one gadgets, like a built-in GPS or apps that can be used together. The best budget fitness trackers on this list, though, are great if you want to make small, long-term changes to your life.
Best Budget Fitness Trackers
Fitbit Inspire 3
The Fitbit Inspire 3 is the best budget fitness trackers for the money because it does a great job with the basics, like keeping track of your workouts, monitoring your heart rate, and keeping track of your sleep stages. The Inspire 3 doesn’t have a GPS built in, but it has other features that make up for it, like Fitbit’s inspiring (get it?) community of people trying to get and stay in shape.
Even though it doesn’t have GPS built in, you can connect it to the GPS on your phone. You can run against friends, coworkers, or even people you don’t know at all. Fitbit’s Active Zone Minutes stat, a 10-day battery life, touch controls, and—the biggest change from the Fitbit Inspire 2—a stunning, bright AMOLED screen are all included for $100.
Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 6
The Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 6, which is the newest model in Xiaomi’s excellent line of best budget fitness trackers, is a great deal because it has a lot of features you’d usually find in a much more expensive device. This device has an AMOLED touchscreen that is bright, clear, and easy to use. It does the usual things like track activity and heart rate, but it also has a stress monitor and a pulse-ox sensor to measure blood oxygen saturation.
The biggest problem is that it doesn’t have a GPS built in. Using the GPS sensor on your phone, it can keep track of runs and other outdoor workouts, but our tests showed that the distance travelled was much farther than it really was. This isn’t a problem for casual workouts, but if you’re training for a race, a device like the Fitbit Inspire 2 would be more useful.
Amazfit Bip U Pro Smart Watch
The lightweight Bip U Pro smartwatch from Amazfit is one of the best budget fitness trackers you can buy on a budget. It keeps accurate records of your activity and health metrics. It can also stand up to water.
It has built-in GPS, which is rare in this price range, so you can use it to track important things like steps, speed, and distance. The watch has more than 60 different sports modes and can accurately measure stress levels, blood oxygen levels, heart rate, and sleep quality.
With the big colour touchscreen, it’s easy to check your stats and see what texts, apps, and calls are coming in from your connected phone. Even though its performance and features aren’t as good as those of more expensive smartwatches, the Bip U Pro is a great deal and a cheap alternative to them.
Garmin Vivosmart 5
If you like a lot of information and don’t mind how the Vivosmart 5 looks, it might be the best budget fitness trackers for you on a budget. Even though it has a sharp OLED screen and sensors for heart rate and oxygen saturation, it is still black and white and not colour.
The great Garmin Connect software lets you see your data for free and gives you guided exercises and training plans for running and cycling. We liked the sleep tracker the most because it was automatic. Every morning, you get a short sleep report with a “sleep score” to help you figure out how well you slept.
But keep in mind that it doesn’t track naps, so if you like to take them, they can change how well you sleep at night. Garmin says the watch has a battery life of seven days, but most people who use it to track their normal workouts only get five days.
Amazfit Band 5
We could all use a personal assistant, and the Amazfit Band 5 gives you one with features like fitness tracking and Alexa compatibility. You can improve your health by using its heart rate sensor, blood oxygen monitoring, stress-relieving workouts, and sleep care assistance. But this tool costs less than $50, while a PA or personal trainer would cost a lot more.
The Band 5 keeps you on track with updates to your calendar, reminders, weather alerts, email, text, and call alerts that are all synced directly to your phone. This fitness tracker that you can wear has a battery life of 15–25 days, so you can keep it on hand. The watch face on the Amazfit Band 5 can be turned around, and it comes in three fashionable colours: black, orange, and olive green.
Apple Watch Series 8
People often keep their Apple Watches for a long time, and for good reason. If you have an iPhone, it is by far the best budget fitness trackers you can buy for under $100. It also has new safety features, like Crash Detection, that make it safer. In the event of a serious car accident, the Series 8 will use a powerful new accelerometer, gyroscope, barometer, GPS, and microphone to detect a crash and call for help if the user does not answer within 10 seconds.
WatchOS 9 also has a lot of improvements for health and fitness, such as better workout views, more detailed running data, monitoring of medications, and better tracking of sleep. On the other hand, the new Apple Watch SE doesn’t have a way to measure body temperature from the wrist. It also doesn’t have older features like the blood oxygen or ECG app.
Garmin Venu 2
Garmin makes the best budget fitness trackers for the money, so you can’t go wrong with them. And their Venu 2 is our favourite way to keep track of all the different things you do. There are many tracking options, such as ones for cycling, golf, and swimming. With GPS, a heart rate monitor, and other sensors, the watch has more than 25 sports apps already installed.
You can follow along with Pilates, HIIT, and other exercises that are shown in animation. It also keeps track of your energy levels and tells you when you should be active and when you should rest. The Garmin Venu 2 is a smartwatch that isn’t too big or too small. It has a bright AMOLED touchscreen display and a lot of fitness data.
Fitbit Charge 4
The price of an older Fitbit model, the Charge 4, has gone down, making it almost good enough to be called one of the best budget fitness trackers for the money. It doesn’t have Fitbit’s newest features like the Daily Readiness Score, Active Zone Minutes, ECG, or EDA scanners, but it’s hard to find a similar fitness tracker in this price range that has an internal GPS.
GPS is the only way to track your runs, rides, and swims outside if you don’t want to bring your phone with you. This lets you have more freedom than most fitness trackers do. There is no internal music storage on the Charge 4, so if you want to leave your phone at home, you won’t be able to listen to music while you run.
Final Words
People are looking for the best budget fitness trackers right now, and there are more options than ever to fit any budget. Even though smartwatches have taken over, activity bands are still a very popular type of wearable, and for good reason.
The best budget fitness trackers for less than $100 are made to fit smaller wrists, are usually easier to use, and are meant to improve your health. A lot of them also have smartwatch features like making payments and getting alerts.