Best fitness tracker?

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JBminus35
JBminus35 Posts: 180 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Looking for recommendations. I have an old Fitbit which apparently is dying with a dark screen despite being charged fully. It has been languishing in a drawer for a very long time. Thinking I need to get a new one. What is the best thing out there in the u der $200 range? TY.

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  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,577 Member
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    What do you want it to do? Do you want to track various exercises? Have onboard gps? Small like an old fitbit or more of a watch sized thing? A smart watch? How much days on a battery? My standard answer is always Garmin, because there's no way any google product gets into my home. Plus their exercise watches are pretty good. But yeah, it depends on what you're looking for.
  • mondevert6611
    mondevert6611 Posts: 3 Member
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    I like all the fitness stuff on my Apple Watch. If you already have an iPhone, an AW is a nice complement to it (and "Find My Phone" is great :wink: ).
  • ruqayyahsmum
    ruqayyahsmum Posts: 1,514 Member
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    I upgraded from Fitbit to a Garmin as I hike a lot and was so sick of Fitbit GPS dropping if I so much as looked at a cloud or a tree

    Garmin tracks my hikes, my heart rate (I have medical issues) my gym work outs and so many other things that I find handy
  • zebasschick
    zebasschick Posts: 1,064 Member
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    it depends on what you're looking for. my favorite fitness tracker is a cheapie from amazon (the brand is allbean LOL) - it counts my steps accurately (a problem i've had with others), and it shows heart rate and oxygen saturation in realtime, and accurate sleep info. i didn't have that with my many fitbits, garmin or the other ones i've tried.

    that being said, my son's GF loved the garmin i gave her where i didn't get what i wanted from it. and i think if you get an apple watch, you'd need an iPhone (i could be wrong, but that's what i've read). some newer fitbits are pretty good - the inspire 3 gives good basic info and if you don't have needs for the "advanced" stuff - which i don't - the app reporting is pretty good, but for some deets, they require a subscription. on the other hand, garmin's app gives more advanced info without a subscription.
  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 13,632 Member
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    I received a nice Garmin wrist device as a gift several years ago. It was a novelty at first. Now it's a tool that I use daily, and it's pretty accurate with calories and fitness tracking. The newer models are probably even better. If my battery finally needs to be replaced, I'll probably do that because otherwise it works great. When the device eventually fails (let's hope that's another five years or more), I would save up some money to replace it.

    The only changes I would like to see are ways to change what activities are available. I paddle a lot. If I use my device to track a day of canoeing on a mild river or a lake, it tells MFP that I was "whitewater kayaking." If I'm rowing my raft - same thing. If I tell it I'm rowing, it assumes I'm in a shell or scull. Nope. Raft. If I'm in a sea kayak offshore, it still says I'm whitewater kayaking. Oh well. The other one is disc golf. It has a good program for ball golf, but not disc golf. There's an aftermarket app for it, but all it does is allow you to enter the number of "strokes" per hole. Instead I just tell it I'm going for a walk. Then it tracks my heart rate and distance.
  • chris_in_cal
    chris_in_cal Posts: 2,365 Member
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    JBminus35 wrote: »
    Looking for recommendations. I have an old Fitbit which apparently is dying with a dark screen despite being charged fully. It has been languishing in a drawer for a very long time. Thinking I need to get a new one. What is the best thing out there in the u der $200 range? TY.

    You are in luck! 10 years ago, or even 5, most fitness trackers were niche, broken, frustrating, and inaccurate. Think of your old beloved blackberry/flipphone ;)

    The tech has become largely reliable and accurate.

    Nearly all name brand fitness tracker companies have a model that is sub $200.

    If you buy a 2024 Garmin, Fitbit, Pixel Watch, Apple Watch, Samsung Galaxy Watch, Suunto, Polar, Huawei, you are going to get solid tech that works.

    Get a new one, not a 3+ year old one, under $200, and with a pretty color and you can't go wrong.

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