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Is it because you want to monitor steps? Lead a healthier lifestyle? Track workouts? Or just look trendy? The first step in choosing the best fitness watch for you is deciding which features are most important.
Wearable tech is everywhere in 2023. Everyone's either wearing a fitness watch or searching for the best one to suit their lifestyle needs. Gone are the days of simple heart rate monitors and activity trackers. With such a massive variety of options across brands, styles and features, figuring out how to pick a fitness watch can be challenging with so many on the market in 2023. Here are some things to bear in mind.
Why Do You Want a Fitness Watch?
This answer should be at the heart of your decision. Is it because you want to monitor steps? Lead a healthier lifestyle? Track workouts? Or just look trendy? The first step in choosing the best fitness watch for you is deciding which features are most important.
Fitness watches are designed to complement your lifestyle, and you're more likely to get more out of a watch that suits your goals and routine.
Smart Watch vs Fitness Watch - What’s the Difference?
Fitness watches are becoming more and more advanced, and the line between fitness watches and smart watches is starting to blur. The key difference is that a fitness watch is built with your health in mind from the start, whereas many smartwatches support fitness tracking as extra features, but they are not core to the product.
A smartwatch might be a good choice if you feel like you'd use the additional features like email and social media, or the ability to answer calls and texts, while you're out exercising. They are also more customisable with the ability to install third-party apps of your choice.
However, they're generally more expensive, bulkier and have shorter battery life due to all the demands that are constantly being placed on the tech. If you're looking for a device geared specifically around your fitness and wellbeing, it might be better to choose a fitness watch that has the exact features that you need.
1. Best All-Round Fitness Watch
Samsung Galaxy Watch5
Fitbit Versa 4
The Fitbit Versa 4 is an advanced fitness tracker and smartwatch combo, so you can track your workouts while enjoying features like Spotify, Amazon Alexa, and Fitbit Pay for contactless payments. Thanks to 24/7 Heart Rate and GPS tracking, the Versa 4 tracks 20+ activities and gives you personalised prompts to help you hit your daily goals. The Fitbit app also makes it easy to view all your data in one place, including heart rate, pace, and distance during workouts. If you’re interested in a more holistic approach to health, the app also includes guided breathing, sleep tracking, and female health tracking.
2. Best Fitness Watches for Runners
Whether you're a true runner at heart; or you simply run to keep fit, you'll want a watch with built-in, accurate GPS (and battery life to support it!) so you don't need to carry your phone with you to know exactly where you are and how far you've gone. You'll also be interested in advanced metrics specifically for runners, like oxygen levels, stride length, and estimated recovery time. The Garmin Forerunner range of fitness watches offers built-in GPS, optical heart-rate monitors, Safety Tracking, and excellent battery life. These are two of our favourites:
Garmin Forerunner 55 GPS Running Watch
The Forerunner 55 GPS Running Watch is a simple to use, comfortable watch with a clear display, built-in GPS and fantastic battery life. It's perfect for the casual runner and features a range of running metrics to ensure you get the most out of every run from pacing strategies, virtual running for indoor runs, track mode for pinpoint timing accuracy and much more. You can use the 24/7 optical heart rate monitor to measure the intensity of your workouts and to ensure you're getting enough sleep.
Garmin Forerunner 245 Music Watch
Everything is better with music. If you agree, then you might want to
consider the
Forerunner 245 Music Watch
, which lets you stream up to 500 songs straight to your Bluetooth
headphones and flip through them with a simple button system. Despite the
name, music isn't all this watch has to offer. It also comes complete with
training features that use collected data to provide tailored guidance and
personalise your workout.
If you're serious about monitoring your performance, this watch displays
steps, calories burnt, distance travelled, heart rate, intensity minutes,
VO2 max, and includes MoveIQ for automatic exercise tracking of activities.
3. Best Fitness Watches for Swimmers
If you're a swimmer, the watch will absolutely have to be waterproof, but not all waterproof fitness watches are made the same. You'll want to look for something that has auto stroke detection, automatic sets and SWOLF scoring.
Garmin Swim 2
This
fitness watch
is designed for both the pool and open water. It monitors underwater heart
rate, distance, pace, stroke count and type, and distance per stroke, but
also comes with a few advanced features, especially for swimmers like
creating custom workouts and drill logging.
The watch also includes a bunch of benefits outside of the water that will
make it worthwhile in the off-season, such as stress tracking and advanced
sleep monitoring. The display is visible in the water, and full sunlight
and the watch has a battery that can last up to seven days.
4. Best Fitness Watches if You Simply Love the Outdoors
You don't have a favourite sport; you love everything, as long as you're outside with fresh air in your lungs. If this is you, then you might want to look at a multisport watch or a watch designed for adventure.
Garmin Enduro
The Garmin Enduro Smartwatch is designed to help athletes and adrenaline lovers improve their performance. It tracks your Heart Rate, Pulse Ox and respiratory level to help you get the most out of your activity, whether it's trail running, mountain biking, or surfing.With inbuilt maps and GPS, GLONASS and GALILEO satellites, the Enduro helps you navigate any terrain safely, and has an extended battery life of up to 80 hours in GPS mode. The watch also has Garmin Pay, so there’s no need for a wallet while you’re out.
Garmin Forerunner 945
The Garmin Forerunner 945 will help you explore new training grounds or trails with inbuilt maps and GPS, GLONASS and GALILEO satellites and safety tracking allowing you to find your way or share your location for added safety for peace of mind. With so many features and up to 36 hours of battery life in Smartwatch mode or 10 hours with music, the only place you won't be running is around the house trying to find the nearest charger. Reach your potential with the Running Watch.
Garmin Fenix 7
Bringing state of the art design, the Garmin Fenix 7 Smartwatch will help you get the most out of your favourite activities. Tested to US military standards for thermal, shock and water resistance it's ready to go outdoors. Staying on top of your progress is made easy with an inbuilt heart rate sensor and Pulse Ox sensors to provide insight into your fitness activities. Preloaded activity profiles for swimming, running, biking, hiking and skiing allow you to make the most out of your favourite fitness activities, with endurance and real-time stamina tracking, training status, advanced performance metrics and 30+ built-in sports apps. This long-running solar-powered multisport GPS watch is bound to motivate and drive your active lifestyle.
5.Best Basic Fitness Tracker
Fitbit Inspire 3
Smash your fitness goals with the help of the Fitbit Inspire 3 Wellness Tracker. It features sleep tracking and stress management scores to help you stay in touch with your body and determine what it needs and adjust as needed. The Inspire 3 also tracks heart rate, steps, distance, and calories, all backed by high-quality waterproof construction and has a battery life of up to 10 days.
6. Best Fitness Watches for Kids
The Vivofit Jr 3 is built to last and comes complete with educational resources and interactive features. One such feature, that might particularly appeal to parents, is the ability to manage chores and reward their completion. Kids can pick their favourite display and colour scheme, and the watch is available in a number of styles, ranging from Marvel's Black Panther to Disney Princesses.
Fitbit ACE 3
The Fitbit ACE 3 is perfect for kids who want to have a fitness watch during their practice games and training sessions. To help get kids moving and enjoying sports and physical activity, the ACE 3 incorporates fun games and challenges, to help kids get moving. With a huge range of special edition watches like Minions and heaps of colours for boys and girls, get your kids ready this sports season.
Rebel is Australia’s most popular destination for sporting goods. Shop the range of fitness watches and trackers from rebel now.