Best Fitness Trackers For Women
The Apple Watch, Samsung Galaxy Watch, and other smartwatches can be overkill for some people, especially if you want a wearable that tracks 24/7. Most of the time, you need to charge those big, bulky smartwatches daily, so it’s sorta difficult to track sleep when it’s sitting on the nightstand charging. When we researched to find the best fitness trackers for women, battery life was one of our biggest considerations for that reason.
On top of great battery life, all of our top picks have the essential features that women want in a fitness tracker. But, as you’ll see, the differences will make the decision easy when you consider your style of use.
1. Fitbit Charge 5
Color Options: Graphite, Lunar White/Soft Gold, and Steel Blue/Platinum
Smart AND Simple
While companies like Garmin and Polar pride themselves on advanced running, swimming, and other metrics, Fitbit does most of the work for you. This is the main reason why the Fitbit Charge 5 is the best fitness tracker for women AND men. The Fitbit app does the best job of giving you simplified feedback based on the wealth of data your Charge 5 collects.
Not everybody needs to know their cadence or stride length when jogging. On the other hand, Charge 5 does a great job of tracking the essentials that most users need to gauge the overall quality of their workouts. Plus, you can get one-on-one coaching sessions to help tailor a routine that’s perfect for you.
Pay To Play
The only downside is that you have to pay for access to ALL of the features in the Fitbit app, but there’s no better option outside of your local personal trainer. The collection of more than 15 guided programs, are perfect for helping beginners through the first 1-3 weeks of establishing better habits and routines. The programs also includes advanced sleep and nutrition analysis, so anyone can get a better understanding of your overall health and wellness.
For more advanced users, you can cherry pick through the hundreds of individual workouts. The Premium subscriptions also gives you access to creating your own Challenges to do with your family and friends. Choose from step challenges, total active minutes, adventure races, and more!
Fits Any Style
Customize the look and feel with Fitbit’s replacement band choices, or hit the net and choose from 1,000’s of 3rd-party replacement bands. Whether you choose the Graphite, Gold, or Platinum color options, they all have a new premium finish that can fit any style.
The new shape is one of the best changes. Looking like a narrow version of the Apple Watch, the upgraded display is just as impressive. Plus, the smoother body makes it a lot more comfortable to wear during workouts, sleeping, and more.
Pros:
- Designed to fit any style
- Very responsive color touch screen
- Tons of great digital watch faces
- New Daily Readiness Score advanced recovery metric
- Fitbit app is best-in-class (iOS & Android)
- Swim-ready with a 50-meter waterproof rating
- Built-in GPS and GLONASS
- On-wrist music controls
- Quick Reply texting (with Android only)
- 1,000’s of Fitbit and 3rd-party replacement band options
- EDA stress tracking replaces Relax Guided Breathing from previous models
Cons:
- Some of the best Fitbit app options only come with the paid subscription
- No Altimeter for tracking floors climbed
- No music storage
- Always-On display drains the battery quicker than the advertised 7 days
2. Garmin Vivosmart 4
Color Options: Midnight, Berry/Gold, Gray/Rose-Gold, and Azure-Blue/Silver
The Vivosmart 4 is one of our favorite fitness trackers for women for three main reasons:
- Size
- Style
- Advanced features
The Look
The 4 color combinations are elegant and simple, so they’re extremely easy to match any style. The Vivosmart 4’s sleek design is perfect for women with smaller wrists. It’s also perfectly designed to allow your wrist full range of motion. Besides the physical design, the tracking software is the best part of owning any Garmin wearable, let alone the Vivosmart 4.
Stress And Sleep Tracking
Even though Garmin’s Connect app isn’t as simple and straight forward as the Fitbit app, it’s the most comprehensive. Being able to track things like stress level and Vo2 Max, it’s perfect for women who want to better understand the link between physical and mental health.
With a 7-day battery life, you’re also able to track sleep effectively. The Garmin app displays everything you would want to see about your sleep quality with these important metrics:
- Sleep type (light, deep, and REM)
- Pulse Ox (blood oxygen levels)
- Physical movement
Fitness Tracking
When it comes to activity and workout tracking, the Vivosmart 4 is just as effective as similar Fitbit trackers. Start and stop workouts directly from the fitness tracker. Also, you can see your “body battery level” directly on your wrist. It’s Garmin’s unique way of using multiple metrics, to judge how much “juice” you have left. When it comes to the app, Garmin Connect tracks and displays more metrics than any other brand.
Conclusion
With the Garmin Vivosmart 4 having a small monochrome screen, it’s a bummer to only have 7-days of battery life max. On the other hand, with the 24/7 heart rate, advanced sleep tracking, and all the other metrics, it’s understandable. Starting at around $100, the Vivosmart 4 is a no-brainer for women who want something simple that can grow with a more advanced fitness level.
Key Features:
- 7-Day battery life
- 4 Elegant color combinations
- Advanced sleep tracking
- Unique “Body Battery” metric
- Stress level management
- 24-7 heart rate monitoring
- Alerts for weather, text, call, and other smart notifications
- Control music from your wrist
- Compatible with iPhone and Android
3. Amazfit Band 5
The Amazfit Band 5 (fromerly Xiaomi Mi Band 5) is one of the most popular fitness trackers for women worldwide. Amazfit is the American branch of the #1 wearables company in the world, Huami. Yes, even above Apple. Even with their expansive family of wearable devices, the Amazfit Band 5 is sitll their best fitness-tracker-style wearable company-wide.
The Look
Even though the Amazfit Band 5 only comes in a few basic band colors, there are thousands of third-party replacement bands to choose from. For fitness purposes, the silicone straps are obviously the best choice. If you’re dressing up, you can easily switch the tracker over to one of the many leather and metallic band options. On top of that, there are hundreds of digital watch faces that you can download for further customization.
Fitness Tracking
The 15-day battery life, 5 ATM water resistance, and multiple sport tracking modes are perfect for all active women. The long battery life is perfect for hiking and camping trips. The health monitoring provides 24/7 heart rate tracking and HR alerts during workouts. The Mi Band 4 even allows you to control music from your wrist.
The Mi Fit app isn’t as comprehensive as Garmin’s Connect app, but it’s still plenty powerful. On top of simple steps and heart rate, it displays advanced runner’s metrics and GPS tracking (via your phone’s GPS). You can even connect with family and friends that use Xiaomi and Amazfit devices and have step competitions.
The best part is that the Mi Fit app is compatible with Google Fit and Apple Health. When connected, heart rate, sleep, and other metrics can be automatically imported. This allows you to leave your expensive Apple Watch or Wear OS smartwatch safely at home during workouts. All while keeping all of your fitness and activity data in one place.
Sleep Tracking
The long battery life and 24/7 heart rate monitoring also gives you advanced sleep tracking. The Mi Band 4 tracks your light sleep, deep sleep, and awake time every night. It also gives you recommendations for better sleep and comparisons to other Mi Fit users.
Conclusion
Even though the Mi Fit app isn’t as comprehensive as the Fitbit App and Garmin Connect app, it’s still powerful enough for almost any level of athlete. At just under $35, it blows every other budget fitness tracking band out of the water. Use those savings to pick up a couple of different styles of replacements bands so you can accessorize. In the end, you’re getting one of the most versatile fitness trackers in the world.
Key Features:
- 15-Day battery life
- 5 ATM water resistance (swim-ready)
- Advanced sleep tracking
- Beautiful AMOLED display
- 6 Workout modes
- 24/7 Heart rate
- Bluetooth 5.0
- Alerts for weather, text, calls, and other smart notifications
- Control music from your wrist
- Compatible with iPhone and Android
4. Amazfit Bip Series
Back in 2018, the Amazfit brand made a splash with the original Amazfit Bip and its 45-day battery life. This Apple Watch look-a-like is one of our overall favorite fitness trackers for women AND men, for many reasons. For now we’ll concentrate on the things that make the Bip perfect for women.
The Look
As I said, this the Amazfit Bip Series looks similar to the Apple watch but there are some huge differences. Basically, it’s a fitness tracker with some premium smartwatch features. You can’t download any extra watch apps, but you still get plenty of on-screen functions. The Bip series features a simple and snappy menu system that has all of the fitness tracking essentials. Also, there are thousands of 3rd-party watch faces to download and customize them with.
The large transflective display, in the early models (Bip, Bip lite, and Bip S), actually looks better in the sunlight and is a lot easier on the battery. It’s not as nice as the AMOLED screens in the newer models (Bip U and Bip U Pro), but that’s why the Bip U only gets 9-days of battery life. On top of that, the 1.2″ transflective display is able to display the FULL watch faces, even in Always-On mode.
Like the Amazfit Band 5, the Bip series only comes in a few basic body colors, but that’s where the limitations end. The Bip Series feature a 20mm pin setup, so you have thousands of choices for replacement watchbands. For fitness, our favorite watchband for the Bip Series is the nylon hook and loop (Velcro) sport bands, but for some other ideas and options, check out our Watches Kiosk. There we feature a review of the Top 3 3rd-Party Watchband Brands, so you can find a band for every occasion.
Fitness Tracking
The Amazfit Bip is a fitness powerhouse! Here are the 3 best onboard fitness features:
- Up to 45-day battery life
- Built-in GPS for tracking road/trail workouts, hiking trips, marathons, and other long-distance athletic events
- Completely control and monitor your workouts directly from your wrist
The Zepp (formerly Amazfit) app displays extra advanced running metrics, heart rate zones, and more. It’s also just like the Garmin and Mi Fit all-in-one apps. Everything from tracking to wearable settings is wrapped up in an easy yet powerful app. If you want a Fitbit-style community fitness sharing, the Zepp app is able to be linked to Strava.
Sleep Tracking
The Amazfit sleep tracking is similar to the Mi Band 4. The super-long battery life and 24/7 heart rate monitoring gives you advanced sleep tracking. The Bip and Zepp app track your light sleep, deep sleep, and awake time every night. Based on that and other metrics, it also gives you recommendations for better sleep and gives you comparisons to other Amazfit users.
Conclusion
With the squarish Apple Watch design, the Amazfit Bip is the best Fitbit replacement for women AND men. It looks good on small or big wrists and it’s super light, so there’s no ball-and-chain feeling of typical smartwatches. This is one of the best replacements for Fitbit Versa and Ionic users and a nice upgrade from any other Fitbit user. With an always-low-price of around $79, it’s one of the best values of any wearable.
Key Features:
- 30-45 day battery life (9-days with the BIp U)
- 5ATM dust and water resistance
- Built-in GPS
- Advanced sleep tracking
- 1.2in transflective display
- 4 sport modes (60+ sport modes on the Bip U)
- 24/7 heart rate
- Alerts for weather, text, calls, and other smart notifications
- Compatible with iPhone and Android
