The 10 Best Activity Tracker For Runners Of 2024

Jonathan Wilson By, Jonathan Wilson
Updated
Best Activity Tracker For Runners
Best Activity Tracker For Runners

The Rundown

1. Best Overall: Fitbit Inspire 2 Fitness Tracker

"The Fitbit Inspire 2 Fitness Tracker is the perfect way to stay on track with your fitness goals. It allows you to track your progress toward your weekly 150 minutes of heart-pumping activity with active zone minutes." Read Review

2. Best For The Price: Garmin vivosmart 4 Fitness Tracker

"The Garmin vivosmart 4 Fitness Tracker is an all-in-one fitness tracker that blends fashion and function. Its slim, stylish design features a metal finish and a bright, easy-to-read display that makes tracking your fitness goals a breeze." Read Review

3. Best Powerful: Apple Watch Series 8 Smart Watch

"With advanced sensors, safety features, and an Always-On Retina display, this watch is designed to keep you connected and informed. Its advanced sensors provide insights to help you better understand your health, and the built-in safety features can get you help when you need it." Read Review

4. Best Performance: SAMSUNG Galaxy Watch 5 Smartwatch

"With advanced sleep coaching, body composition analysis (BIA), auto workout tracking, and an improved curved Samsung BioActive Sensor that gets closer to your skin for an accurate heart rate, you can stay up to date on your wellness." Read Review

5. Best Design: Amazfit GTS 2 Mini Smart Watch

"The Amazfit GTS 2 mini Smart Watch is the perfect companion for sports enthusiasts. With over 70 built-in sports modes, it covers various activities, from indoor yoga to outdoor running and cycling." Read Review

Are you a runner looking for the best activity tracker to help you reach your goals and get the most out of your runs? An activity tracker is an essential tool for any serious runner, and a variety of options are available on the market. From basic pedometers to complex GPS-equipped watches, there is something for everyone.

In this article, we'll look at some of the best activity trackers for runners and discuss the features and benefits of each one. Whether you're just starting or a seasoned veteran, the right activity tracker can help you stay motivated and on track with your goals. We'll look at the best activity trackers for both beginner and experienced runners so that you can find the perfect one for you. So, let's dive in and explore the best activity trackers for runners.

Following extensive study and analysis, we think the best activity tracker for runners is Fitbit Inspire 2 Fitness Tracker. This tracker allows you to track your progress toward your weekly 150 minutes of heart-pumping activity with active zone minutes. You can also check out the Garmin vivosmart 4 Fitness Tracker. However, it is not the only thing on our list. We also show a full buyer's guide; several options are available to help you find the most suitable.

Compare

TOP Choice #1 Fitbit Inspire 2 Fitness Tracker
Our Score:
9.7
Fitbit

Featuring a wide range of exercise modes, this versatile tracker allows you to monitor and track various fitness objectives such as distance covered and calories burned. Thanks to its all-day activity tracking feature, it provides comprehensive information on your daily activities, including steps taken, distance traveled, hourly activity, and calories burned. With 24/7 heart rate monitoring, it accurately measures your resting heart rate and offers valuable data on calorie burn during workouts.

Additionally, it boasts a long battery life of up to 10 days, ensuring you can track your progress without frequent charging. Detailed sleep tracking capabilities enable you to analyze your sleep patterns, including light, deep, and REM sleep stages. The Sleep Score feature provides insights into your sleep quality each night, empowering you to make informed decisions for enhancing your rest. Designed to support an active lifestyle, this swim-proof tracker is water-resistant up to 50 meters, allowing you to stay motivated even in the shower or pool. However, some users find the charging cord to be slightly short.

TOP Choice #2 Garmin vivosmart 4 Fitness Tracker
Our Score:
9.6
Garmin

The activity tracker combines a slim, fashionable design with elegant metal accents and a vibrant display for easy readability. It seamlessly integrates into your daily life while keeping you motivated toward your fitness goals. Equipped with a built-in Pulse Ox sensor on the wrist, this intelligent tracker can offer valuable insights into your blood oxygen levels during sleep.

The tracker provides comprehensive information about your well-being with various fitness and health monitoring features. It includes wrist-based heart rate monitoring, continuous stress tracking, a relaxation breathing timer, estimation of VO2 max, and the Body Battery energy monitor. These tools help you understand how your body responds to different activities and stress levels. The tracker also provides vibration alerts for incoming calls, text messages, and other notifications. Nevertheless, some users have found the charging clamp less than ideal.

TOP Choice #3 Apple Watch Series 8 Smart Watch
Our Score:
9.4
Apple

Equipped with advanced sensors, the Apple Watch offers valuable health insights for better self-understanding. Its new safety features provide added peace of mind and prompt assistance when necessary. The bright and Always-On Retina display ensures clear visibility of information, even when the wrist is resting. Customizability is a crucial feature of this watch, with various sizes and materials available, along with a wide range of bands and customizable clock faces with complications tailored to individual preferences and interests.

Regarding safety, this watch incorporates innovative features such as Crash Detection and Fall Detection. These capabilities can automatically connect the wearer with emergency services in a severe car crash or a hard fall. The Emergency SOS feature provides instant access to urgent assistance with a button, ensuring swift response in critical situations. It also excels in advanced health monitoring. With temperature sensing, it introduces a breakthrough feature that offers deep insights into women's health. However, its charger could be better. 

4 SAMSUNG Galaxy Watch 5 Smartwatch
Our Score:
9.3
SAMSUNG

The advanced sleep tracker featured in the Galaxy Watch5 offers comprehensive sleep management by detecting and analyzing sleep stages while you rest. With the added benefit of Advanced Sleep Coaching, it assists in developing better sleep habits by analyzing sleep patterns. The watch supports various applications, including Fitness Tracker, Blood Pressure Monitor, Multisport Tracker, Time Display, and GPS. It ensures seamless connectivity via Bluetooth and complies with wireless communication standards such as Bluetooth and 802_11_AGNAC.

An impressive feature of the Galaxy Watch5 is its Body Composition Analysis (BIA) capability. You can conveniently access body composition data, including body fat percentage, skeletal muscle mass, body water percentage, basal metabolic rate, and Body Mass Index (BMI), right from your wrist. This information provides valuable insights into overall health and fitness. To ensure accurate wellness tracking, this watch utilizes an improved, curved Samsung BioActive Sensor that delivers precise heart rate measurements. Unfortunately, its battery life could be better. 

5 Amazfit GTS 2 Mini Smart Watch
Our Score:
9.1
Amazfit

The Amazfit GTS 2 mini watch has a fully-optimized battery management system that offers up to 14 days of battery life, providing a hassle-free experience without the constant need for charging. With its powerful 220mAh battery, this smartwatch is ready to accompany you through two weeks of continuous activity, ensuring the energy keeps flowing. It allows you to track and monitor your performance across various activities.

It has an impressive range of over 70 built-in sports modes and caters to indoor and outdoor sports enthusiasts. Additionally, with its 5 ATM water resistance rating, this fitness watch is designed to withstand your daily activities, including swimming, without compromising its functionality. From heart rate monitoring and blood-oxygen saturation measurement to sleep monitoring, stress level monitoring, and even female cycle tracking, this mini tracker provides a holistic approach to health monitoring right from your wrist. Unfortunately, its built-in Alexa could be better. 

6 MorePro Fitness Tracker
Our Score:
9.0
MorePro

The MorePro HM08 fitness tracker is designed to empower you with valuable insights into your health and well-being. With its heart rate monitoring feature, this tracker allows individuals to check their heart rate anytime, providing a better understanding of their health trends. Additionally, it automatically tracks sleep patterns and offers a comprehensive analysis of sleep quality, including deep sleep, light sleep, and wake-up times. 

Equipped with advanced sensors, the MorePro HM08 also monitors blood oxygen and blood pressure levels. The data is recorded in the companion FitCloudPro app, allowing you to keep track of these vital health indicators. With its broad applicability, this health tracker watch is suitable for men, women, kids, parents, children, and couples who want to monitor their health together. In addition to monitoring vital signs, it tracks daily activities with its seven sports modes. It records steps taken, distance covered, and calories burned throughout the day, enabling users to track their fitness progress. Nonetheless, its manual instructions could be more detailed. 

7 Garmin GPS Smartwatch
Our Score:
8.9
Garmin

Featuring a beautiful and vibrant AMOLED display, the smartwatch offers a visually stunning experience. With up to five-day battery life in smartwatch mode and up to six hours in GPS and music mode, you can enjoy extended usage without recharging. This smartwatch goes beyond basic fitness tracking, providing a comprehensive range of all-day health monitoring features. It keeps track of your well-being, including energy levels, respiration, menstrual cycle, stress levels, sleep patterns, estimated heart rate, and more. 

Moreover, with the ability to easily download songs to the watch, you can enjoy your favorite music on the go. Whether it's playlists from popular platforms like Spotify, Amazon Music, or Deezer, this smartwatch lets users enjoy phone-free listening by connecting with headphones. It offers a convenient and seamless music experience while staying active. Equipped with over 20 preloaded GPS and indoor sports apps, including yoga, running, and pool swimming, this smartwatch caters to many physical activities. Nevertheless, it doesn't have a PIN setting for security purposes. 

8 Amazfit Bip 3 Pro Smart Watch
Our Score:
8.8
Amazfit

The 1.69-inch HD display of the Amazfit Bip 3 Pro smartwatch will captivate your attention and make you want to stay on it all day. With its large screen, you can easily view incoming texts and calls with impressive clarity and detail. Additionally, the watch offers a wide selection of 50-plus watch faces, allowing you to express your style. You can customize watch faces and widgets with your photos, adding a personalized touch to your device.

The Amazfit Bip 3 Pro is built to withstand various environments, featuring a water resistance depth of up to 50 meters. This means you can confidently wear the smartwatch during water-related activities like swimming or water sports without worrying about water damage. Equipped with advanced features, it supports applications for blood oxygen measurement, heart rate monitoring, multisport tracking, GPS, and social media. You can conveniently track your health and fitness metrics, ensuring you stay on top of your well-being goals. However, its wristband is made up of rubber, which some may not like.

9 Garmin vívofit 4 Activity Tracker
Our Score:
8.6
Garmin

The Garmin fitness tracker is designed to help you stay active and achieve your fitness goals. It accurately tracks steps taken, distance covered, and calories burned, providing valuable insights into your daily activity levels. With its advanced sleep monitoring feature, the tracker also keeps tabs on sleep patterns, helping you understand the quality and duration of their rest.

The device seamlessly syncs with Garmin Connect, a platform that allows individuals to save, plan, and share their activities. Garmin Connect gives you access to a wide range of features, including social challenges that encourage friendly competition and engagement with other fitness enthusiasts. This creates a supportive community where you can stay motivated and share your progress. One standout feature of the Garmin fitness tracker is the Move IQ functionality. This innovative feature automatically detects different types of activities and classifies them accurately on Garmin Connect. Unfortunately, its app could be more user-friendly. 

10 iTouch Smart Fitness Tracker
Our Score:
8.5
ITouch

FITNESS GOALS: Stay motivated by setting goals in the iTouch Wearables app for steps, calories burned, sleep, water intake, weight and more. Items in the packaging: 1 iTOUCH Air 3 Smartwatch and 1 Air 3 USB Charging Cable

HEALTH AND FITNESS TRACKER: The iTOUCH AIR 3 Smart Watch has a built-in pedometer and 24/7 heart rate monitor that automatically tracks your steps, calories burned, cardiovascular activity and sleep. You can also activate Sports Mode and choose from a variety of options: Running, Hiking, Outdoor Cycling, Elliptical Training, Baseball, Basketball, Football and Soccer. Workouts automatically sync with the mobile app so you can look back at your total length of time calories burned for each sport

ADDITIONAL FEATURES: Receive notifications for calls, text messages, and social media. Daily weather and multi-day forecast on your wrist. Turn your AIR 3 into a shutter button with Camera Remote. Control your phone’s music without taking it out of your pocket with Music Remote. Set reminders to drink more water, wash hands, and even to move around when you’ve been sitting too long. Open our mobile app to track female health, meals, water intake, weight changes, and coffee intake

What to Look For in a best activity tracker for runners?

The best activity tracker for runners is assessed based on many factors. best activity tracker for runners research varies depending on the type, feature, and quality of this product. It is not too complex to cover, yet we will give you some buying guide and solutions to these problems.

Please take a closer look at best activity tracker for runners characteristics below would be beneficial for you. Let’s look through and keep in mind:

Water Resistance

Do you ever come in contact with water during your workouts? It's important to remember that water is an essential part of your workout. Most trackers will be at most splashproof. Other trackers are waterproof and can take a shower indoors or outside. You should choose a tracker that is more water resistant if you intend to swim in your pool.

Display

Some trackers are more skilled and reveal the data via symbols, numbers, or words on a display that is watch-face-like. Others simply use an app to share their data. The tracker's companion application syncs data to your smartphone and computer. This not only preserves information, but can also help you analyze it. Make sure you preview the tracker companion app before finalizing your purchase.

Heart Rate Monitor

The most expensive activity trackers will have a heart-rate monitor. They are aimed at athletes who want to be serious about exercising and taking their sport very seriously. A heart monitor is a great way to better track your progress and help with health.

Battery Life

Battery life may vary depending on how advanced the device. If the tracker has color touch screens or an assortment of sensors, it is more likely that you will have to charge your battery frequently than with a band without any LED lights.

Style

Fitness trackers have always looked functional. However, fashion designers are more concerned about style. A variety of shapes and colors are possible, as well as models that have been developed in partnership with fashion designers. Find a look that's comfortable to wear every day.

Apps

If there is a tracker for your fitness, chances are there's an application. There are many apps available, but each app has its own unique features. This means that if data is a concern you could choose based on which supported apps they are.

Accuracy

It is not possible to fool trackers. These trackers use algorithms and sensors which can interpret footsteps, punches thrown, steps taken, hours sleep, as well as other data. It's possible to be somewhat inaccurate. For hard data you might consider a function-specific instrument. Heart rate monitors that attach to your chest to transmit information to your activity tracker will generally be more accurate than any in-device sensor.

Smartphone Compatibility

You should first check that your fitness tracker is compatible with your smartphone before you attempt to connect it to the internet. Although most fitness trackers will work on Android or iOS, there may be some issues with less well-known models.

FAQs

What is an activity tracker for runners?

An activity tracker for runners is a device that tracks and records a runner's performance and progress, such as distance, speed, heart rate, calories burned, and more. It can also provide detailed insights into workouts and training plans.

How does an activity tracker work?

An activity tracker typically uses sensors and a GPS to measure and track a runner's performance. It can also connect to other devices like smartphones to provide additional features and data.

What are the benefits of using an activity tracker for runners?

Using an activity tracker for runners can help runners measure their performance and progress, set goals, and motivate them to reach those goals. It can also provide detailed insights into workouts and training plans.

What are some features of an activity tracker?

Some features of an activity tracker may include tracking and recording distance, speed, heart rate, calories burned, sleep quality, and more. It may also provide detailed insights on workouts and training plans and connect to other devices, such as smartphones.


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About Jonathan Wilson

Jonathan Wilson

Jonathan Wilson is a former pro football player and tech reporter who now serves as the editor of Kris Van Assche's website. He is a dedicated fitness enthusiast who splits his workout time between strength and conditioning training, martial arts and running.

Jonathan's athletic career began in college, where he was a star running back. He went on to play professionally for several years before injuries forced him to retire. Afterward, Jonathan transitioned into a career in tech reporting, where he quickly made a name for himself as a knowledgeable and insightful commentator on the industry.

In addition to his work with our website, Jonathan remains active in the world of sports. He regularly competes in martial arts tournaments and running events, and he is always looking for new ways to challenge himself physically. Jonathan is an inspiration to many people, and he is proof that it is never too late to pursue your passions.

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