With companies continuing to release new generations of their smartwatches, one area consistently receives the most attention: fitness. Health and fitness features have become a primary focus of smartwatches in recent years, and that trend shows no signs of slowing down.
As a result, I have moved away from traditional smartwatches and started focusing on fitness trackers instead. While the excitement surrounding smartwatches as a whole may have faded, fitness-focused wearables continue to gain momentum beyond just health tracking.
1
Battery life is so much better
No need to charge daily
One complaint many smartwatch wearers have is that battery life is too short. No matter how you use it, the battery can seem to deplete before the end of the day, which is especially problematic if you wear it to track your sleep.
Some smartwatches do offer extended battery life, but they tend to be more expensive, such as the Apple Watch Ultra. If you choose a standard smartwatch model, you may get around 18 hours of use, but not necessarily a full 24 hours.
- Brand
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Apple
- Heart Rate Monitor
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Yes
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 offers a new satellite feature, which makes updating friends and family easier.
However, this is not the case with fitness trackers. They tend to offer longer battery life, lasting not only a full day but often multiple days before needing to be recharged. This is because fitness trackers are generally more power-efficient than traditional smartwatches.
Rather than supporting numerous features running in the foreground and background, they use lighter software focused primarily on fitness and health tracking, with more energy-efficient displays.
I’ve really enjoyed the longer battery life, especially when going on morning walks. In the past, my smartwatch would often run low on battery by the end of the day, even though it still had enough charge left to track my sleep.
However, that was not always the case with my morning walks. Instead of getting up and heading out right away, I would often have to wait for my watch to charge for a bit before I could start my workout.
With a fitness tracker, that is not the case. I can go to sleep without worrying about whether I will have enough battery for my walk the next morning. Instead, I can simply wake up and start my workout without having to think about charging my device.
2
Fewer distractions on your wrist
Little to no screen means fewer distracting notifications
In the beginning, smartwatches were supposed to be revolutionary devices that could do nearly everything your phone could and put it on your wrist. While that became true to some extent, having everything available on your wrist often felt more annoying than useful.
Nowhere is this more apparent than with notifications. It seemed like every few seconds, my wrist would buzz with a new one from social media, a messaging app, or something else entirely.
You can turn off notifications for individual apps, but that requires digging through lengthy settings menus to decide which apps can send alerts and which cannot. The process is time-consuming and quickly becomes frustrating when you have to go through app after app.
Nathaniel Pangaro / How-To Geek
Fitness trackers do notify you, but they do so in a more streamlined and less distracting way. This is due to their form factor and smaller screen size.
When notifying you, fitness trackers may simply buzz your wrist or show a small portion of an email, text message, or app notification, but they do not display the full message or pull you into the app. This makes it easier to dismiss notifications and stay focused in the moment rather than acting on them from your wrist.
Additionally, some fitness trackers do not even have screens. Consider devices such as the WHOOP or the Fitbit Air, which focus on tracking your health without the distractions of a traditional smartwatch display.
3
They don’t break the bank
Fitness trackers cost significantly less than smartwatches
One of the top reasons I have switched from smartwatches to fitness trackers is the price. Fitness trackers are much more affordable than traditional smartwatches, and that does not seem likely to change anytime soon.
For everything you get with a fitness tracker, such as longer battery life, it costs much less than getting the same benefit from a smartwatch, such as an Apple Watch. I saw this firsthand when I tried a $40 fitness band that lasted multiple days on a single charge, compared with an Apple Watch Ultra, which lasts more than a day but not nearly as long, and costs 20 times more.
Smartwatches have also become more expensive over the years, with prices not returning to previous levels. Take the Apple Watch, for example. The Series 3 started at $329, while the Series 4 launched at $399, representing a nearly 22% price increase.
Paying a lower price not only helps in the moment, but also makes me more comfortable upgrading in the future. While I do not plan to upgrade every year, when I decide it is time, it will not strain my budget nearly as much as upgrading to a new smartwatch would.
Additionally, it doesn’t appear that smartwatch prices—like with the Apple Watch—will come down anytime soon to better compete with fitness trackers, especially after Apple announced multiple price increases in response to the global shortage of memory and storage chips.
Fitness trackers obviously do not do everything a smartwatch does, but that is okay. For most people, having a smartphone on their wrist is no longer the primary reason for buying a wearable.
I can say the same for myself. I do not want more distractions from notifications or to pay a high price for features I rarely use. I am happy to have my health tracked, get longer battery life, and pay less with a fitness tracker.
