Fitness watches

Fitness watches can give you an enormous amount of insight into your track and workout performance. But which ones go that extra mile for active people?

A top-quality running watch will be a real step up if you have only used fitness trackers before. Unlike fitness trackers, running watches have a range of advanced features such as built-in GPS, more accurate wristbased optical heart rate sensors and plenty of available sport modes. They also provide detailed running metrics in real time, like pace and cadence, that can help you better your running technique on the fly.

Running watches have long been suitable, to varying degrees, for tracking your prowess in the gym; the reason they’re now often known as fitness watches is that brands explicitly design them for multiple sports and activities – not just gym but hiking, cycling, paddle boarding and a host of other fitness-friendly activities. As well as all this, high-end models can often be used for navigation, thanks to their offline map function.

However, you don’t necessarily need to opt for a pure sports watch. For more casual users, a decent smartwatch will provide all the fitness features they need, and also do a whole range of other things that ‘proper’ running watches cannot do.

And if affordability is more your concern than umpteen different activity modes or tweeting out mid-workout humblebrags, there are plenty more wallet-friendly watches that will enable you to track your runs, monitor your vitals and more besides.

Clearly there’s a lot of choice on offer. To make it easier to decide which is the best option for you, we’re taking a look at the best in each of these three categories and seeing how they compare head-to-head.