My Job Is to Work Out. These Are the Fitness Trackers I’d Buy on Prime Day

In the northern hemisphere, it’s hard to not spend the winter in a state of slumbering sloth, just waiting for sunshine and good times to start again. Conveniently, Prime Day fitness tracker deals (all four days of them) drop right in the middle of summer, which makes this a great time to pick up the smartwatch or smart ring that you just didn’t have the cash for at Christmas.

This year, you have four whole days to shop the Amazon deals, but if you don’t want to take that much time, I’ve highlighted the sales on some of our favorite fitness trackers and smart rings. Not a subscriber yet? Perhaps our list of the best Amazon Prime Perks can convince you to sign up. Deal hunters should also check out our Best Amazon Prime Day Deals roundup and Prime Day liveblog.

WIRED Featured Deals

Fitness Tracker Deals

The Best Smart Ring

As you might expect with my job, I am frequently asked what fitness tracker to get, and this year, more often than not, I have told people to just buy an Oura Ring 4 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) . You don’t have to wear it on your wrist, the battery life is longer than most trackers, and Oura issues interesting, meaningful software updates regularly. This is the first time it’s gone on sale, and you should get it.

The Best Fitness Tracker

Courtesy of Fitbit

Fitbit has faced pretty stiff competition over the years (most notably from the Apple Watch), but its flagship Charge line is still the best overall fitness tracker for the money. Even tracking multiple activities a day, the battery lasts over a week. The updated app looks great, and multiple Google integrations make the Fitbit Charge 6 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) easier to use than ever.

The Best If You Have an iPhone

Photograph: Adrienne So

The Apple Watch Series 10 is the best fitness tracker for iPhone users. It still doesn’t have blood oxygen sensing due to a patent dispute, but it’s otherwise a solid fitness tracker. The standout feature is sleep apnea notifications. The watch uses an accelerometer and machine learning to check if you have breathing disturbances at night. The Series 10 is also thinner, lighter, easier to wear, and charges faster than previous models.

The Best Kids’ Watch

Photograph: Adrienne So

I have personally convinced many parents in my life to buy the Fitbit Ace LTE (7/10, WIRED Recommends) for their kids. It’s a Fitbit, so it works even if one parent is Android and the other is Apple (if so, why?), and the $10/month subscription includes data, so you don’t need to fuss with adding service to your cell plan. Fitbit Arcade incentivizes my kids to keep their watches on and charged, and I like Google’s included kids’ safety features.

A Great Garmin

Photograph: Garmin

Garmin is known for its Forerunner series of running watches. The Forerunner 255 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is the older version of the Forerunner 265 that we recommend in our roundup, but Garmins age well, and the older version does have some features to recommend it over the newer one, like better battery life.

The Cheapest Tracker You Should Buy

Photograph: Adrienne So

It may be cheap, but the Amazfit Active 2 (6/10, WIRED Reviewed) is no slouch on the sensor front with a photo plethysmography (PPG) sensor, accelerometer, gyroscope, barometric altimeter, ambient light, and temperature sensor to track your sleep, heart rate, and blood oxygen saturation. It also boasts tons of workout modes, long battery life, and 5 ATM water resistance.

The Most Affordable Apple Watch

Photograph: Apple

While it’s not the most exciting Apple watch, the SE series is a cheapest way to try out an Apple fitness tracker. The SE uses watchOS 11, which can connect to the Vitals app, which makes it easy to check your heart rate and respiration in a dashboard without hunting through the Health or Fitness apps. It has the last S8 chip, which is what the Series 8 has, and features like Crash Detection to call your emergency contact and emergency responders if you’ve been in a car accident. The SE series doesn’t have the latest health features, like the ability to check your skin temperature and the display is noticeably smaller than Apple’s other options, but for the price this is hard to beat, especially on sale.

A No-Subscription Smart Ring

Photograph: Simon Hill

While the Oura Ring 4 is undoubtedly the champion of smart rings, you’ll be paying $8 a month if you want the full experience. The Ultrahuman Ring Air (7/10, WIRED Recommends), though, comes with an included “lifetime subscription,” meaning you’ll have full access to your data and analytics when you pick one of these up. It’s the first time the price has dropped this low too, so if ever there was a time, it’s now.

A Stylish Garmin

Photograph: Adrienne So

Most Garmin watches aren’t likely to win any beauty prizes—they’re chunky, with an emphasis on the technical over aesthetic. The Lily 2 is the exception. It’s Garmin that looks more like, well, a nice watch. You can even get it with a leather band. It’s one of the smallest Garmins and battery life is on the short side—3 to 4 days. But it has a Pulse Ox sensor, a beautiful Corning Gorilla Glass lens, a metal bezel, and standard Garmin features like Body Battery and fall detection.

Power up with unlimited access to WIRED. Get best-in-class reporting that’s too important to ignore for just $2.50 $1 per month for 1 year. Includes unlimited digital access and exclusive subscriber-only content. Subscribe Today.