(PCMag/Amazon)
With Black Friday and Cyber Monday upon us, it’s an excellent time to grab a deep discount on a fitness tracker or smartwatch. The two categories blend together a bit with smartwatches increasingly becoming more capable at fitness tracking. Fitness-focused wearables often include basic smarts like support for mobile payments and phone notifications. That said, you can still narrow the field by keeping your own needs in mind.
If you want a watch that syncs seamlessly with your smartphone, with tons of apps, rich notifications, camera controls, and the like, then you should probably stick to a smartwatch from the same company that make your phone. If you’re into fitness metrics and training hard for an upcoming event like a triathlon, you might prefer a model from a sports-focused brand like Garmin or Polar. If you’re just trying to get active and move more, you can save money and get a very basic tracker.
I test and rate dozens of wearables every year on factors like accuracy, performance, and value. In fact, I am wearing two and collecting data on them as I type this story. (Check out the details of our testing procedure here.) These are my favorite Black Friday deals on smartwatches and fitness trackers so far.
Our Favorite Fitness Tracker Drops Below $100
Our Editors' Choice for fitness trackers, the Fitbit Charge 6, is on sale for 38% off for Black Friday. If you don't need a new watch and just want stellar exercise tracking with a surprisingly robust selection of apps and lifestyle features, grab the Charge 6 now.
The Charge 6 syncs with Fitbit's well-designed app for Android and iOS so you can see charts of your exercise data over time. You can use it to track 40 different types of activities, and it'll monitor pace, calories, heart rate, distance, duration, steps, and more. It can even send heart rate data to gym equipment over Bluetooth for easier visibility. If you're trying to get active in the New Year, the Charge 6 can be an informative companion on your quest.
Score $100 Off a Top-Rated Garmin Watch
If you’re looking for a smartwatch with a fitness focus, the Garmin Vivoactive 5 is one of our favorites, and it’s marked down 33% on Black Friday. As a watch, the Vivoactive 5 supports notifications, mobile payments, weather reports, and onboard music storage. It also works with both iOS and Android and has 11 days of battery life. On the fitness side, it offers detailed and accurate tracking for exercise, sleep, and stress, complete with Garmin’s useful Body Battery metric that dynamically shows your energy level throughout the day.
30% Off a WearOS Smartwatch With Multi-Day Battery Life
With most smartwatches, you’ll need to find time every day or every other day at most to give it a charge. The OnePlus Watch 2 bucks that trend as a fully featured Wear OS watch that lasts 69 hours on a charge with the always-on display enabled. You can get this long-lasting wearable at a nice 30% discount on Black Friday.
The OnePlus Watch 2 only works with Android phones, but doesn’t restrict many features to OnePlus models specifically. It’s a good choice if you’re looking for a feature-rich smartwatch with capable exercise and sleep tracking and the battery life of a fitness tracker.
Go for a Year-Old Galaxy Watch for Big Savings
Samsung makes the most popular Android-based smartwatches for a reason. On Black Friday, you can get the 40mm Galaxy Watch 6 for 43% off or the 44mm model for 39% off. Both deals are excellent.
Yes, the Galaxy Watch 6 is a year old, but it was recently updated to the newest Samsung software complete with Galaxy AI health insights and sleep apnea detection, so the differences between this model and the more recent Galaxy Watch 7 are now minimal. It offers excellent app variety and features, as well as accurate health and sleep tracking. You can even use the watch to measure your body composition similar to a smart scale and track your snoring.
Unlike the OnePlus Watch 2, the Galaxy Watch 6 saves a lot of its best features for its first-party phones, but it’s a good upgrade to snag if you have a Samsung phone and need a new wearable.
Looking for more top-notch tech on sale this weekend? Make sure to scope out our Black Friday hub for up-to-the-minute deals on the products you want most.