We recommend Samsung’s Galaxy SmartTag 2 in our Bluetooth tracker buying guide to Galaxy phone owners who want an AirTags-style device that can keep tabs on their keys, luggage and other sensitive items. If that describes you, here’s a quick PSA: A four-pack of the little oblong devices is currently $30 off and down to $70 at Amazon. This discount has popped up periodically since Samsung released the tracker last October, but it nevertheless matches the four-pack’s lowest price to date. If you’d rather not shop at Amazon, the same bundle is available at B&H for $2 extra.
If you don’t need quite so many trackers, meanwhile, single SmartTag 2s are also on sale for $21 each. That’s a dollar more than the device’s all-time low but still $9 off its usual street price.
Samsung
This matches the lowest price we’ve seen for a four-pack of Samsung’s AirTag-style Bluetooth trackers.
The key thing to note with the Galaxy SmartTag 2 is that it’s a Samsung-only affair. You need a Samsung phone or tablet running Android 11 or later for it to fully work, and it uses the company’s SmartThings Find crowd-finding network to locate items. The latter is Samsung’s alternative to Apple’s Find My network and Google’s recently-launched Find My Device network. (Yes, the names of these things are way too similar.) It’s not as large as either of those, so it’ll generally be less precise at pinpointing an item that winds up outside of your tracker’s Bluetooth range. Samsung hasn’t confirmed any plans for the Galaxy SmartTag 2 to support Google’s expanded network, either. If you’re an Android user who isn’t beholden to Galaxy phones, you should wait and see if it’s worth buying upcoming trackers from Chipolo and Pebblebee (among others) that are designed to use the Find My Device network.
That said, because there are still a few hundred million Samsung devices that’ve opted into SmartThings Find out in the wild, we’ve found the Galaxy SmartTag 2’s crowd-sourcing to be effective enoughin testing. Its separation alerts — i.e., its ability to ping you when you’ve left a tagged item behind — worked about as reliably as any model we tested, and it does well to map out its location history over time. It’s capable of tracking up to 120 meters (roughly 394 feet) directly over Bluetooth, which is on the longer side, plus it supports ultrawideband tech, which can help it more accurately direct you towards an item once you’re close by.
The device itself is simple to set up, and its flat design has a built-in cutout, so it’s easy to stash in a wallet or attach to a keychain. It’s also IP67-rated, so it can survive a dip underwater. Samsung says the device can last up to 500 days with typical use, and you can replace the battery once it peters out. There are technically more capable options out there (with more to come), and all Bluetooth trackers carry some level of privacy issues. A device like this isn’t ideal for warding off theft, either. But for forgetful Galaxy diehards who are looking to save some cash, this is a decent deal.
Achieving your fitness goals doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. Keeping track of your progress will be crucial, but not everyone needs to drop hundreds of dollars on the best smartwatches out there. The average affordable tracker might offer just the right tools to help kickstart your health journey. And, after testing a number of affordable fitness trackers, I can say with confidence that you might be surprised by how much a $100 (or less) wearable can do. Many of these gadgets go well beyond being glorified pedometers, providing in-depth reports on how you’re sleeping at night or giving you a breakdown of your heart rate variability during a workout. But given their price, there will be some sacrifices. To help you decide which is right for you, I tested a number of the best cheap fitness trackers available today to find the ones that are worth your money.
What to look for in a cheap fitness tracker
All of the best fitness trackers should have at least three features: a program to track workouts or movement of some sort, the option to monitor and collect sleep data and the ability to measure health metrics like heart rate and blood oxygen levels (though, the readings might not be super accurate).
Fitness features
A cheap workout tracker can be great for someone looking to keep tabs on small, achievable goals like 10,000 steps before sundown or 30 minutes of a HIIT workout to get your heart rate peaking. An experienced long-distance runner looking to train for a triathlon might opt for a more expensive device that can measure cadence or ground contact time, and can track more customizable workouts or give deeper insights into performance data.
At the very least, a budget workout tracker should be able to track workouts beyond walking and running — otherwise, it would just be a pedometer. The number of activities a device will recognize varies. Some will get funky with it and consider skateboarding a workout, while others won’t be able to track a jumping jack.
At this price, you can expect a device to measure a mix of cardio, machine workouts and strength training. With each, you might get a numerical or visual breakdown of heart rate activity, overall pace, and calories burned per session. Although some cheap trackers can offer a really good overview of heart rate zone activity during a workout, a more technically advanced device might be able to go a step further and explain what your results mean and coach you on how to keep your heart rate in a specific bracket so that you can burn more fat per workout. I found that the more budget-friendly the device, the more likely it is that a tracker will fall short when it comes to smart counseling or offering predictive insights beyond a given workout. If a budget tracker does happen to offer some semblance of a coaching program, you can expect it to sit behind a paywall.
Tracking and planning your recovery is just as essential to any fitness journey. A sub-$100 device should be able to tell you how long you’ve slept and provide a breakdown of deep, light and REM sleep activity. It’s not a guarantee that you will get a sleep “score” or insights on how to get better rest — that data is usually found on more expensive wearables. Also, because these trackers aren’t designed for bedtime specifically — be mindful of comfort. The bands and watch face on a budget fitness tracker may not be ideal for getting some good shut-eye.
Connectivity and practicality
Not all activity trackers, budget-friendly or not, are designed to seamlessly integrate with a smartphone. The trackers tested for this roundup can’t directly make calls or send texts to contacts on a paired smartphone. They can, however, display and dismiss incoming calls and notifications. You can forget about checking your email or paying for a coffee from your wrist using these more affordable devices.
Most cheap fitness trackers also won’t include a built-in GPS. Instead, they usually depend on a paired smartphone to gather location data. The drawback of using a fitness tracker without GPS is that it might not provide as precise for tracking distance or pace. You also can’t use a budget tracker to get turn-by-turn directions during a walk or while running errands. For the more outdoorsy consumers, having GPS could be a key safety feature.
Design
You also might find that an inexpensive fitness tracker is harder to navigate than a more advanced smartwatch. Whether it be a screen size issue or simply not having a smart enough interface, don’t expect every feature to be one that you can engage with directly on your wrist. Oftentimes, you will need to pull out your smartphone to log information or access more in-depth health data.
The quality and build of displays and bands will also vary in this category. Don’t expect the highest resolution displays or the fanciest materials in the bands. But you can expect some level of sweat and water resistance.
Xiaomi
The Xiaomi Smart Band 8 stood out on many fronts — it not only has the easiest interface to navigate when recording workouts, it also has the most comfortable band to sleep in. This device has pretty much everything you would expect on a fitness tracker, and it comes at a price that’s hard to beat. The 1.62-inch, 192 x 490 pill-shaped AMOLED display is full color and shines pretty bright both indoors and out. Although it doesn’t have a physical navigation button, you can move through the UI by swiping up and down, or left and right.
The Smart Band 8 is quite comfortable, but what really made it secure the top slot is how detailed its workout reports were. Unlike some of the other trackers we tested, the Smart Band 8 does not require you to download any exercises from its companion app. Meaning, you can get right into tracking exercises as niche as skiing. When a workout is complete, you get all the information you’d want on your wrist – from heart rate readings to pace and speed, to calories burned and more. It may sound basic, but some of the other trackers we tested only report step count and distance traveled after a walk. The amount of time spent in each heart rate zone will appear in your summary, from light, intensive, aerobic to anaerobic.
Xiaomi’s tracker also has a unique “Pebble” mode, which allows you to clip on the tracker to shoelaces using a special case to gather running and cycling data. Using Pebble mode, you can get a better breakdown of how you performed during a sprint -– namely stats like flight ratio and ground contact time, along with general information about your running form.
The tracker was easy to fall asleep with because of how lightweight and comfortable it is. The do-not-disturb feature is easy to turn on from the watch face and I didn’t have any issues with the screen waking me up at night. The sleep insights after wearing it overnight impressed me with their detail. Right on my wrist, I was able to learn how long I slept and also got a detailed sleep graph that showed me when I was in light and deep sleep. This was all free, on my wrist and it was further broken down for me in the Mi app. I also was able to gather information on my average HR during sleep and my breathing patterns.
Also, importantly, Xiamo’s impressive battery claims checked out – the Smart Band 8 only needs 30 minutes on a charger before being fueled up for about two weeks of use. I never worried about not being able to track my activity or sleep.
The Amazfit Band 7, like the Xiaomi Band 8, has all of the workouts you can track pre-loaded on your wrist. It also has a unique interface that allows you to set a custom goal, like burning 500 calories, before starting a workout.
The Amazfit band has a special scoring system called PAI, which stands for “Personal Activity Intelligence.” This metric is derived from your heart rate during all activities (even ones that don’t involve tracked workouts) and gives you a numeric score from 1 to 100. You want to get your score as close to 100 as possible, through workouts and rest, to keep your overall heart health strong. Like the Xiaomi Smart Band 8, the Amazfit Band 7 gives a user a breakdown of their overall heart rate zone activity on the watch face.
The watch also has a unique “one tap measure” that gives you insights into your heart rate, blood oxygen levels and even a stress score based on your heart rate variability.
There are some downsides to the Band 7, though, namely that it is considerably slower than the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 when it comes to starting and ending exercise sessions. It also does not have a physical navigation button, making it sometimes hard to exit a page. That would have been something I could have overlooked if the watch’s display had been a bit on par with the Xiaomi Band 8’s. Despite having an AMOLED color display, the Band 7’s screen was sometimes hard to view even indoors.
It does get brownie points for being a bit more comfortable to sleep in than some of the others we tested, but it still takes some getting used to. If you do sleep with the Band 7 for a week though, you can get an in-depth sleep analysis about your susceptibility for conditions like sleep apnea. The caveat is that you need to pay a premium for this more detailed sleep report. Through the Zepp app (formerly Amazfit) you can pay $10 monthly or $50 annually for a premium subscription, which also includes meditation content and an AI sleep coach.
I expected more out of the Fitbit Inspire 3 because, well, it’s Fitbit. Also, considering it’s the most expensive tracker on the list, you would think you would get more. The tracker does serve its purpose -– it can record your workouts. However, only 6 kinds of activities can be tracked at a time. To add more niche exercises like a weight-lifting routine, you need to open the Fitbit app and swap one exercise widget for another. It does give a rudimentary breakdown of your calories burned, heart rate, and all of the things you would normally want to get in a performance report.
One thing I do appreciate about the Fitbit Inspire 3 is its Active Zone Minute breakdown after a workout is tracked. This is a feature unique to Fitbit that calculates how hard your workouts were and how much fat you burned in the process. The app does a good job of breaking down other health metrics during exercise and can tell you how much recovery you need before your next workout. It’s nice to have that information, but the fact that you need to pull out your phone to get deeper insights can be a nuisance.
The Inspire 3 also does not allow you to directly log menstrual cycle data on it, whereas the Xiaomi Band 8 and Amazfit Band 7 do. The battery life on this tracker is on par with what the company says, though. It charges to full in under 45 minutes and dies after about 10 days of use. So in between tracking workouts and gathering sleep data, I did not have to worry much about missing a night of sleep tracking to charge it overnight. The Fitbit Inspire 3 is comfortable to sleep with, maybe even slightly more comfortable than the Amazfit Band 7, but the fact that its sleep coaching is only available for premium Fitbit subscribers does take away from the appeal.
Pros
Supports Active Zone Minutes tracking
Good battery life
Comfortable design
Cons
Cannot manually add menstrual cycle data directly from the band
I didn’t have high expectations of the Wyze Watch 47c, but I was shocked at how little this tracker can do. The 47c can only track walks and runs. It has a dedicated widget, a small logo of a man running, and when you tap it, it begins measuring your pace, heart rate, calories burned and mileage. It does not auto-detect or auto-pause workouts and it doesn’t differentiate between a run and walk. Most importantly, this device can’t track any other exercises. It’s basically a glorified pedometer.
The 47c was also my least favorite to sleep with, mainly because the square watch face is so large and heavy. Even if I did manage to sleep through the night with it on, it only gave me a basic sleep report.
Garmin vivofit 4
The Garmin vivofit 4 has a tiny display that is not a touchscreen and all navigation happens through one button. The watch face is impossible to read outdoors and the exercise widget is also very finicky. To start tracking a run, you have to hold down the main button and flip through some pages until you get to a moving person icon. Once there, you have to press the bottom right corner of the bar and hold down and if you press for too long or in the wrong spot, it’ll switch to another page, like a stopwatch. It’s incredibly frustrating.
Once you start a run though, it will start tracking your steps, your distance — and that’s pretty much it. It does not auto-detect or auto-pause workouts. It doesn’t alert you of any mileage or calorie milestones.
Bluetooth trackers are handy little things that can help you find valuables after misplacing them. Our pick for the is the Chipolo One, and a four-pack has dropped to a record low price. The bundle (which usually costs $75) is , which makes each tracker just $15. Alternatively, you can buy a single tracker (usually $25).
Chipolo
A four-pack of Chipolo One Bluetooth trackers has dropped to a record low price of $60.
The Chipolo One can’t really measure up to the crowd-sourced finding network of AirTags or Tile trackers, so it’s perhaps not the best option for monitoring the location of your luggage while traveling. However, it does a more than capable job of helping you find items around the house. It has the loudest ring of all the trackers we’ve tested, for one thing, and there was no delay between pressing a button in an app and hearing the Chipolo One trill away.
The One can be easy to spot, since it’s a colorful plastic disc. It’s fairly hardy too, since it has IPX5-rated splash resistance and a two-year battery life (the battery is replaceable). One other feature in the One’s favor is that it’s compatible with both iOS and Android, and we found it straightforward to pair with an iPhone and Samsung Galaxy phone.
The aspect of the One that particularly impressed us was its separation alerts. Once you get around 350 feet away from the tracker, you’ll get an alert on your phone asking if you might have left an item somewhere. Through your maps app, Chipolo can guide you back to the location where your phone and the One were last in contact. Of course, you can ring the tracker once you’re close by to help you find it.
Apple and Google last year jointly announced a proposed industry specification to help combat the misuse of Bluetooth item trackers for unwanted tracking of individuals. As part of this initiative, Apple promised to expand AirTag-like “Found Moving With You” alerts to third-party item trackers in a future software update, which may be iOS 17.5.
MacRumors contributor Steve Moser uncovered several new references to alerts for third-party item trackers in the first beta of iOS 17.5, released this week. For example: “You can disable this item and stop it from sharing its location with the owner. To do this, follow the instructions provided on a website by the manufacturer of this item.”
Tile, Chipolo, Samsung, Eufy, and Pebblebee all expressed support for the industry specification, according to Apple’s announcement last year.
iOS 17.5 is expected to be released to the public in May.
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Your keys (bags, jackets, purses) may soon become easier to find, thanks to the Big Spring Sale at Amazon. Right now a four pack of Tile Pro Bluetooth trackers are down to $80 instead of the $100 full price for the pack. The deal looks even better when you consider a single Tile Pro goes for $35. That’s not quite an all-time low, as we saw the set drop to around $70 for the shopping holidays in 2022 and again last year. Still a decent savings over buying our favorite trackers for Android phones separately and at full price.
Tile
Our top tracker for people with an Android phone is now on sale for the best price we’ve seen this year. At $80 for a four pack, it’s $60 cheaper than buying each tag separately and at full price.
The Tile Pro lets you swap out the battery, unlike other Tile models where you need to replace the whole unit. It’s also louder than other Tile trackers and Apple’s AirTag. While Tile trackers will work with Apple and Android phones, we found the connectivity to be much more reliable with an Android device. Like AirTags, the tags rely on the millions of other Tile users to anonymously ping your lost items when they’re out in the world. At home, you can make them ring using the app to help you figure out which couch cushion your keys have fallen between. One caveat is that some features, like the alerts that let you know when you’ve left your items behind, are only available with a monthly subscription.
Other Tile trackers are on sale as well, including the smaller Tile Mate and the Mate paired up with a Tile Slim, our pick for the best wallet tracker. If you’re interested in our top overall Bluetooth tracker, it’s worth noting that the Chipolo One is on sale for $60 for a four-pack. It was the loudest tracker and the quickest at letting you know when you were leaving the house (or restaurant, coffee shop, grandma’s house) without your things. Though it’s wider finding community is nowhere near as vast as Apple’s or even Tile’s.
