Fitness trackers and smart watches in 2025: Our ratings after testing out
From measuring your blood pressure, telling you how fast you are ‘ageing’ and tracking your sleep. Fitness trackers and smart watches have come a long way. These are the pros and cons of each.
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From telling you how fast you are “ageing”, to giving you a sleep score and even keeping tabs on your blood pressure — fitness trackers and smart watches are more focused on health than ever.
As the competition ramps up between the brands, we’ve spent months testing out different devices to give you a guide on what could best suits your needs.
Google Pixel Watch 3
Price of device:From $579, but currently on special from $350
Features include: Heart rate tracking, activity metrics, able to build custom runs that includes audio cues for when to sprint, keep a steady pace or slow down, fall detection, crash detection, ECG, a recorder that you can connect to phone and automatically transcribe using AI, a nest cam through the Google home app (allowing you to see a video of who is at the door on your wrist) and sleep tracking
Membership fee: Six month complimentary FitBit membership, but afterwards $129.99 a year
Battery life: 24 hours with always on, or 36 hours with the battery saver. I found this the weakest part about the watch.
Who is most suited? An Android user who loves running, wants a stylish smart watch that has lots of technological features and is organised enough to charge it every single day.
Experience (Ash): I was excited about this watch as I have a Google Pixel 9 Pro, so it synched up well with my phone. I also liked the sleek design and found the screen was easy to navigate. But although it charged quickly, I really struggled with having to do it daily and was often caught off guard when it died. Sometimes the charger didn’t connect properly as it was a bit fiddly so I’d have to go the day without it. It was really great at measuring my step count and it was motivating to get notifications when I’d reach milestones through FitBit. I liked the heart rate monitor being so prominent on the home screen, so I could always look at it and it seemed really in tune to when I was stressed, nervous or exercising. However I did question the accuracy of the sleep feature, which often told me I’d barely had any when I felt well rested. It breaks it down into light, deep (for which I had a concerningly low amount according to the watch) and REM. It does become more attuned the longer you wear it and it did start to improve.
Rating: 3/5
Garmin Fenix 8 – 43mm, Amoled Sapphire
Price of device: $1849
Membership fee:Free. People can pay for a premium tier that offers additional insights — I used the free one and it was great.
Features include: Users download an app on to their phone and the watch shares insights. These include fitness age, respiration, heart rate, stress, “body battery” and more. The watch includes a flashlight, GPS, is waterproof, and for runners can track stride length, performance and cadence. People can pair the watch with their smartphone to receive messages and make phone calls.
Battery life: Up to 10 days. I only charged it briefly a couple of times in a week, and both those times it wasn’t close to flat.
Who is most suited? Great for people who are interested in really detailed health stats. Also outdoorsy types who need a long-lasting, practical and informative watch while adventuring.
Experience (Tamara): I thought the Garmin was super impressive, but for the price point you would hope that is the case!
The watch tracks calories burnt in a really easy to follow way. I found the stress monitoring did accurately reflect the days I was under pressure. The sleep tracking was exceptional, giving me a daily score out of 100 for how good my sleep was and suggesting how much I should aim for the following night. Logging workouts was also easy. The “body battery” function helped me get a handle on when I felt drained and prompted me to reflect on what was exhausting me.
It was slightly less intuitive than some of the others when it came to navigation around the watch face, but the excellent health tracking made up for this. I loved how it was instructive – not just informative. It was like having my own personal health coach.
I’m probably not outdoorsy enough to be this watch’s target market — but if I had a financial windfall, I’d consider purchasing it for the health insights alone.
Rating: 4.5/5
WHOOP MG Life
Price of device: Included with annual membership
Membership fee: $629 a year to use the app and get personalised insights
Features include: Pace of ageing and “WHOOP Age” (which calculates your physiological age as opposed to chronological, and recommends ways to improve it), sleep quality and consistency, resting heart rate, heart rate variation, blood pressure monitor (although still in beta).
Battery life: 14 days, with great reminders if it’s getting low.
Who is most suited? A health nut who already has a watch to tell the time and is instead looking for more detailed insights into their wellbeing to motivate them.
Experience (Ash): After wearing this device for the full 21 days I was very excited to find out my pace of ageing or ‘physiological age’. My lack of sleep consistency and quantity however let me down (I did find the sleep targets a little unrealistic) and I am sad to say I’m hovering around 0.2 years older than reality. However, I’m determined to try to improve this. I really loved this device, I found it comfortable to wear and it suited me only having to charge it once every two weeks, with plenty of reminders alerting me to the fact it was going to lose power. Although you can wear it in the shower, I’d take mine off and often forget about it – but my phone would send me a friendly alert so I’d remember to put it back on. I found the WHOOP app, which does have a pricey membership, easy to use and became addicted to the insights it gave me about my health.
If I went out drinking, I would see it translate into poorer sleep quality and other markers. Sometimes I lost interest in having to fill out the journal every morning because it got repetitive inputting when I had coffee, alcohol or had screen time, but it did make me start to think about my habits more. It was interesting to see how my heart rate variability (the variance in time between heart beats that is supposed to give insights into your nervous system) varied in my menstrual cycle. The device also became more intuitive as time went on. At the start I’d have to input when I did a yoga class, but after a couple of times of doing this it picked it up automatically. The new WHOOP estimates your blood pressure for the morning after measuring it at night when you sleep. It is still in the experimental (beta) phase without any TGA approval. I had to go to the chemist and get a proper reading to input to unlock this feature. The WHOOP has much less of a focus on step counts and the number was lower than other watches I wore.
Rating: 4.5/5
Apple Watch Series 10
Price of device: From $649
Membership fee: Free
Features include:Pair with an app on your iPhone which gives you detailed stats. Apple watches motivate you to close three “rings”: move, standing up, and exercise. You can adjust the targets to suit you, and monitor how close you are to “closing your rings” throughout the day.The Series 10 has a vitals feature, summing up overnight metrics like sleep, blood oxygen, wrist temperature, and respiratory and heart rates.The watch can also generate ECGs. iPhone users can pair their device with the watch to make calls and send messages. Fall detection.
Battery life: Up to 18 hours. I would briefly charge it daily at my desk — it charges quickly.
Who is most suited: This watch is versatile and looks great, so is good for your average Apple user wanting health insights, or a sportier type trying to save money.
Experience (Tamara): The set up took a while. The rings feature motivated me to get my steps in and the mechanism for logging workouts was super simple. Once I got used to the watch it was very easy to use. I enjoyed being able to log my moods and do breathing exercises with its mindfulness feature. The watch looked very sleek on — aesthetically, it was my favourite.
Rating: 3.6/5
Apple Watch Ultra 2
Price of device: From $1399
Membership fee: Free
Features include: The Ultra is marketed for athletes and adventurers, and has extra features to the Series 10.It has an additional “action” button on the side which simplifies logging workouts.Display designed for easier reading when exercising outdoors and use in lowlight. Built-in siren that can be set off if injured or lost.Can be used scuba diving to 40m.
Battery life: Up to 36 hours of normal use or 72 hours on low power mode.
Who is most suited: For the higher price point, this durable watch suits a more outdoorsy or adventurous person who can afford to invest in the additional features.
Experience (Tamara): Overall I really liked this watch. Both Apple watches were really easy to log workouts on. I liked how it identified health trends – for example it sent me an alert when it noticed my resting heart rate dropped. This correlated with me quitting nicotine, and gave me the motivation to keep going. The set up was confusing. Even after reading the instructions I found it tricky to get the band on my wrist! A family member did ask me why I “had an iPad on my wrist” due to its size, but you get used to the chunkiness. It’s easy to use and navigate, and I came to like the larger watch face. I had a few experiences where in my sleep I rolled onto the watch and it made sounds and woke me up.
Rating: 3.8/5
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra
Price of device: $1299
Membership fee: Free
Features include: Can withstand -20C or up to 49C for extreme weather, estimates your blood pressure, measures blood oxygen and skin temperature during sleep, measures body composition, ECG, GPS, water resistant for 10 minutes in water with a depth of 100m
Battery life: 24 hours with always on, 36 hours. This was pretty good considering all the features.
Who is most suited? An adventure and sport junkie who has a Samsung phone and wants a really durable watch that will help them in remote mountaintops, surfing or hiking out in the wilderness.
Experience (Ash): I’m quite clumsy so I liked how I didn’t have to worry about scratching it if I knocked this watch against anything. It felt very solid and sturdy because parts of it are made out of titanium. The downside of this was because it is quite a bulky, chunky watch and I have small wrists, I had to wear it halfway up my arm to get it to work and I found it very uncomfortable while sleeping. I also had to use a Samsung phone to be able to properly use it.
It was cool to be able to ‘measure’ things like my body composition, which involved inputting weight and height. I then put my fingers against two buttons and it could apparently calculate my skeletal muscle, fat mass and body water, also estimating my BMI (although it’s not a diagnostic tool and I didn’t get to use it long enough to see if it changed over time, although it would be motivating). It let you log activities like hiking, running, cycling and swimming and I found it quite useful to be able to use GPS and view a map of where I was walking to on the watch screen. I thought the battery life was pretty impressive considering how much the watch was capable of. I did find it frustrating while using the screen to scroll across all the specs, however, as my finger would cover part of it and it would cause issues.
Rating: 2.5/5 (But I’m not their target market)
FitBit Charge 6
Price of device: $259
Membership fee: Six month complimentary FitBit membership, but afterwards $129.99 a year for premium. Considering it is a simpler watch, you’d have to really weigh up whether you want to pay for this.
Features include: Heart rate tracking, ECG, EDA scan (for stress) Google Maps, YouTube music, sleep score
Battery life: Lasts for days, depending on use
Who is most suited? Someone less tech savvy who wants a simple fitness tracker without excess bells and whistles that you sometimes want to mute because they are overwhelming or not necessary.
Experience (Ash): I really loved the simplicity of the Fitbit because sometimes I felt a bit too busy to use everything on the other devices. It was comfortable to wear and I liked that I didn’t have to charge it much so I could just leave it on and forget about it, unless I wanted to check my heart rate, step count or the time. Although it did link up to my emails and texts (vibrating when I got one), I opted to turn them off because they were really, really annoying, taking up the whole screen constantly and very hard to read and navigate. Whenever I started a walk it was very intuitive and would prompt me to log it in, but trying to find and put the exercises in otherwise was a little fiddly. You can do an EDA (Electrodermal Activity) scan, which measures tiny electrical changes in the skin due to stress, but part of it involves logging and telling the device how you feel. I did find the ECG very simple and easy to do.
Rating: 3.5/5 (it was pretty good if you’re looking for a cheaper, more simple watch)
The journalists were given or loaned these devices for these reviews.
Ashleigh Gleeson, typically an Android user, reviewed the Samsung Ultra, Google Pixel, Fitbit and WHOOP.
Tamara McDonald, typically an Apple user, reviewed the Apple and Garmin.
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Originally published as Fitness trackers and smart watches in 2025: Our ratings after testing out
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