5 fitness trackers you should buy instead of the Moto Watch 2 Fit

2026 is shaping up to be the year of fitness trackers. There are Google’s wildly popular Fitbit Air and Edge lineups, and the newly launched Moto Watch 2 Fit offers health tracking and a large screen without the clutter of a full-blown smartwatch OS. Internationally, Motorola has priced it at the equivalent of $130, which may sound tempting, especially for its multi-day battery and metallic build. But the only caveat is that the product has yet to make it to US shores.

You don’t necessarily have to wait for it because there are already a bunch of worthy Moto Watch 2 Fit alternatives available in the US at a similar price that you can grab right away.

Google just made a fitness tracker with a tiny screen that sits right between its screenless sibling and a full-fledged smartwatch, if you don’t want to poke your finger at a tiny screen to interact with miniaturized apps but still want to be able to glance at the workout metrics while in the gym. It’s a lightweight tracker that you can comfortably wear throughout the day and at night for sleep tracking. With medium to heavy use, in our testing, the Fitbit Edge lasted for an impressive full week without requiring a recharge in the middle.

The fitness tracker comes with a host of health sensors that offer reliable enough tracking for everyday use, though we feel it could use some more options for strength training and improve its GPS accuracy. A good thing about the Fitbit Edge is that it works with Google Health, with support for its premium-tier features that include health coaching powered by Gemini. A unique feature of the Fitbit Edge is its repairability — you can replace its battery yourself once it wears down after years of use, which is something unheard of on such tiny devices.

If you don’t want to compromise on Motorola’s full-sized watch form factor and that extra screen estate, you’d be better off going with the Amazfit Bip Max, which comes with a rather massive 2-inch OLED screen that could come in handy, particularly to view extra workout details and even glance at route directions while navigating. Another advantage of a bigger form factor (sans Wear OS) is that there is more physical space for the battery. The Bip Max is rated to last up to 20 days, with 7 to 10 days being typical with heavy use and the always-on display enabled.

Since it’s a budget offering costing almost half as much as the Fitbit Edge, I wouldn’t get it with the expectation of a premium touch-and-feel while wearing it. It is designed to offer tons of fitness features on a large display without burning a hole in your pocket, and it does that job well. Just get it with the expectation of a smartwatch-sized fitness tracker with little third-party app support (mainstream developers sure aren’t jostling to make apps for Amazfit devices), and you’ll be fine with it.

There is a surprising dearth of circular fitness trackers that want to be mistaken for a smartwatch, and the CMF Watch 3 Pro fills that gap pretty well. It has a chunky, regular watch-like design that makes it stand apart from regular cheap trackers with a particular Nothing design flair. At $80, it’s the cheapest option on the list while still offering a decent set of features, including dual-band GPS for better accuracy, which is a rarity among devices at this price.

A good thing about the Watch 3 Pro is that you can pair it with both Android and iOS and have guided workouts, including things like a running coach and information about training load. It also includes recovery-related features that are gaining popularity these days. However, despite running a simplified operating system, the watch’s battery life in realistic conditions has proven to be between four and five days, which is significantly shorter than what trackers of its kind usually offer.

Garmin already comes with the reputation of an established fitness ecosystem where it can turn your raw fitness data into useful information that you can use to fine-tune your workouts. The Vivoactive 5 cost $300 a couple of years ago, but these days it’s just $169, which is just slightly more than the Motorola. For that price, you get Garmin’s reputation and a roster of features, including a Morning Report. We were left thoroughly impressed by its accuracy across heart-rate monitoring and GPS tracking, while its battery life remained equally outstanding.

While it’s great for what it offers, being an older model, it misses out on a few newer tricks that its more expensive successors offer, like ECG and an altimeter for elevation tracking, and unfortunately, it has no microphone or speaker for calls. If you don’t care about these missing features, it’s worth spending a tad more on the Garmin over the Motorola.

By spending a little bit more, you can have a complete Wear OS experience, including getting to install a full host of third-party apps and use Google Wallet and Samsung Wallet for contactless payments. Last year’s Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 sits at the sweet spot of being a budget-friendly smartwatch option. It gets the same design as its successor, but not the price — costing significantly less, often down to $220 during Amazon sales. If you hunt for a deal at Sam’s Club, you can get it for as low as $180, which is a steal for what the Galaxy Watch 8 has to offer.

What you get is an excellent OLED display, along with a host of Wear OS features, including deep Gemini integration for voice commands and contextual follow-ups without having to pull your phone out of your pocket. And it turned out to be really comfortable to wear and to offer reliable fitness tracking, in our experience. However, being a real smartwatch, it may require frequent, almost daily recharges, unlike regular fitness trackers that last for days. And do note that this is not the Classic model, so you will have to do without the rotating bezel.