Getting into shape can be costly, but with the best cheap fitness trackers, you can be more active and healthier without breaking the bank.
As the name of this guide suggests, these are the best fitness trackers you can get for an affordable price.
Fitness trackers for the most part tend to be quite cheap anyway, which means there’s a lot of choice out there. You don’t have to sacrifice much at the budget end of the market either, with many of our selections – such as the Huawei Band 3 Pro and Fitbit Inspire HR – packing some combination of GPS, heart rate monitors, sleep tracking, and more.
Of course, with so many to choose from, picking the right one for you can be tricky, especially as while many fitness trackers sound similar on paper, some are better than others.
But that’s where this guide comes in. The products below are an impartial list of the best cheap fitness trackers, drawn from our in-depth reviews, so you can be sure they’re good. And to help you further round down the selections we’ve included an overview of their good and bad points, along with their key specs and features, making it easy to see which ones suit you – but make sure to click through to the full reviews to find out more.
If you can wait a little longer, you might be able to pick up a great deal on a cheap fitness tracker on Amazon Prime Day, which is expected to take place in mid-October this year. We’ve seen some impressive deals on Fitbit and Garmin devices in previous years, and you may even be able to snap up a bargain on a fitness tracker that would usually be outside your budget.
We’ll be rounding up all the best Prime Day deals, so stick with us and you won’t need to hunt for the lowest prices yourself.
Best cheap fitness trackers at a glance:
- Fitbit Inspire HR
- Huawei Band 3 Pro
- Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 5
- Honor Band 5
- Xiaomi Mi Band 4
- Garmin Vivofit 4
- Honor Band 5 Sport
- Amazfit Bip
- Samsung Galaxy Fit e
- Garmin Vivosmart 3
Best cheap fitness trackers
This is the first time a Fitbit device has made its way into the top five in our best cheap fitness tracker list for a long time. The new Fitbit Inspire HR is a great fitness tracker overall, but it isn’t the most affordable device in this list.
Although you’ll pay extra than you would for a lot of the other devices surrounding it here, Fitbit has created a overall easy to use package with a very attractive design.
It doesn’t feature GPS, which a lot of the other trackers on this list do offer though. Instead you’ll get access to Fitbit’s app, an accurate heart rate monitor and a variety of workouts directly from your wrist.
Read the full Fitbit Inspire HR review
The Huawei Band 3 Pro is one of our very favorite cheap fitness trackers. Considering its low price, there’s a lot to love about this health band.
It comes with GPS on board, an accurate heart rate tracker, a waterproof design and there’s even a color screen to display all of your stats. That’s not a combination of features you’ll get from every tracker on this list.
If you’re after a fitness-first device, the Huawei Band 3 Pro should be good for you with its accurate GPS and heart rate monitor but there isn’t much more here to get excited about. That said, at this price you can’t really ask for much more.
Read our Huawei Band 3 Pro review
The follow-up to last year’s excellent Mi Band 4, the Mi Smart Band 5 features a new, brighter screen, 24/7 activity tracking, continuous heart rate monitoring, 11 different sport modes, and the ability to record outdoor cardio sessions by connecting to your phone’s GPS.
The crisp color display (one of the best you’ll find on a device this size) also shows notifications, weather reports and app notifications, and you can use it to control music playback on your phone with a tap and a swipe.
While full on-board GPS is more convenient, the incredibly low price of the Smart Band 5 means we don’t feel short-changed. Despite its a high quality touchscreen display and an impressive range of features, Xiaomi has managed to keep the price down and make the Mi Smart Band 5 feel much more expensive than it is.
Read our Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 5 review
Like most cheap fitness trackers the Honor Band 5 stands out mostly for its very low price, but it’s also a very solid band and a step up from the Honor Band 4.
It’s waterproof to 5ATM, so naturally swim tracking is included, alongside tracking for all sorts of activities you’ll do on dry land, such as running, cycling and cross-training.
Of course given how cheap this is you might mostly want it just as a pedometer, and the Honor Band 5 works well there too, with accurate step tracking.
The Honor Band 5 also includes a heart rate monitor and sleep tracking – and it provides more detail on your slumber than the Honor Band 4 did. Plus you can get up to a week of life out of it with normal use, so you won’t need to take it off to charge at night.
The screen can be sluggish and the design is nothing special, but with everything else the Honor Band 5 offers, coupled with its low price, it’s a worthy inclusion in this list.
Read our Honor Band 5 review
Although now superseded by the Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 5, which is currently sitting pretty at number three in this listing, the Mi Band 4 is still an excellent device that’s well worth a look if you’re on a tight budget.
It comes with a battery life that should last just under a month depending on how much you’ll be using it, and there is lots of fitness tech built-in. There’s no GPS, but it comes with a heart rate monitor and tracking tech for your daily step and workouts too.
Unlike previous versions of the Xiaomi Mi Band, this one comes with a color display for the first time. That allows you to install some vibrant watch faces and make your tracker look better than as if it just had a black and white screen.
It’s not the most attractive fitness tracker you can buy, but it has a slimline design and it’s light so you won’t really notice you’ve got this on your wrist.
Read the Xiaomi Mi Band 4 review
The key addition over the entry-level Vivofit 3 is the always-on, color display that’s visible in sunlight. This is remarkably achieved without sacrificing the year-long battery life of the stellar third edition. Basic stats like steps, distance, calories and sleep are covered off, while there’s also automatic activity detection thanks to the Move IQ system.
Thanks to the Garmin Connect app you can also customize the display, while setting timers and alarms directly from the wrist. Best of all the Vivofit 4 it also 20 per cent cheaper than the Vivofit 3’s 2015 launch price. Of course you’ll miss out on premium features like heart rate tracking and GPS, but that’s to be expected at this price.
Read the Garmin Vivofit 4 review
The Honor Band 5 Sport is cheap even by cheap fitness tracker standards. In fact, you could buy it for the price of a takeaway, and doing so would be much better for your health.
You get a surprising amount for your money too, including up to two weeks of battery life between charges, accurate run and step tracking, and eco-friendly credentials, thanks to a strap made out of recycled plastic bottles.
It also includes the novel ability to attach the tracker to your shoe and measure more unusual things, such as your stride length, ground contact time, and more. This makes the Honor Band 5 Sport especially good for runners and basketball players.
That said, not all of these metrics were accurately tracked, with jumps and foot strike pattern proving particularly inaccurate in our tests. There’s also no GPS or heart rate monitor, limiting its capabilities as an all-round fitness tracker. That arguably leaves it a little niche, but given how little the Honor Band 5 Sport costs it’s hard to complain too much.
Read our full Honor Band 5 Sport review
The Bip is a really capable but really simple fitness watch that we referred to in our full review as “the layman’s Apple Watch” and we stand by the nickname.
In terms of a super rich experience and high performance, it can’t compete with Apple. Not at all. But for its extremely budget-friendly price tag, the Amazfit Bip is a competent fitness tracker that has a few awesome tricks up its sleeve – most notably the fact it can last more than 30 days on a single charge.
If you’re after a simple wearable that can push notifications from your smartphone, wake you up with a dedicated alarm, and track your workouts with built-in GPS, and more, the Bip makes a strong case for itself.
Gift-wise it’s a great buy for anyone who is in the market for a cheap and cheerful fitness device. Its simple set-up also makes it a good choice for complete fitness tech beginners.
Read the Amazfit Bip review
Samsung never used to make affordable fitness trackers, and considering the Galaxy Fit e is the company’s first attempt it has ranked pretty well in this list.
You won’t get GPS on this tracker, but it comes with a lot of other features you’ll want including activity tracking, a water-resistant design and a strong battery life that should last a whole week.
There’s a heart rate monitor and a variety of other fitness tracking features you’ll want to make the most out of too.
Read our Samsung Galaxy Fit e review
The Garmin Vivosmart 4 may have since been launched, but that just makes the Vivosmart 3 suitable for our best cheap fitness tracker list as the price has dropped down – and continues to.
It’s not the most affordable activity tracking band on this list, but it’s one of the best looking and it’ll show all of your stats on its small display including your rep count and other exercises too.
There’s no GPS on this tracker, so this is very much designed for the gym go-er rather than a runner plus the Garmin app is second to none offering you all of your stats in an easy to read format.
Read the full Garmin Vivosmart 3 review