Holiday Gift Guides

These are the best fitness watches

Whether you’re shopping for an endurance athlete or expedition backpacker, a fitness watch can streamline their missions. These are the best, no matter the activity.

Fitness watches have come a long way since your old start-and-stop Timex.

Today, GPS functionality is a starting point — the most basic technology for tracking your runs, swims, and hikes, gathering metrics about your workouts, and sharing them to sites like Strava. Depending on how you’re using your watch, additional features like extended battery life, solar charging, built-in music storage and Bluetooth, heart rate monitoring, stress tracking, not to mention style, can all be important to turning your watch into a do-it-all fitness hub and training partner.

With features this diverse, choosing the right watch for your loved one is no small task. Start by thinking about what they would want to do with a fitness watch. Are they outdoorsy hikers and backpackers? The occasional runner? Or a big-time triathlete? No matter the genre of adventure, there’s a watch to match.

Input may receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article. We only include products that have been independently selected by Input's editorial team.