Fitbit vs. Apple Watch: Which Fitness Tracker is Better?

Fitness trackers have become essential gadgets for anyone looking to monitor their health and stay active. If you’re new to fitness tracking or hoping to upgrade your current device, you may be facing a common dilemma: Apple Watch or Fitbit?

Choosing the right one can be challenging. Both brands offer advanced, well-designed wearables with many shared features, including daily health and activity tracking. However, they also have some key differences in terms of performance, design, and price.

But which one is better? This article will discuss everything you need to know about Apple Watch and Fitbit. Let’s dive in and find out!

Fitbit vs. Apple Watch: Which is Better to Buy?

Choosing a Fitbit or an Apple Watch really depends on your preferences, goals, and budget. Fitbit offers a wider range of products, better battery life, robust health tracking, and lower prices compared to Apple Watches. Plus, Fitbit products sync with both Apple and Android devices, so they’re a better option for those with Android phones. 

If you have an iPhone, the Apple Watch integrates seamlessly, letting you use apps, and listen to music, and text. With cellular connectivity, the Apple Watch allows leaving your phone at home, providing productivity and staying informed easily.

Activity Tracking

Staying fit doesn’t require being a gym fanatic or marathon runner; even regular daily activity offers health benefits. Both the Apple Watch and Fitbit activity trackers encourage movement by measuring steps, distance, and calories, and tracking active minutes. They also store historical data and allow goal setting.

The Apple Watch Series 6 and later, and Fitbit smartwatches (except Versa Lite), have a barometric altimeter for distance climbed. Fitbit models like Charge 6, Sense 2, and Versa series support various workouts and sync weight data from optional scales. The Apple Watch integrates with other health apps for comprehensive health tracking and management.

Initially, serious runners preferred Garmin or Suunto, but Apple Watch Series 2 and later Fitbits with GPS gained popularity. Newer Apple Watches have faster processors and 4G versions, but their battery life is shorter compared to Fitbits.

Fitbit’s newer models removed some apps and music controls but still offer comprehensive fitness tracking without a phone.

Apple’s fitness features are integrated into two main apps: Activity, for daily health and wellness, and Workout, for specific exercises. Data is collected on the iPhone via the Activity app, and a more comprehensive view is available through the Health app. Unlike Fitbit’s step-focused metrics, Apple emphasizes movement and calorie burn, especially for users under 13.

Both trackers provide visual progress indicators and reminders to move. The Apple Watch uses rings to show progress and its Workout app provides real-time stats compatible with most gym equipment. Fitbit’s Reminders to Move function similarly, encouraging users to stay active throughout the day.

Fitbit vs. Apple Watch: What are Their Features and Which Fitness Tracker is Better?

Let’s take a look at which fitness tracker has the best features

1. Accuracy: Apple Wins

Fitbits and Apple Watches both do a stellar job of measuring heart rate through the device’s sensors, and the technology keeps improving with each new model. They’re also fairly equivalent when it comes to activity tracking accuracy.  

What really sets the devices apart in terms of accuracy is GPS, which tracks distance, routes, and pace. The Ultra model uses dual GPS frequencies for reliable data, minimizing signal drops. Check Fitbit details to ensure built-in GPS availability.

2. Ease of Use: Apple Wins

Apple Watches and Fitbits are both known for being user-friendly, even for those who are new to fitness tracking. However, the Apple Watch’s design and user interface are a bit more intuitive and simple, putting it a notch above Fitbit in terms of ease of use. 

The display on all Apple Watches is big, bright, and clear, even when you’re on the move. On the flip side, some of the Fitbit wearables have tiny screens that can be tough to read in some lighting. If you’re leaning toward a Fitbit, be sure to check the screen’s dimensions, since there’s quite a bit of variation.

3. Design and Comfort: Fitbit Wins

Fitbit excels in design and comfort with a diverse lineup catering to various sizes and preferences.

Fitbit’s smartwatches like Sense 2 and Versa 4 resemble Apple Watch but offer slimmer, more comfortable activity bands. Generally, the included silicone Fitbit bands are more comfortable for continuous use than the Apple ones.

However, both Apple Watch and Fitbit devices feature interchangeable bands, so you can swap them out for your preferred choice. 

4. Setting goals: Fitbit Wins

One big difference here is that Apple doesn’t let you set yourself goals for steps or other metrics, except for calorie burn. If burning calories is not your prime objective, then this is a definite limitation of the Watch. 

In comparison, Fitbit allows you to set yourself specific goals for Steps, Distance, Calories Burned, Active Zone Minutes, Floors Climbed, and your Hourly Activity Goal.

5. Heart-rate monitor: Fitbit Wins

The Fitbits monitor your heart rate continuously, 24/7. They can store heart rate data at 1-second intervals during exercise tracking and at 5-second intervals all other times.

On the other hand, the Apple Watch checks your heart rate only every ten minutes during the day. However, it does record your heart rate continuously when the Workout app is turned on, so you get constant feedback during training sessions. The Watch’s built-in heart-rate monitor does support external heart-rate monitors too.

6. Cardio Fitness VO2 max Score: Fitbit wins on testing

Your cardio fitness level is a strong indicator of your overall physical health and a predictor of your long-term health. According to studies, people with low cardiorespiratory fitness have a 56 percent higher risk of death from heart disease than those who are the most fit.

While Fitbit uses heart-rate data from multiple workout types, including Bike for example, Apple gives its cardio fitness estimate by measuring how hard your heart is working during only the following workouts: Outdoor Walk, Outdoor Run, or Hiking.

7. Checking heart irregularities: Draw

Measuring heart rate also allows for the devices to check when the heart’s rhythm is irregular—which can be a sign of atrial fibrillation (AFib), a leading cause of stroke.

Both Apple and Fitbit include the ability to measure a person’s electrocardiogram (ECG) signal.

The Fitbit Sense and Apple Watch include ECG tests. For example, by placing a finger on the Digital Crown of the Watch you can get it to run an electrocardiogram (ECG) test on you. 

Each ECG app is CE-marked and cleared in the European Economic Area and FDA-approved in the US.

Note that the U.S. International Trade Commission has decided that the Apple Watch infringes ECG patents from medical device company AliveCor, so this could be a blocker for this feature in the future.

8. Checking blood oxygen (SpO2) levels: Apple Wins

A normal SpO2 reading is typically between 95 and 100 percent.

Both the Apple Watch and the latest Fitbit smartwatches offer SpO2 sensors to detect blood-oxygen saturation. Both allow on-demand readings of your blood oxygen, but Apple’s solution is more flexible.

However, since the start of 2024 Apple has had to disable the blood-oxygen measuring features on new Watches sold as regulators have ruled that blood-oxygen sensors in the devices infringe patents owned by another company named Masimo.

Apple Watch measures blood oxygen in 15 seconds at any time, whereas Fitbit only measures during sleep or with a Premium subscription.

Fitbit users require a Premium subscription to then track trends over time in the Health Metrics dashboard within the Fitbit app.

9. Calorie counting: Draw

The basic formula for losing weight is to count calories in and ensure you are expending more calories out through exercise. Both the Watch and Fitbits help you count these calories.

Apple Watch uses motion and heart rate data to calculate calories, determining the Move metric in the Activity app. Apple Watch learns your habits, heart rate, and activity levels over time, improving calorie count accuracy.

Unlike Fitbit, Apple splits apart “resting calories” (calories you burn just by existing) and “active calories” (burnt through more vigorous activity). The Move ring is interested in Active, not Resting calories, which is a little more rigorous than Fitbit’s approach. Fitbit allows for “resting calories” too. 

Fitbit calorie tracking begins at midnight and incorporates the calories burnt while sleeping—which is obviously missed by the Apple Watch that has to charge overnight. When you sync your tracker, Fitbit replaces the estimated calorie burn with your tracker’s data.

You can also manually log fitness activities, so the calories burned during those activities are also taken into account. When you log your meals each day you can set a Fitbit Food Plan that estimates your daily calorie consumption and records the number of calories you have burned and eaten so far in the day.

10. Sleep monitoring: Fitbit Wins, Apple Improving.

Apple Sleep uses motion sensors, heartbeat sensors, and microphones to detect micro-movements to track how deeply users are sleeping. The watch will sync with the iPhone or iPad to show visualizations of the periods of wake and sleep, plus a chart showing weekly sleep trends. In watchOS 7 and later, Apple improved the offering with the addition of breath-rate monitoring. 

If you use the latest Fitbits to track your sleep, you can see a record of the Sleep Stages you cycle through at night. While you’re asleep each night, your body typically goes through several sleep cycles: Light Sleep, Deep Sleep, and REM sleep that are associated with dreaming.

Fitbit goes into much greater detail on the different Sleep Stages you go through and now offers a nightly Sleep Score on the quality of your sleep. 

11. Apps: Fitbit Wins on Fitness, Apple on Everything Else

Apple’s Activity and Workout apps look glorious, of course, but Fitbit’s appealing multi-phone app features more fitness stats and data graphics. Fitbit also wins by having a rich desktop dashboard to collect and organize your activity data. 

Other Apple apps include Calendar, Camera Remote, Weather, and Apple Maps. And there’s a huge range of third-party apps for the Apple Watch.

With the Watch, you can also create an album of photos stored on your watch and share these with people. You can also create a Watch face with one of your photos as the background.

The Fitbits are limited almost exclusively to fitness features. In addition, the Inspire 2 & 3, Charge 5 & 6, Versa 3 & 4, and Sense 1 & 2 all feature Caller ID and Text notifications, buzz and show on screen who’s calling when your phone (iPhone, Android or Windows Phone) rings.

12. Music: Apple Wins

There’s a lot to do with music on the Apple Watch if you are using Apple Music. You can add music to your library, remove songs, mark what you like, add songs to the queue, browse an artist’s music, and view the contents of albums and playlists.

You also have a certain amount of control when using Spotify on the Apple Watch: Play, pause, and skip music and podcasts; control volume; browse playlists and tracks; add songs to your Spotify library; get info about what’s playing; and save your favorites. 

Fitbit’s music options depend on the smartwatch model. Previously, you could download 2.5GB of music (about 300 songs) or podcasts to the Ionic, Versa, and Versa 2. But, frustratingly, with the Sense and Versa 3, you can use only obscure premium streaming services.

For actual offline music storage on the wearable, Apple wins easily—although only if you use its Music service or Spotify.

13. GPS: Apple Wins on Built-in

The top-end Apple Watch Ultra features a dual-frequency GPS for precision.

The Fitbit Versa, Sense, and non-smartwatch Charge 6 also have GPS built-in. 

Fitbit’s Multiple Sport Mode also lets you track your cycling (distance, location, average speed, heart rate, and calories burned).

The Apple Watch Series 6 introduced a built-in Compass to the range, with additional location data, such as heading, incline, latitude, longitude, and current elevation. The Apple Compass has been improved on the latest watchOS 9.

Most recent models of Apple Watch also offer International SOS, which works by pressing and holding the side button to call the emergency services.

14. Phone Calls on Your Wrist: Apple Wins

With the Apple Watch, you can both make and receive voice calls on your wrist. You can even use Siri for hands-free dialing, simply by raising your wrist and speaking.

If someone calls you while you’re wearing your Apple Watch (and it’s within range of your iPhone, or a cellular model that can work independently of the phone), you’ll be alerted by a subtle vibration as well as an audible ringtone if you haven’t set the device to silent.

The only Fitbits with a microphone are the Versa 2, 3 & 4, and Sense 1 & 2, which use the mic to operate Amazon’s Alexa (usually a better voice assistant than Siri but Siri on Watch can give you directions or play you a song).

Likewise, the Apple Watch has a microphone and a speaker, so you can talk to it and it can talk to you. You can also use the mic to do voice dictation, send audio messages, and chat with friends via the Phone app. It also boasts up to 32GB of storage so you can keep a bunch of your dearest photos on your wrist.

15. Battery life: Fitbit Wins

The Apple Watch has so many potential uses (make calls, view photos, send and check messages, change music, check the weather, activity tracking, digital payments, and, er, tell the time) that its battery runs down a lot faster than standard activity trackers.

You can also put it into “Power Save Mode” in the Workout app on your phone to turn off heart-rate tracking completely during runs—although that’s not great for learning more about your run. Serious runners want details before, during, and after the run, and don’t want to carry their iPhones and their Watches with them.

Fitbits last a lot longer between charges, at around five days. The Charge 6 can run for up to a week; the Inspire 3 for 10 days. Fitbit’s re-charging time is around two hours, around the same as with the Watch. If you use the GPS a lot then battery life will drop considerably. 

Image Source: Tech Advisor

16. Water Resistance: Apple Watch Ultra Wins

The Apple Watch SE and Series 9 are waterproof, “up to 50 meters”—although it’s really not for deep water, as Apple explains: “This means that it may be used for shallow-water activities like swimming in a pool or ocean. 

Divers fare better with the robust Apple Watch Ultra 2, which can reach depths of 100m (under ISO standard 22810), although Apple says that the Ultra “should not be used for diving below 40 meters”. 

The Fitbits are swim-proof and safe in the water at 5 ATM (50m). Fitbit also recommends taking its wristbands off before showering because, as with any wearable device, it’s best for your skin if the band stays dry and clean. 

17. Rewards: Apple Wins

When they reach their personal bests or hit milestones, Apple Watch users get a special badge for each achievement, which is then stored in the Fitness app on their iPhone.

Fitbit awarded fun badges for achievements, such as a Sahara badge for walking the equivalent distance (not in one day!).

Sadly, Fitbit removed such badges and challenges at the start of 2023, claiming that they were rarely used.

Apple Watch owners can share their Activity circles with their friends to keep each other motivated, but this is not as easy as with Fitbit. 

With Apple, you can invite friends to compete in a seven-day competition where you both earn points by filling your Activity rings.

Apple offers achievement badges for the first time you perform new exercises, workout records, 7-workout weeks, and move goals and streaks. 

18. Find My…: Apple Wins

Smartwatches aren’t cheap, and sometimes you mislay one. If it falls off your wrist while out on a run, your chances of finding it unaided are slim.

Luckily, Apple has built its Find My tech into its Apple Watch, just like it has with most of its products. Automatically enabled, this uses Wi-Fi or cellular connections in Location Services to detect where your Apple device was last recorded. Apple Watch with GPS can use GPS and a trusted Wi-Fi connection. 

If your Apple Watch is paired with your iPhone, it is set up automatically when you turn on Find My iPhone.

It’s not possible to use such technology with most Fitbits. The company has recently partnered with location specialist Tile to integrate its device-finding software with the entry-level Fitbit Inspire 2. We hope, and expect, the other Fitbits to have Tile tech added soon.

For other Fitbits, you need the app and some luck. Check the Fitbit app to see the last time your device synced. If it synced recently, your phone might be near the Fitbit. Take your phone to the lost area and try syncing. If the Fitbit is within 30 feet of Bluetooth range, it will sync, proving it’s nearby.

You can also try using a Bluetooth locator app to help you find your device within about 100 feet if its battery is still live. 

19. Price: Apple Getting Cheaper

Of course, price is important when choosing between Fitbit and Apple Watch.

But Apple has now cut the entry-level Apple Watch price down to Fitbit smartwatch levels of affordability. Fitbit still has much cheaper options for trackers that aren’t smartwatches, though.

The Apple Watch SE is the entry-level Apple Watch, priced at US$249 / £219 for the 40mm variant and US$279 / £249 for the 44mm variant, with the cellular model costing US$50 / £70 more. 

Series 9 Apple Watches are a noticeable jump up in cost, starting at US$399 / £399 for the 41mm version, with the steel variant costing a lot more (from $699 / £699), and the cellular model of each also costs more (US$499 / £499 for the aluminum body).

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is on another level but not too far off the steel Series 9, starting at US$799 / £799.

Fitbit wristbands start at US $99 / £84 for the Fitbit Inspire 3. The Fitbit Charge 6 is priced at US $159 / £139, the Fitbit Versa 3 at US $169 / £169, and the Fitbit Sense at US $279 / £219. Don’t bother with the more expensive but cut-down Versa 4 or Sense 2.

Even the most expensive Fitbit is around the same price as the cheapest Apple Watch. Note that you can often pick up a Fitbit cheaper online from stores such as Amazon, while Apple rarely offers discounts.

Of course, you get a whole lot more functionality for your money with the Apple Watch, but if it’s activity tracking you’re after then you save a bunch going for a Fitbit.

20. Compatibility: Apple is iPhone-only

Fitbit is compatible with iOS and Android. You don’t need a smartphone for Fitbit; you can sync with the excellent desktop Fitbit Dashboard. More syncing opportunities and viewing stats on the go are beneficial.

For obvious reasons, Apple Watch is compatible with iOS devices only, so the iPhone is the only smartphone that will work with it, and you really need one for it to make sense.

Apple Watch can run other fitness apps, such as Nike+Run Club, Runtastic Pro, Pocket Yoga, Map My Run, Endomondo, and Cyclemeter GPS, with more being added all the time.

21. Hearing: Apple Wins

Apple introduced a Noise app in watchOS 6 that measures ambient sound levels and duration of exposure. watchOS 7 added further aids to hearing health with headphone audio notifications.

This will show how loudly you are listening to sound through your headphones when using an iPhone, iPod touch, or Apple Watch, and how these levels may impact hearing over time.

Apple will tell you when your listening has reached 100% of the safe weekly listening amount as determined by the World Health Organization.

The Health app can even control the maximum level of headphone volume.

Fitbit Premium vs Apple Fitness+

Both Apple and Fitbit have special subscriber services, where extra features, some stats, and personalized insights need to be paid for.

Apple’s Fitness+ is, as the name implies, focused on workouts and fitness, while Fitbit Premium takes in fitness, health, nutrition, and well-being.

It includes home workout programs that complement the Watch’s fitness features so your activity is tracked alongside the workout videos that can be watched on your iPhone, iPad, or AppleTV.

Workout categories include High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), Strength, Yoga, Dance, Core, Cycling, Treadmill (for running and walking), Rowing, and Mindful Cooldown.

Virtual trainers tailor the workout to your required level.

After the workout, you can see your workout metrics, such as heart rate, duration, pace, and calories burned. As you hit various targets, the Watch’s Activity ring is mirrored on the workout’s video screen.

Fitbit Premium has been going for longer and offers lots more than just workouts, including guided programs to help you stay active, eat and sleep well, and manage stress.

It features video and audio workouts (walking, weights, cardio, dance, martial arts, yoga, and more) that can be viewed on your phone via the Fitbit app, and even on your Fitbit watch.

Subscribers receive personalized insights, a Sleep Score breakdown, and a Wellness Report based on your stats. There are also Premium-only challenges.

There’s a three-month free trial of Fitbit Premium, and new users get free Premium when buying a tracker or smartwatch, up to a year’s worth with the Fitbit Inspire 2.

There is no family membership option for Fitbit Premium.

Conclusion

Both the Fitbit and Apple Watch are excellent fitness trackers, each with its unique strengths. Fitbit offers robust fitness tracking, long battery life, and affordability, making it a great choice for many users.

The Apple Watch, on the other hand, provides a premium experience with advanced health monitoring and extensive smart features, making it the best choice for those who want an all-in-one device.

FAQs on Fitbit vs. Apple Watch