Looking to actually lose weight in 2024? A decent fitness smartwatch can help you track calories, monitor workouts, and stay motivated. There are a lot of options out there, and picking one can feel like a chore. This guide covers the best smartwatches for fitness and weight loss, comparing the features that actually matter for dropping pounds. Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been training for years, here’s what I’ve found after testing the top options.
Top Smartwatches for Weight Loss at a Glance
Here’s a quick comparison of our top picks.
| Smartwatch | Price | Calorie Tracking | Battery Life | Sleep Tracking | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple Watch Series 9 | $399 | Excellent | 18 hours | Yes | Overall best |
| Garmin Forerunner 265 | $499 | Excellent | 7 days | Yes | Athletes |
| Fitbit Charge 6 | $159 | Very Good | 7 days | Yes | Budget buyers |
| Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 | $329 | Very Good | 40 hours | Yes | Android users |
| Whoop 4.0 | $239/yr | Good | 5 days | Yes | Performance |
Why a Smartwatch Matters for Weight Loss
Here’s the deal with weight loss: you need a calorie deficit. That means burning more calories than you eat. A fitness smartwatch makes that measurable instead of guesswork.
These devices track your basal metabolic rate, activity calories, and exercise expenditures throughout the day. Seeing your numbers in real-time keeps you honest. People who track their activity and calories tend to lose more weight than those who don’t—it’s just basic accountability. Looking at your step count or calorie burn on your wrist makes you more likely to get moving.
Beyond basic tracking, these watches offer heart rate zone monitoring, which helps you exercise at the right intensity for fat burning. Sleep tracking shows how well you’re recovering, which affects your hormones and hunger cues. Some watches include stress monitoring and breathing exercises for managing emotional eating.
The data builds over time, giving you a clear picture of your health patterns so you can adjust your diet and exercise routine accordingly.
#1 Overall Pick: Apple Watch Series 9
The Apple Watch Series 9 is our top pick for weight loss because of its ecosystem integration and solid fitness features.
The Series 9 has Apple’s latest health sensors—optical heart rate, blood oxygen, and temperature sensing. Fitness+ integration shows real-time metrics during workouts: heart rate zone, calories burned, and active minutes. This feedback helps you stay in the fat-burning zone.
What makes the Apple Watch stand out for weight loss is automated activity tracking. It automatically detects when you start walking, running, or cycling, logging sessions without you needing to do anything. This catches every calorie-burning opportunity, even when you forget to start a workout. The Move, Exercise, and Stand rings create daily goals that gamify your activity—closing your rings becomes oddly satisfying.
The Double Tap gesture lets you control the watch with one hand, useful when you’re mid-workout and need to check stats. Siri integration lets you log food, start workouts, and get health insights with voice commands. Apple Health aggregates all your data in one place, tracking trends over time.
The downside is battery life. At around 18 hours, you’ll charge daily, which can interrupt sleep tracking. But fast charging means you can top up during your morning routine.
Pros: Great app ecosystem, automated workout detection, comprehensive health metrics, easy to use
Cons: Daily charging needed, expensive accessories, iOS-only
#2 Best for Athletes: Garmin Forerunner 265
The Garmin Forerunner 265 is the choice for athletes serious about weight loss through high-intensity training. Garmin has been making GPS sports watches for years, and this model brings that experience to everyday fitness tracking.
Garmin is known for accuracy, and the Forerunner 265 delivers precise heart rate monitoring even during tough workouts. The wrist-based sensor tracks HRV (Heart Rate Variability), giving you insights into recovery and training readiness. This helps you optimize workout intensity to burn fat without overtraining.
The training readiness score combines sleep, recovery, HRV status, and recent exercise to tell you how ready your body is for a hard workout. This prevents burnout—a common problem that derails weight loss when people push too hard too often.
Garmin Connect offers detailed analysis of your fitness data. You can see calorie burns, workout splits, recovery recommendations, and trends over weeks and months. Body Battery combines stress, sleep, and activity into a single number showing your energy reserves.
The Forerunner 265 tracks more than just running and cycling. It supports strength training, HIIT, yoga, swimming, and many other workout types. This variety keeps your routine interesting and targets different muscle groups.
Battery life is up to 7 days in smartwatch mode and 22 hours in GPS mode—way better than most competitors. You can track multi-day activities or just go about your week without charging.
Pros: Great GPS accuracy, excellent battery life, detailed training metrics, good sleep tracking
Cons: Bigger case, learning curve for advanced features, no onboard music without phone
#3 Best Value: Fitbit Charge 6
The Fitbit Charge 6 shows you don’t need to spend a fortune for effective weight loss tracking. At $159, it delivers fitness features that compete with watches costing twice as much.
Fitbit has been refining its calorie-tracking algorithm for years, and the Charge 6 benefits from that experience. It gives detailed calorie burn info including BMR and active calories, helping you understand your total daily energy expenditure. 24/7 heart rate monitoring tracks your zones, showing how hard you’re working during exercise.
The always-on altimeter counts stairs climbed—an often-overlooked calorie burner. This encourages you to take the stairs instead of the elevator, adding up over time. Active Zone Minutes reward you for time in fat-burning and cardio zones with achievable daily goals.
Google integration brings useful features: Google Maps for turn-by-turn directions during walks and runs, Google Wallet for contactless payments, and YouTube Music controls. These make the watch useful beyond workouts.
Sleep tracking has always been a Fitbit strength, and the Charge 6 continues that. Sleep Profile analyzes your stages, giving each night a score and identifying patterns that affect weight loss. Bad sleep increases hunger hormones and reduces willpower, so this tracking is genuinely useful.
7-day battery life means you can track sleep consistently without daily charging. This reliability ensures you don’t miss data.
Pros: Affordable, great battery life, comfortable band, strong sleep tracking
Cons: Limited app ecosystem, small screen, no GPS (needs phone)
#4 Best for Android Users: Samsung Galaxy Watch 6
Android users looking for a solid fitness companion will find the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 a good weight loss tool. Samsung’s flagship smartwatch combines health tracking with a full smartwatch experience.
The Galaxy Watch 6 has BioActive sensors measuring heart rate, blood oxygen, and body composition. Body Composition gives you skeletal muscle mass, body fat percentage, and water percentage. This goes beyond basic weight tracking to show actual body composition changes—a better measure of progress than scale weight alone.
Samsung Health offers fitness tracking with custom workouts and guided exercises. The BIA sensor measures body fat accurately enough for meaningful tracking over time. You can set goals based on body composition instead of just weight.
Running coach provides real-time audio coaching during runs, helping beginners improve form and maintain pace. This guidance speeds up progress and prevents the frustration from inconsistent workouts.
Galaxy Watch 6 works well with other Samsung devices. You can control music during workouts, get notifications, and use Bixby for voice commands. The rotating bezel gives tactile control that makes Samsung watches feel different from the competition.
Battery life is about 40 hours with typical use, needing nightly charges if you want sleep tracking. Fast wireless charging helps, but charging becomes part of your routine.
Pros: Body composition analysis, good Samsung integration, rotating bezel, solid fitness features
Cons: Best features need Samsung phone, moderate battery life, heavier than rivals
#5 Best for Performance Tracking: Whoop 4.0
Whoop 4.0 takes a different approach to fitness tracking—it appeals to people who want data-driven insights to optimize their health. Instead of traditional smartwatch features, Whoop focuses on physiological metrics that affect results.
Whoop’s main value is its strain and recovery system. The device measures cardiovascular strain from activities and quantifies how well your body recovered. This prevents the common mistake of pushing hard on days when you need rest—overtraining that stalls weight loss and increases injury risk.
Continuous heart rate monitoring captures HRV around the clock, a key indicator of nervous system health. Lower HRV means higher stress and worse recovery; higher HRV means your body is ready for demanding workouts. This data helps you plan your week for maximum results.
Whoop’s sleep tracking is thorough. It monitors stages, disturbances, and consistency, giving a Sleep Performance score each morning. This score tells you exactly how recovered you are and guides whether to push hard or take an active recovery day. Sleep quality directly impacts weight loss through hunger hormones and energy levels.
The subscription ($239/year) includes access to Whoop’s coaching programs, giving personalized recommendations based on your data. This helps you understand what matters and how to improve.
Whoop 4.0 has no traditional display, which might feel limiting if you want to see workout stats at a glance. But the smaller band-style design is comfortable enough to wear 24/7, including during sleep, without bothering you.
Pros: Great recovery tracking, detailed sleep analysis, useful coaching insights, comfortable for all-day wear
Cons: Needs subscription, no display, needs phone for setup
Features That Actually Help with Weight Loss
Here’s which features genuinely matter for weight loss.
Heart Rate Monitoring and Zones
Heart rate monitoring is the foundation of effective weight loss tracking. Your heart rate shows exercise intensity, which determines what energy sources your body uses. Working in specific zones maximizes fat burning while building cardiovascular fitness.
The fat-burning zone is typically 50-70% of your max heart rate. In this range, your body mainly uses fat for fuel. Smartwatches showing real-time heart rate and your zone help you stay in the right range. Better devices let you set custom alerts notifying you when you drift out of your target zone.
Accuracy matters here. Some cheaper devices give unreliable heart rate readings, especially during intense movements. Our top picks all have validated accuracy.
Calorie Tracking Accuracy
Calorie tracking involves complex calculations. Your watch estimates calories burned based on your BMR, activity level, heart rate, and personal metrics like age, weight, and height. You need accurate personal info during setup for this to work.
No smartwatch has perfect calorie counts, but accuracy varies. Most devices are off by 10-30% depending on the activity. The key is consistency—using the same device over time gives reliable relative data showing whether you’re burning more each week.
Look for devices that separate BMR calories from active exercise calories. This helps you understand your baseline burn versus what you add through exercise.
Workout Detection and Tracking
Automatic workout detection ensures you get credit for spontaneous activity. You might take a walk or do jumping jacks without planning a workout. Smartwatches with auto-detection notice and log these activities.
GPS tracking adds accuracy for outdoor activities by measuring exact distance and pace. This data improves calorie calculations for running, cycling, and hiking. Some devices have multi-band GPS for better accuracy in cities or forests.
Sleep Tracking and Recovery
Sleep affects weight loss through multiple mechanisms. Poor sleep increases ghrelin (hunger hormone) while decreasing leptin (satiety hormone), making you hungrier the next day. Sleep deprivation also reduces willpower and energy for exercise.
Good sleep tracking reveals patterns that might be hurting your efforts. You might find that late-night screens, alcohol, or irregular schedules are disrupting your sleep. Some devices give sleep scores and recommendations for improvement.
Recovery tracking goes beyond sleep to include HRV analysis, resting heart rate trends, and strain measurements. These show whether your body is ready for intense exercise or needs rest. Ignoring recovery leads to overtraining and stalled progress.
How to Choose the Right Smartwatch for Your Goals
Your specific situation, budget, and preferences determine the right choice.
Your Primary Use Case
Are you mainly walking and doing light exercise, or do you do high-intensity training? Athletes benefit from Garmin’s detailed metrics and GPS accuracy, while casual exercisers might find Apple Watch or Fitbit adequate. Your typical workouts should guide your choice.
Ecosystem Compatibility
Apple Watch only works with iPhones. Samsung Galaxy Watch works best with Samsung phones but okay with other Android devices. Fitbit and Garmin work with both platforms but may have slightly fewer features on iOS.
Battery Life Requirements
If you want solid sleep tracking without daily charging, look for 5+ day battery life like Garmin and Fitbit models. Apple Watch and Samsung need nightly charges, which interrupts sleep tracking unless you work around it.
Budget Considerations
Prices range from under $150 to over $700. The most expensive isn’t always best for weight loss—some budget devices excel at features that matter most. Consider what you actually need versus nice-to-haves.
Style and Comfort
You’ll wear your smartwatch constantly, including during sleep. Comfort matters a lot for actually using it. Some people prefer traditional watch style; others like the minimal band-style of Whoop.
Frequently Asked Questions
What smartwatch is best for weight loss?
Apple Watch Series 9 is our best overall choice because of its fitness tracking, automated workout detection, and easy interface. It helps users stay motivated through activity rings and provides accurate calorie and heart rate tracking. But the best watch depends on your needs—Garmin Forerunner 265 is better for athletes, Fitbit Charge 6 offers the best value.
Do smartwatches really help with weight loss?
Research shows using a smartwatch for activity tracking improves weight loss outcomes. The devices create accountability through monitoring, provide motivation through goals and notifications, and keep you aware of activity levels throughout the day. People who track steps and calories tend to lose more weight, though the watch is just a tool—your commitment and consistency determine results.
How accurate are smartwatch calorie counters?
Smartwatch calorie counts are usually within 10-30% of actual energy expenditure, depending on the activity and device. They work best for steady activities like walking and running, but accuracy drops for irregular movements. Using the same device gives reliable relative measurements showing whether you’re burning more or less over time, even if absolute numbers aren’t perfectly precise.
What features should I look for in a fitness smartwatch?
Focus on accurate heart rate monitoring, reliable calorie tracking, and automated workout detection. Battery life matters if you want sleep tracking; GPS accuracy matters for outdoor activities. Consider whether you want sleep tracking, recovery insights, and stress monitoring—these support weight loss through lifestyle factors beyond exercise.
Conclusion
The right smartwatch for weight loss depends on your specific needs and how you’ll actually use it. Apple Watch Series 9 is our top recommendation, with comprehensive fitness tracking, easy interface, and ecosystem integration that keeps you motivated. Its automated workout detection means you never miss tracking spontaneous activity, while activity rings build lasting habits.
If you’re serious about athletic performance and detailed training metrics, Garmin Forerunner 265 gives unmatched data and battery life. Budget buyers get excellent value from Fitbit Charge 6, delivering essential weight loss features without high cost. Android users should look at Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 for body composition analysis, while data-driven people might prefer Whoop’s recovery-focused approach.
The best smartwatch is the one you’ll actually wear. The most feature-rich device is useless if it sits in a drawer. Consider your daily routine, charging preferences, and ecosystem before buying. Whatever you choose, use the data to make informed decisions about diet and exercise, stay accountable through consistent tracking, and celebrate small wins that add up to real change over time. Your weight loss journey deserves good tools—make your smartwatch count.
