Last year was a quiet one for wearables and fitness trackers. In 2021, brands are making up for lost time. We tested this year’s new crop of devices by trail running, snowboarding, surfing, and even sitting in an office chair for a day of work. These are the ones that landed at the top of the pile.
Suunto 9 Baro Titanium Watch ($599)
The updated Suunto 9 Baro Titanium still boasts more than 80 sport modes and a snappy touchscreen. What’s new? Turn-by-turn navigation powered by adventure-planning app Komoot, and a whopping 170 hours of continuous GPS tracking. The new titanium body is also lightweight, tough, and good-looking enough to wear with anything.
InsideTracker Ultimate Service ($589)
InsideTracker is the only service that combines blood and fitness data to give you an extremely detailed picture of what’s happening with your body and training. To get started, get basic blood work done at any approved lab. Then get moving! The InsideTracker app integrates with either Garmin or Fitbit. Algorithms process all that daily data, alongside the blood biomarkers, and give you specific recommendations regarding diet, training, and even nutrition.
Under Armour UA Flow Velociti Wind Shoes ($160)
These aren’t the first shoes from Under Armour that can give you training metrics, but they are easily the best from a runner’s perspective: cushy but far lighter than older models, with a feathery mesh upper. Sensors use Bluetooth to pair with the MapMyRun app, which tracks and records granular data like pace, cadence, and ground-contact time. After your run, open up the app, where all your stats are intuitively laid out.
Garmin Enduro Watch ($800)
This multisport device lasts more than a month in smartwatch mode and 70 hours in GPS mode. It also offers over 50 trackable sports and activities. You don’t get maps or the ability to play music, but you can create routes in the Garmin app and upload them onto the watch, so you can make sure you stay on track. We used it for four weeks’ worth of GPS-tracked activities plus 24/7 health monitoring and didn’t have to take it off once.
Samsung Galaxy Watch3 Wearable ($399)
Samsung’s newest smartwatch constantly monitors basic health metrics like steps, heart rate, and VO2 max. But our favorite feature is the activity detection. A suite of sensors enables the Android- and iOS-compatible watch to recognize movement patterns related to running, biking, and swimming, so it can automatically initiate tracking. Plus, it runs two days on a charge.