Best Budget Fitness Trackers with GPS: Pocket-Friendly Wearables to Monitor Your Health
The best budget fitness tracker with GPS accurately tracks your walks, workouts, routes, heart rate, sleep, physical activity, and general health metrics without costing a fortune.
However, picking the best cheap model is difficult because budget restrictions mean you can’t go for the best the money can buy. Besides, the market is flooded with low-budget fitness trackers with sub-par quality that frustrated users often abandon several days after purchase.
To help you with that, I scraped into the fitness tracker market, scored the best budget options, and separated those with inbuilt GPS from the rest. Then, I only focused on the top 5 that offer above-board value, are recommended by the fitness community, and can accurately track activities using GPS.
At A Glance
The Best Budget Fitness Trackers with GPS in 2024
1. Fitbit Charge 5: Best Inexpensive Fitness Tracker with GPS
The Fitbit Charge 5 proves that you don’t have to break the bank to track your health and fitness or sacrifice functionality.
While you won’t get the Google Apps in the new Fitbit Charge 6, I was impressed that the Fitbit Charge 5 has a lineup of features reserved for more expensive fitness trackers, such as the ECG heart rate monitor. That way, you can spot signs of irregular heartbeat that a doctor should further investigate.
The device can track up to 20 workouts, which is less impressive than its rivals. But you get an inbuilt GPS to map your routes and track precise outdoor activities such as cycling, running, and hiking. With the GPS, you can track data on distance covered, pace, and route taken.
However, the GPS recordings I registered weren’t as accurate as those dedicated options like Garmin Forerunner 55. It overestimated the distance on my pre-measure route by a few meters. But I could monitor session duration, calorie count, and stats like my completed laps.
You can get more in-depth data with the smartphone app. I liked the Daily Readiness Score a lot. The feature helps you track your workout readiness based on your activity, sleep, and heart rate variability. A low score of 29 and below indicates you should postpone your workout, while a score over 30 means you’re ready to exercise.
When you aren’t working out, you can get, read, and open your smartphone notifications on the tracker. You can also dismiss them with a quick tap and receive call alerts so nothing important ends up going to voicemail.
2. Garmin Forerunner 55: Best Budget Fitness Tracker for Runners
The Garmin Forerunner 55 is ideal if you’re looking for a fitness tracker with basic smartwatch capabilities, without extras that tend to drive the price up.
You’ll get a built-in GPS that provides data about pace, distance, split times, elapsed time, mileage, and time for runs and other outdoor distance workouts. You can also track your live location with the GPS to allow your family and friends to see your real-time location. Besides, the GPS offers advanced safety features like incident detection, which lets you send a message to a selected contact in case of a fall or an emergency. However, you must connect the watch to your smartphone during your runs to use the safety feature.
Another feature that makes the Garmin Forerunner 55 runner-friendly is the PacePro feature. While I’m not a beginner runner, I usually lose steam after the first few miles of a long run. The PacePro feature is handy as it allows me to select a course or race distance and create a pacing strategy. Creating the plan requires the Garmin Connect smartphone app. After setting a goal pace and formulating a strategy, you send it to your Garmin Forerunner 55, and it will recommend a speed and alert you when you exceed the predetermined race.
Besides, you can track your sleep, monitor your steps, respiration rate, stress levels, calories burned, pregnancy symptoms, and menstrual cycles.
3. Amazfit GTR 4: Best Budget Fitness Tracker With GPS for New Users
The Amazfit GTR4 offers more than it costs. Starting at $199, it provides most of the innovative features you’d expect from pricier wearables. You’ll get a bright OLED screen, sleep stage tracking, oxygen monitoring, Amazon Alex compatibility, offline digital assistant, stress tracking, and an inbuilt GPS.
You can utilize accurate GPS tracking in challenging environments if you’re an outdoor enthusiast. The watch uses L1 and L5 satellite frequencies, tracking more accurate coordinates even in difficult terrains like forests or cities. Such a multi-band GPS isn’t common for a budget fitness tracker. Even in the Apple Watch Series 8, Apple reserves it for the Ultra. I can’t find another fitness tracker in this price range that offers such a high-end GPS.
The Amazfit GTR 4 would have been my top recommendation if it had not been slightly pricy because it looks better, lasts longer, and has more features than expected.
Like its GPS, the tracker also doesn’t skimp on sensors. It offers more than the typical motion sensors (accelerometer and gyroscope). You get a geomagnetic sensor, ambient light sensor, and barometric altimeter to track accurate routes for outdoor activities, automatically adjust brightness, and measure changes in atmospheric pressure.
I’m not a triathlete or an ultra-marathoner, so I didn’t test for the GPS battery estimates. However, I got about ten days on a single charge. Most of the time, I turned off the Always-On Display, but I enabled the multiband GPS. While some fitness trackers can last longer, ten days with moderate use and an OLED display is excellent.
4. Amazfit GTS 2e: Best Feature-Rich Budget Fitness Tracker With GPS
The Amazfit GTS 2e is a capable fitness tracker. Its bright OLED display sets it apart from many budget fitness trackers, and its impressive battery life (up to 24 days with moderate use) makes it a practical choice.
Starting at $49.99, you can track outdoor running, indoor and outdoor cycling, open water swimming, treadmill training, skiing, dance, water sports, combat sports, elliptical training, and many more. The watch is easy to operate on the move. Double-press the crown button to open the menu for workout options. A simple swipe and tap start and pause the current activities. You can swipe down to end or cancel the current activity.
I compared the GPS mapping of the GTS 2e withGarmin Forerunner 55, and the results were almost identical. However, the indoor tracking was slightly inaccurate. The step counter often registered fewer steps when out of GPS coverage, though it doesn’t count false steps. Also, the distance reported by GPS tracking and the one displayed in the app weren’t identical. The app reported lower figures.
However, it is 5-atmosphere water-resistant, so you can take it swimming. The watch also supports continuous heart rate monitoring. You can customize the monitoring frequency to 1 minute. I also loved the sleep-tracking feature that tracks the quantum of light sleep, deep sleep, and awake time.
5. Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 7: Best Bargain Budget Fitness Tracker With GPS
The Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 7 punches above its weight. It’s affordable, starting at $39.95, and includes a whole array of features you’d expect in a fitness tracker. With this band, you can track sleep, stress, blood oxygen, and GPS-related exercise metrics. This is impressive for a product at this low price.
While it isn’t a watch with the best user interface, I was surprised by the sheer number of features on the Xiamon Mi Smart Band 7. The band looks like FitBit, with a sizable crips 1.62” AMOLED hi-res display. It can track over 110 exercises, and you can take it swimming since it is water-resistant up to 50 meters.
The wristband works like a typical fitness tracker. You can access workout modes from your app and select a mode like indoor running, outdoor cycling, walking, and intuitive GPS mapping. The band will then monitor your pace, heart rate, calorie counts, and total time from your wrist.
The training load analysis – a feature that isn’t available in most fitness trackers — is impressive. It recommends increasing or decreasing your activity depending on the data you previously logged and based on your Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC). EPOC effectively measures how long your body needs to recover from exercise.
What to Look For in a Budget Fitness Tracker With GPS
There are several factors to consider when shopping for a fitness tracker. However, it gets trickier when you’re hunting for an inexpensive one with a GPS. That’s because you’re on a budget and can’t go for the best the money can buy.
Fortunately, a few affordable fitness trackers will care for most of your health, fitness, and wellness needs. Check for the following when looking for an inexpensive fitness tracker:
A GPS Tracker
If you’re shopping for a fitness tracker with GPS, a GPS tracker will be a critical factor. A GPS-equipped fitness tracker usually offers more accurate data than one without. GPS is often precise within 10 meters and could be more accurate in open spaces, tracking activities like cycling, hiking, or walking. Besides, GPS allows you to track more data, such as average speed, distance covered, time taken, route, and progress over time.
That way, you can track your live location and share your whereabouts with friends and family during an outdoor activity. Some fitness trackers with GPS offer incident detection, which can automatically send alerts during emergencies.
Basic Tracking Features
Besides GPs, ensure your option has essential fitness tracking capabilities such as step counting, distance traveled, calories burned, sleep monitoring, heart rate monitoring, and other metrics you want to track. These features are foundational for monitoring your overall health and daily activities.
Activity Modes
While most fitness trackers measure many activities, consider the activities you engage in most. For example, if you’re running, cycling, and walking, you should get a cheap fitness tracker with these modes and a GPS module.
Tracking Your Health and Fitness Shouldn’t Cost You A Fortune
No question. You always get what you pay for. However, some fitness trackers offer way more bang for your buck. For example, whilethe $73.00 Fitbit Charge 5 won’t compete with high-end options, it offers features you’d expect from more expensive fitness trackers, such as GPS, vibrant display, and turn-by-turn route navigation.
Others, like the Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 7, start as low as $39.95 without compromising fitness tracking features while offering impressive GPS tracking capabilities.
