Best Fitness Watch For Women 2023

Stay on track and elevate your fitness levels with a top smartwatch.

The best fitness watches for women are the ones that can help you track your journey as it goes. It's about being able to see your stats when you want, but also get a feeling about how things are progressing. Safety is a big part of things as well, whether that's something like a reliable battery and GPS system while hiking, or just all-around health tracking. Safety comes in a lot of different ways, and thankfully, modern-day smartwatches cover most safety concerns as well as provide you with an effective way of keeping track of your health and fitness.

That being said, while some of the best smartwatches and fitness trackers offer just about everything you can imagine, it's still worth noting that some are better at certain activities than others. To help make sure you get exactly what you need, we've broken down the best fitness watches for women based on factors like what they're good at, as well as budget. After all, it's important to get what's good for you, not just what's good.

And, as this list is primarily centred around women and women's health, we've taken into account devices which can track key female-only health metrics. For example, the Fitbit Inspire 3 tracks your menstrual health, allowing you to log periods, record symptoms, and find patterns in your cycle. It's features like these, as well as all the usual fitness tracking capabilities, which make our top picks stand out from the competition Let's get into it...

Best fitness watch for women on iPhone

At the top of our list, we have the Apple Watch Series 8, which is a truly phenomenal watch in every respect, as long as you're okay being within the Apple ecosystem. If you're an Android user, then you'll want our next entry, but for iPhone users, this device is hard to beat.

It's stylish, comfortable, swim-proof, dust-resistant, has a beautiful retina display, and can track just about everything about you from your blood oxygen, your ECG, and your cardio fitness. It even has features like fall and crash detection, making it a good one to have if you're keen on solo adventures and training.

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For women specifically, it also comes with crucial temperature sensors and cycle-tracking capabilities, providing you with an estimate of when you likely ovulated and, alongside the heart rate monitor, detailed insight regarding your cycle.

All things considered, we'd say this Apple watch is definitely one of the best for fitness tracking and everyday wear if you're an iPhone user.

Best fitness watch for women on Android

So, technically this watch isn't out til 11 August, but the stats on it and the strong lineage of the Samsung Galaxy Watch line means it should be better than those that have come before it, making it one of our top picks for Android users already.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 comes with a heart monitor, offers sleep coaching and tracking, has a large screen, features a range of beautiful colours, and will keep you updated on how your workouts are going. It's especially good if you're a lover of stats because its Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis sensor can assess areas like your body fat percentage and skeletal muscle, thus providing a deeper insight into your body's health.

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It's also worth mentioning its lighter, slimmer build. In fact, Samsung boasts its 30% slimmer than its predecessor, despite featuring a 20% larger AMOLED screen. So, taking this as well as the aforementioned features into account, we think it's fair to say this is an easy choice if you're an Android user.

Best budget fitness watch for women

Money isn't exactly flowing for many of us right now, and while it's nice to treat yourself, sometimes sticking to a budget is a wise thing to do. If you're after one of the best smartwatches and don't want to go too deep into your pockets, then the Amazfit Bip 3 Pro has you covered.

Aside from being compatible with most phones, which is always useful, it also has a 14-day battery life, four satellite position systems, and over 60 different sports modes, making it a great choice for anyone who likes to dabble in every sport, martial art, or fitness class available.

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It also features handy blood oxygen and heart rate monitors, it can analyse your sleep and assess your sleep quality, plus you can record your current menstrual period, with it then able to predict and remind you of upcomingmenstrual and fertile periods. It does a little bit of everything, basically, and the lower price doesn't mean lower quality in this instance. Definitely, one to check out.

Best running fitness watch for women

If you're a fan of running, whether for a quick jog around the block or for a full day of escapism, then the Garmin Forerunner 965 is the watch for you. It's basically built from the ground up for running and features runner in the same, which essentially guarantees you're in good hands.

Not only does it look great, but this watch has a battery life of up to 23 days, has a built-in race widget if you're mostly driven by competition, and has built-in maps and a GPS, which means you can take new routes around wherever you are, but still come back safely at the end of your run.

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The race widget is particularly useful as it can estimate your finishing time based on your pace, plus it's even capable of suggesting workouts based on your training readiness score that takes factors like sleep, stress, and recovery into account to assess your energy levels each day.

Simply put, it's one of the best Garmin watches on the market. And, with the app's built-in Women's Health mode, allowing you to track your cycle, pregnancy, including weight gain goals, and more, it's up there as one of the best fitness watches for women as well.

Best swimming fitness watch for women

The Fitbit Inspire 3 is a very solid, and surprisingly budget-friendly, smartwatch. It's one of the best fitness watches for women though, because it's light, small, and can deal with water pressure, hence it being a great pick for swimming.

While a lot of watches match its water-resistance rating of up to 50 metres (although please check before jumping in the pool) the Fitbit Inspire 3 features a more streamlined, lightweight build (weighing just 17.9g), meaning it's incredibly comfortable and, therefore, well worth checking out.

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It also boasts a ten-day battery life, and it offers all the usual smartwatch accompaniments like phone notifications and contactless payments. On top of that, it tracks sleep, can give you a specialised alarm, and can help you with stress management too, making it all-round great choice for swimming and exercise, and, generally speaking, is just a top Fitbit to consider.

Best hiking fitness watch for women

Hiking is a joyous hobby to have, especially if you happen to live near some good routes. In fact, if you explore your local areas regularly, you might not think you even need a watch to help you stay safe. However, we're of the opinion that it's always better to be safe than sorry, and that's where this Garmin Instinct 2 Solar watch comes in. Why? Well, mainly because this thing has built-in GPS, but that's not all...

Not only can it help you orient yourself, but this watch also has solar charging, allowing it to keep going for what Garmin states is an unlimited amount of time, meaning you never have to worry about charging it. However, even if solar charging isn't in use, it can still last up to 65 days in battery saver mode.

Read More: Best Garmin watches for hiking

It also has plenty of built-in sports apps to make sure you can get the most out of whatever activity you're doing. Adding to the navigation side of things, it has a 3-axis compass, barometric altimeter, and tracks all sorts of stats like your heart rate, sleep quality, and even respiration as well. It really is a great smartwatch and one we feel is perfect for hiking.

Buying a new smartwatch or fitness tracker can pose quite a few questions. No need to panic though as we've answered some of the most commonly asked queries below.

This all depends on what exactly you're buying a fitness tracker or smartwatch for. Therefore, it's important to first consider specific features that fit with your fitness goals, lifestyle, and preferences.

That said, there are a few general features that you should look out for when buying a watch, the first being its activity and health-tracking metrics. Look for a fitness watch that can accurately track a wide range of activities, such as steps, calories burned, heart rate, and sleep quality, and comes with various workout modes which, crucially, include any and all sports you partake in.

You may also want to keep an eye out as to whether the watch in question comes with a built-in GPS, as having one allows for accurate tracking of outdoor activities like running or cycling without needing to carry your phone with you.

Additionally, you'll likely want a device with a decent battery life, certainly one with another juice to last through a typical day's activities and workouts without requiring frequent charging.

Being water-resistant to some degree is also a useful feature as it should minimise the risk of your watch breaking from excess moisture build-up during your workouts. It also gives you the option to wear it in a pool, shower, or while having a bath.

And finally, and something we alluded to in our introduction, take note as to whether a watch features health tracking specifically designed for women, such as menstrual cycle recording and fertility insights. Generally speaking, these are handy tools to keep on top of women's health in particular.

This can vary significantly depending on the brand, model, features, display type, and usage patterns. Generally, though, as demonstrated by our list, most fitness watches offer a battery life that ranges from a few days to several weeks.

There are, however, some watches that can last even longer, and most devices will feature different modes that can change how much of its battery it's using at any given moment. Take Garmin, for example, which typically includes a Battery Saver mode to keep its power usage to a minimum if you know you're not going to be able to charge your device for a while. Garmin also includes solar-charging lenses with some of its watches, which essentially gives you unlimited battery life if kept in sunlight long enough.

Ultimately, before you purchase a fitness watch, make sure you check the manufacturer's specifications for battery life and read user reviews to get a real-world sense of how long the battery lasts under typical usage conditions. Charging habits and settings adjustments, as touched on above, can also play a role in extending or conserving the battery life.

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