Corey Gaskin / Ars Technica
It’s the first week of November, which means that Black Friday month has started. This year’s vacation shoppers can benefit from these early offers more than in previous years due to disrupted supply chains and delayed shipping times.
Hence, the Dealmaster is here to give you the game every step of the way to ensure you get what you need, when you need it, at a good price. We’ve put together a more general roundup of the best early Black Friday deals we could find earlier this week, but today we’re going to name a few recommended fitness smartwatches that are getting some decent discounts. We also have a couple of tried and tested workout earbuds to compliment them.
Ars Technica may receive compensation for sales from links in this post through affiliate programs.
Fitbit Inspire 2 Activity Tracker for $ 60 on Amazon, Best Buy, and Target (typically $ 100)
Enlarge / Fitbits Inspire 2 activity tracker.
Fitbit
Fitbit’s Inspire 2 is one of the best basic fitness trackers out there. Its battery life of 10 days, a 24/7 heart rate monitor and more than 20 activity tracking modes (including automatic sleep tracking) cover the essentials of a fitness wearable. The device also comes with a one-year subscription to Fitbit Premium, the company’s subscription service for slightly deeper sleep tracking metrics, as well as access to a few hundred wellness content, including exercise videos, guided meditations, and a handful of recipes.
The biggest missing component here is the built-in GPS; You need to take your phone with you if you want to track your runs or bike rides with GPS. However, the device is waterproof up to 50 meters, so you can also follow swimming movements. You won’t find higher quality, more specific features like blood oxygen monitoring or EKG scans, but calls, texts, and calendar notifications add some level of smartwatch functionality to top it off. This offer offers $ 3 off the lowest price we’ve found.
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Garmin Venu and Venu Sq fitness smartwatches for $ 199 and $ 130, respectively, on Amazon (typically $ 325 and $ 180, respectively)
Garmin smartwatches are an easy choice for those who love fitness data or who participate in more varied or engaging activities. The sensors in the Venu and Venu Sq include 24/7 heart rate and respiratory rate tracking, GPS, a compass and blood oxygen monitoring. Those are all the important sensors that the Apple Watch offers, although Apple’s device also has an EKG scanner. Considering the price and the deeper, more accurate fitness data, these Garmin watches are a real value.
The watches also offer menstrual cycle tracking and some Garmin-exclusive metrics, such as approximate fitness age, body battery, stress tracking, and of course, sleep tracking. The Venus even supports Garmin’s LiveTrack feature, which monitors incident detection during activities (hiking, walking, running, swimming, weight training, and more) and can alert emergency services for you. Add to this 5 ATM water resistance, five days of battery life, smartphone notifications (including the ability to respond to texts on Android phones), NFC and music control, and most moderate athletes and nerds alike will want little.
Both offers correspond to the lowest prices we’ve tracked. Between the two devices, the Garmin Venu is a bit higher and looks more sophisticated than a traditional watch. The round, colored touchscreen can also display exercise animations that you can follow during the exercises. In addition, it has an altimeter and space to store around 500 songs, which the Venu Sq lacks. If you prefer the Sq style but really want music controls, the Garmin Venu Sq Music is also available for $ 50. Note that there’s a newer Venu 2 out there with most of the same features and an updated user interface. We have no concerns with the previous user interface, and while the Venu 2 doubles battery life to around 11 days, it also doubles the current retail price of the last generation.
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Fitbit Sense fitness smartwatch for $ 200 on Amazon, Best Buy, and Target (typically $ 280)
Corey Gaskin / Ars Technica
The Fitbit Sense is one of the most sensor-rich wearables on the market. Priced at $ 200, it’s one of the highest quality fitness watches you can buy. With heart rate, blood oxygen, and EKG scanning sensors on board 24/7, the device is on par with the Apple Watch in terms of industry-leading sensors. There’s also a skin temperature monitor to keep track of your stress response, which the Apple Watch is lacking. The requirements are also well covered here. An integrated GPS, altimeter, NFC and a microphone for answering calls round off the first-class functions of the Sense, while the battery life of six days is well above most smartwatches.
Despite its high-spec hardware, we wouldn’t say it’s the best smartwatch or the best fitness tracker out there. It’s better than seeing a very competitive compromise between two of our top picks in these areas, the Apple Watch Series 7 and one of Garmin’s fitness trackers (whichever best suits your needs). The Sense handles notifications and phone calls as best it can for a platform-independent wearable, displays warnings from all of your apps (albeit after a pointlessly complicated set-up process), and even makes phone calls easier on the watch.
Unfortunately, apart from Spotify, there is no third-party app support for popular apps on iOS or Android phones. As for its fitness, the device has a range of activity tracking modes, from swimming and kickboxing to weight training and tennis, like you can find on every tracker in this list. But as we found in our Fitbit Luxe review, the workout data is simple and even a little misleading. Not even six free months of Fitbit’s premium subscription make up for the lack of guidance the service typically offers for $ 10 a month.
Still, for $ 200, the $ 200 Sense is a very attractive way to get heart rate, blood oxygen, and EKG readings on your wrist, along with smartphone notifications, GPS, music controls, and a variety of activity tracking options. Six days of battery life to top it off isn’t bad either. Once again, this offer corresponds to the best price we’ve been chasing.
