11 Best Pedometers to Accurately Count Steps in 2024

A quality walking routine needs a quality pedometer.

In this article I focus on helping you find the best pedometer and pedometer watches for 2024.

Regardless of your level of fitness, walking every day can have a significant positive impact on your overall health, energy levels, level of fitness, and overall happiness.

Daily walks are one of the most important habits you can develop, because they influence many other positive habit changes.

If you are going to start a walking routine, chances are you will want to get a pedometer to accurately track your steps, miles, kilometers, floors, and calories.

Plus, you may enjoy the wide assortment of cool tools, apps, and options available in most modern smartwatches. A lot depends on you, your budget and what you are looking for.

This pedometer review will show you the best pedometers based on what “type” of person you are and what you might be looking for.

What is the best pedometer watch for 2024?

Don't have time to read the entire review? Then check out our picks for the best pedometers on the market.

	Best Overall Choice: Fitbit Charge 4	CLICK HERE FOR PRICE
	Runner-Up Option: Garmin Vivosmart 4	CLICK HERE FOR PRICE
	Best Value for the Money: Fitbit Inspire Fitness Tracker	CLICK HERE FOR PRICE
	Most Budget-Friendly: Omron HJ325 Alvita Ultimate Pedometer	CLICK HERE FOR PRICE
	Simplest to Set Up and Use: 3DFitBud Simple Step Counter Walking 3D Pedometer	CLICK HERE FOR PRICE
	Best High-End All-in-One Activity Tracker: Garmin Forerunner 945	CLICK HERE FOR PRICE
	Best Smartwatch Fitness Tracker: Fitbit Versa 2 Health and Fitness Smartwatch	CLICK HERE FOR PRICE
	Best Value for an All-in-One Activity Tracker: Polar M200 GPS Heart Rate Monitor Watch	CLICK HERE FOR PRICE
	Best Entry-Level Pedometer and Smart Watch: SoundPEATS Smart Watch Fitness Tracker	CLICK HERE FOR PRICE
	Most Rugged, Durable Activity Tracker: Garmin Fenix 6 Pro Solar	CLICK HERE FOR PRICE
	Longest Battery Life: iTouch Slim Waterproof Fitness Activity Tracker	CLICK HERE FOR PRICE

Before we dig into our specific picks. Let’s take a quick look at some of the benefits of using a pedometer for your daily walking habit.

How Do Pedometers Help with the “Walking Habit”?

Every step counts. While getting specific, purpose-driven, exercise is essential. All the minutes walking around your house and work do begin to add up. Pedometers encourage walking extra distances. Such as parking your car far away to get a few extra steps.

Walking for distance is inaccurate. The only purpose o a pedometer is to count your steps. When walking for a distance, different people have different strides and walking (or running) speeds. Therefore, X calories burned in a mile is a very inaccurate gauge.

Accuracy. Pedometer uses accelerometers to measure movement, which gives you a “step count” that can be used to accurately track your movement-based fitness.

A better measure of difficulty. Most pedometers come with an altimeter, so it can tell if you are going up an incline, going downhill or over a perfectly flat surface. This is essential for any pedometer that measures calories burned over time.

Pedometers can be fun. With some pedometers, measuring steps, distance, and calories are all they do, while others have a handful of additions that can be used to “gamify” your walking experience.

There are also many options to export the data to all sorts of cool fitness apps and interfaces. This is really where all the differences in the pedometers come into play.

11 Best Pedometers to Use in 2024

1. Best Overall Choice: Fitbit Charge 4

The original is still the best. The Fitbit Charge 4 is a comprehensive health tracking device that helps you understand your body, intelligently track your activity, and work toward better health.

It tracks exercise time and intensity and is waterproof for swimming and water sports. You can set reminders and goals, and track heart rate zone intensity.

It also has calming activities like guided breathing, sleep tracking, and sleep scoring. It will count calories, track a woman's cycle, and score your cardio fitness.

And it does all of this with the intelligence of a smart watch, with wireless syncing, a convenient touchscreen, Spotify integration, even make secure payments. It's absolutely everything you want and need in a smart fitness tracker, backed by Fitbit quality and reliability.

The Fitbit Charge 4 is packed full of features. As an exercise tracker, it monitors real-time pace and distance with GPS, with automatic exercise recognition, a heart rate monitor, and a workout intensity map.

It's effective for a wide range of exercise, because it's swim-proof, counts floors climbed, and has an altimeter.

You can set exercise goals, get personalized reminders, and get a little prompt to move when you've been still for too long. As an overall fitness tracker, it monitors your cardio fitness and has a female health monitor.

It has guided breathing sessions and a resting heart rate tracker. It tracks the time and quality of your sleep, giving you a sleep score so you understand your sleep quality.

The Fitbit Charge 4 is slim and unobtrusive, with a greyscale touchscreen and a customizable watch face. It integrates seamlessly with your smart phone, giving you comprehensive health information on the Fitbit App dashboard.

You can use it for convenient card-less payments,  play music through Spotify, and use all the standard clock functions. You can also set it to sleep and do not disturb modes, and it has an impressive 7-day battery life, or up to 5 hours with continuous GPS use.

The Fitbit Charge 4 comes with two classic Fitbit wristbands (small and large) and a charging cable.

2. Runner-Up Option: Garmin Vivosmart 4

The Garmin Vivosmart 4 doesn't have as many features and capabilities as the Fitbit Charge 4, but does have some great features that the Fitbit doesn't, including a Pulse Oxygen sensor, heart rate monitor, and the ability to reply to messages with pre-set text messages (for Android users only).

It also has a slim, stylish, elegant design and beautiful app interface that make tracking your fitness, sleep, and health easier and more convenient than ever.

The smart features keep you connected even when you are away from your phone, and it even has a find-my-phone feature in case you need it. It's a beautiful fitness tracker with a huge number of intelligent features, and a fantastic alternative to the Fitbit Charge 4.

The Garmin Vivosmart 4 is a great activity tracker, with dedicated settings for walking, running, strength training, yoga, swimming, and more. It will sync with your phone's GPS for outdoor activities.

It also has overall fitness and health monitoring, with a wrist-based heart rate tracker, all-day stress tracking, VO2 max tracking, energy monitoring, and a relaxation breathing timer.

In fact, when it detects high stress levels, the Vivosmart 4 will notify you that it may be time for a break. It also has advanced sleep monitoring with a wrist-based Pulse Ox2 sensor and REM sleep tracking.

Intelligent Body Battery energy monitoring tracks your heart rate, stress, sleep, and activity levels to let you know when your body is ready for activity, and when your body needs to rest.

It is also a smart connected device, and you can get vibration alerts for incoming calls and messages, and Android users can send pre-set text replies from their wrist.

It acts as a remote for your connected phone, controlling your music playback and helping you find your phone. It is water-resistant, so it can be used during swimming, showers, and sweaty workouts, and has a battery life that lasts for up to 7 days.

With the Garmin App, you can create and track goals, connect with a supportive online community, earn badges, and share with social media. It is also slim and stylish, with metal accents and a display that automatically adjusts to ambient light levels.

The Garmin Vivosmart 4 has a silicone strap that comes in white, black, berry, azure, and grey, and is available in large or small sizes. It comes with a user manual and a charging cable.

3. Best Value for the Money: Fitbit Inspire Fitness Tracker

The Fitbit Inspire is a sleek, simple, affordable fitness tracker with everything you need to track your goals and get healthier. It's swimproof, has automatic exercise recognition, goal-based tracking, sleep tracking, female health tracking, and personalized reminders.

It has incoming notifications from your phone, so you can stay on top of messages and appointments with wireless syncing, all-day calorie burn and cardio fitness, and a generous 5 day battery life.

Normally all these features would cost a lot more, but the Fitbit Inspire is very reasonably priced, making it a great value for the money.

The Fitbit Inspire Fitness Tracker is a sleek little device with everything you need in a fitness tracker. It has SmartTrack automatic exercise recognition, real-time pace and distance with your phone's GPS, and 20+ goal-based exercise modes.

You can get personalized reminders including sleep, exercise, and hydration, and it's water resistant so it can be used for swimming and aquatic activities and resists sweaty workouts.

It will give you all-day scores including steps, distance, calorie burn, and active times. It's also a general health tracker, with sleep tracking and sleep score, female health tracking, and more.

The Fitbit Inspire works with your smartphone and the Fitbit App so you can set goals, track progress, and see your fitness stats. You can also get notifications from your phone for incoming calls, messages, or calendar events so you stay connected.

This sleek little device has a greyscale touchscreen, customizable clock face, and on-wrist stats. The battery lasts for up to 5 days.

The Fitbit Inspire Fitness Tracker comes in black or sangria, and comes with large and small wrist bands included, along with a charging cable.

For an additional cost, you can upgrade to the Fitbit Inspire HR which has active heart rate monitoring, and can track your heart rate, workout intensity, and overall cardio fitness.

4. Most Budget-Friendly: Omron HJ325 Alvita Ultimate Pedometer

Your pedometer does not need to reply to your emails and make you a latte’.

Sometimes simple is best. If you only want a pedometer that simply and accurately counts steps and calories burned then you do not need to buy a fancy pedometer watch.

All you need is something you can slide into a pocket or clip to your shirt.

This simple, but accurate pedometer has the advantage of its simplicity, the small size and relatively low cost. Of the inexpensive models of pedometer the Omron Alvita HJ325 gets my vote for best pedometer.

The Omron series of pedometers are generally the highest quality of the lower end of the pedometer price curve for the pedometer market.

Omron pedometers are fully functional. They are built to last and will generally give you all the information you need from a pedometer.

The “non” Omron pedometers all have great reviews, solid functionality and get the job done when it comes to tracking your daily steps.

The only thing these inexpensive pedometers “lack” is all the extra bells and whistles other pedometer watches give. Bells and whistles you probably already have on your mobile phone, if we are being 100% honest.

Most of the items on this list are multi-functional. They are pedometers and…. something more. But Omron pedometers (and their competitors) are simple, What you see is what you get.

You don’t pay for features you don’t want. If all you want is something simple to count steps one of these options will be perfect for you.

The Omron is a highly accurate pedometer that gives you step counts, time, distance, and in most models: calories/fat grams burned. If you want to keep things simple, this pedometer does them really well.

Many of the less expensive pedometers fail because they are spring-activated. They may be fairly accurate for large movement swings, so they work well for running, but they fail to accurately track steps when it comes to walking.

The Omron Altiva Pocket Pedometers have Tri-Axis technology which makes making this pedometer accurate no matter what position it’s in, and therefore highly accurate in tracking steps and distance.

5. Simplest to Set Up and Use: 3DFitBud Simple Step Counter Walking 3D Pedometer

If all you want is a simple, accurate way to count your steps, the 3DFitBud is an excellent choice. It's tiny and compact, easy to wear around your neck or clip to clothing. It simply counts steps, with a large, easy to read display and a reset button, so there are no complicated instructions to follow.

And the 3D Tri-Axis Sensor Technology makes it very accurate, so you don't have to worry that simple body movements are being mis-counted as steps. It's the simplest, most accurate way to count your steps and not spend money on fancy features you don't need.

The 3DFitBud Simple Step Counter Walking 3D Pedometer is incredibly accurate. The 3D Tri-Axis Sensor Technology can read steps no matter how you wear or carry the device.

And it only starts counting after it senses that you have taken 10 steps, and then starts with 11, so that you don't have accidental or incidental movements counted as steps.

It has an extra-large display, so it's easy to read, and resets with the press of a button. To preserve battery life, the device goes to sleep when you aren't moving, and then wakes and counts when you move again. The included battery lasts for up to a year.

The 3DFitBud can be worn around your neck or clipped to a piece of clothing, or simply carried in a pocket or a bag. It weighs just 24 grams, and is small and sleek, so it won't weigh you down on long walks or hikes. It doesn't require a smartphone or an app, and there is no setup required.

The 3DFitBud Simple Step Counter Walking 3D Pedometer comes with a lanyard for wearing around the neck, a removable clip for clipping to clothing, and a user's manual. It also comes with a PDF eBook guide to walking for life.

The included battery lasts for up to a year, and the device is backed by an 18-month warranty.

6. Best High-End All-in-One Activity Tracker: Garmin Forerunner 945

The Garmin Forerunner 945 is designed for serious athletes who need an activity tracker that is rugged, accurate, and has the features to boost your performance.

This fitness tracker also has the most advanced smart features for outdoor enthusiasts, including trip planning with maps, onboard storage for up to 1,000 songs or 10 hours of music, and safety features that will detect an accident and alert your emergency contacts.

For people who need a device that goes beyond simply tracking your fitness but has training and performance tools to help you reach your goals, the Garmin Forerunner 945 is the smartwatch of choice.

The Garmin Forerunner 945 has a lightweight, slim design that won't bulk you up or slow you down. It has a high-performance silicone band and durable Gorilla Glass lens for rugged conditions.

It has wrist-based heart rate and VO2 tracking, and keeps a real-time record of your performance condition, letting you know if you are peaking or over-reaching.

Training load measures your exercise over the previous 7 days to determine your optimal range and fitness.

It has built-in sports profiles for cycling, swimming, elliptical, and more, a running dynamics indicator, along with coaching tools and training plans to help you reach optimal fitness and performance.

The multi-GNSS system uses multiple navigation and satellite systems for accuracy even in challenging environments. It also has safety features like accident detection or a manual alert button that will send your location to emergency contacts.

The smart watch features give you full color maps, with the ability to plan routes for distance, get turn-by-turn navigation, and even plan climbs and ascents in real time.

Other smart features include the ability to sync your playlists from Spotify, Amazon Music and more, for up to 1,000 songs no matter where you are. Pair with your own Bluetooth headphones for your perfect playlist.

When paired with your phone, you can receive emails, texts, and notifications on your watch, and breeze through the checkout line with Garmin Pay.

This smart watch is also incredibly versatile: using the Garmin Connect IQ store, you can download custom watch faces, and add apps and widgets to unlock even more capabilities. The battery lasts for up to 2 weeks, or 10 hours in GPS mode with music.

7. Best Smartwatch Fitness Tracker: Fitbit Versa 2 Health and Fitness Smartwatch

The Fitbit Versa 2 is a full-featured smart watch, with all the fitness and health tracking you want and expect from Fitbit. It is integrated with Amazon Alexa and Spotify, and includes Fitbit Pay, a smart contactless payment system.

It also has heart rate tracking, sleep tracking, and activity tracking. The watch-like always-on display allows you to see the display at a glance, even during workouts or when your hands are full.

Customize the Versa 2 with hundreds of downloadable widgets and apps, to make it even more personalized and convenient. And enjoy the comfortable, convenient, lightweight, slim design with a choice of band colors to be smarter and fitter in style.

The Fitbit Versa 2 is a full-featured smart watch with a 4+ day battery life.

It has Amazon Alexa, the ability to store 300 songs on the watch, or play your favorite Spotify, Pandora, or Deezer stations and playlists, enjoy wireless payments, connect to wireless headphones, and get notifications when you have an incoming call or message.

Android users can also send short text replies or voice messages directly from the Versa 2.

It is also a fully-featured fitness tracker, with 24/7 heart rate monitoring and automatic exercise recognition, heart rate zones and workout intensity monitoring, and real-time pace and distance monitoring with GPS.

You can get personalized reminders, set and track fitness goals, use more than 20 goal-based exercise modes, and even get on-screen workouts.

You can track activity by calories, time, distance, intensity, and get cardio fitness scoring. It's also a sleep tracker, female health tracker, and offers guided breathing exercises to help you de-stress during busy times.

It has a high resolution color touchscreen with a customizable clock face, and you can download hundreds of compatible apps and widgets to expand the capabilities of this device.

The Fitbit Versa 2 comes with small and large classic wristbands and a charging cable. It is available in black, Bordeaux, petal, smoke, stone, and navy and pink woven pattern colors. New users can also get a 90-day free trial of Fitbit Premium.

8. Best Value for an All-in-One Activity Tracker: Polar M200 GPS Running Watch with Wrist-Based Heart Rate

The Polar M200 GPS Heart Rate Monitor Watch is a fitness tracker with great features for runners. It has a waterproof design, with specialized running programs, training and goal tracking and feedback, and built-in activity guides to help you get fit and monitor your health.

The built-in wrist-based heart rate monitoring, GPS location data, and integration with your mobile device help runners learn, train, and stay on track.

The Polar M200 GPS Heart Rate Monitor Watch has all the tools that runners need, right on their wrist.

This watch monitors and displays your heart rate, so you always know your intensity level. It has a running program that lets you choose your running target and date, and then configure a running routine to get you there.

Running displays let you compare your current speed with world record speeds or check your Cooper test result at your current pace.

Running Index shows you how you are developing, and the Training Index lets you see how your training is affecting your body. It also has specialized profiles for over a hundred different sports and activities.

The watch offers friendly reminders for when to move in order to stay on track, and gives you motivating messages when you reach your goals.

The Polar M200 also monitors your sleep quality, tracks daily activity levels and calories burned, and provides other useful data. The M200 syncs with your phone so you can get notifications and stay in touch.

Data can be reviewed and analyzed in the convenient Polar Flow app, or  exported to other apps like MyFitnessPal, Nike+ Run Club, Endomondo, and others. The battery lasts up to 6 days and is swimproof.

The Polar M200 GPS Running Watch with Wrist-Based Heart Rate comes with a black or white band, a charging cable, and a user manual.

9. Best Entry-Level Pedometer and Smart Watch: SoundPEATS Smart Watch Fitness Tracker

The SoundPEATS Smart Watch Fitness Tracker is the best entry-level smart watch available on the market today. It provides good value for your money and is waterproof. It also has everything you need to monitor your fitness stats.

The watch has twelve sports modes so you can track your fitness levels while doing your favorite workout routines, such as yoga, running, spinning, mountaineering, hiking, and cycling.

In addition to the pedometer, you get a distance counter and breath-training monitor. Despite being an entry-level product, it also has useful features to monitor your heart rate, blood pressure, and blood oxygen level.

This smartwatch is compatible with both iPhones and Android devices. It allows you to receive call notifications and read emails and texts directly on the device.

The watch achieves full battery charge after two hours, and its battery life is one of the most generous on the market, lasting up to 10 days with one full charge.

Once the watch is connected to your smartphone, you can view your workout stats on your phone to compare your progress with previous sessions. You receive a quick report on your exercise time, average steps, distance covered, number of calories burned, and average heart rate.

This fitness tracker can also be used for sleep monitoring to help determine the quality of your sleep. In addition, its vibration alarm is non-obtrusive for other people in the vicinity.

If you’re an athlete in training, you’ll appreciate the stopwatch and time feature on this device. With its smartphone connectivity, you no longer need to reach for your phone to switch to another song on your playlist or adjust the volume. A simple tap on your wrist gives you more freedom of movement so you can focus on your reps.

Finally, although many high-end fitness trackers disregard specific features that cater to women’s health, many female users will appreciate that the Yamay 023 has included a menstrual cycle tracker.

10. Most Rugged, Durable Activity Tracker: Garmin Fenix 6 Pro Solar, Premium Multi-Sport GPS Watch with Solar Charging

The Garmin Fenix 6 Pro Solar was designed for rugged use, and is strong enough to endure the environmental challenges of the great outdoors. Users will appreciate its extra-durable bezel in stainless steel or diamond-like carbon-coated titanium.

As the watch has been primarily designed to be your adventure companion, it is equipped with navigation and mapping features. Its battery life gets a boost from the sun, allowing it to last for weeks without a recharge.

The Fenix 6 Pro Solar has everything you want in a multi-sport tracker. Some well-loved features include the step tracker, monitors for heart rate and sleep, a stress tracker, and relaxation reminders.

Its map integration is indispensable for outdoor exploration, yet it also functions well in indoor settings, with monitors and trackers for a wide range of indoor sports activities.

If you’re looking for tactical features, this smart watch will not disappoint with its dual grid coordinates. It has GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo sensors to help you find your way through any landscape more easily.

The watch also comes with environmental monitors such as a barometric altimeter, accelerometer, and thermometer.

When you are running, the Fenix 6 Pro Solar assists you with its PacePro feature. It provides guidance on ideal pacing based on factors such as elevation.

Meanwhile, when hiking, the UltraTrac and TOPO mapping go hand in hand to provide you with an optimal experience. For example, the watch alerts you to incoming storms along your hiking route so that you can better avoid them.

Like other smart watches, this model is capable of connecting with a smartphone, as well as through Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and ANT+. You can also stream music from your phone, although it noticeably drains battery life.

The watch has more standout capabilities than this review can cover. It’s the one to get if you’re looking for a durable multi-sport activity tracker with dependable battery power.

11. Longest Battery Life: iTouch Slim Waterproof Fitness Activity Tracker

The iTouch Slim Waterproof Fitness Activity Tracker has a heart rate monitor, pedometer, calorie counter, sleep tracker, and more.

Even better, it's compatible with the highly rated iTouch Wearables app, which allows you to use your phone's GPS, customize your watch face, and track your fitness with advanced features. It's fashionable, versatile, and functional, at a fraction of the price of an Apple Watch.

The iTouch Slim Waterproof Fitness Activity Tracker has a heart rate monitor, and tracks your sleep, steps, calories, and distance using your phone's GPS. It has 8 different sports modes available, and is water resistant to 30 meters, so it can be used for swimming and aquatic activities.

When paired with your iOS or Android phone, you can get alerts and notifications, find your device, and even use your watch as a remote for your phone's camera. It has an extended battery that lasts for up to 10 days.

The iTouch Slim Waterproof Fitness Activity Tracker comes with two interchangeable bands, so you can dress up or down to suit your style.

Available colors are black/navy, polka dot/white, black/grey, black/white, blush camo/white, blush plaid/white, blush texture/white, burgundy/blush, leopard/black, rainbow/black, white marble/navy, white marble/purple, white/mint, and zebra/black.

Final Thoughts on Pedometers

Hopefully, if you're looking at pedometer reviews it is because you have learned about the many benefits of walking and want to increase your daily walking. If so, I hope you have found what you were looking for in this pedometer review.

Some of these pedometers are fancy, some make it a game and some provide detailed metrics.  But all these tools are all worthless without your drive, spark and commitment to turn this activity into a daily habit.

So good luck to you and keep walking!

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