In short, a smartwatch is much more like a computer you wear on your wrist, while a fitness monitor is much more focused. Battery life is where fitness trackers gain the upper hand compared to smartwatches. Because smartwatches offer large, bright screens, they demand much more power. This reduces battery life and makes recharging more frequent and a feature of your daily routine.
For example, any Apple Watch model that is quite expensive will require almost daily recharges (sometimes even more). Meanwhile, Fitbit and Garmin, the two most popular fitness tracker companies, offer several models at decent prices with much better battery life. So, if battery life and constant recharging are an issue for you, keep this in mind. Years ago, the difference between a fitness tracker and a smartwatch was pretty clear.
A fitness tracker was a glorified pedometer, while a smartwatch was an extension of your smartphone. Both smartwatches and fitness trackers can help you stay connected, track your daily activities, and monitor your progress toward your fitness goals. It's not uncommon for a fitness tracker to show text message or call notifications, for example, and NFC contactless payment support is often included in high-end fitness trackers. Once again, some of the most advanced fitness trackers may have some of these smart features and capabilities, but overall, most fitness trackers are much less versatile.
Ironically, the most popular fitness tracking device today isn't a fitness tracker per se, but the Apple Watch, which is, of course, the market-leading smartwatch. Apple has long been doing a good job of offering watches that offer robust fitness and activity tracking functionality, along with what are now easily considered to be the most sophisticated smart features and very elegant designs. And if you like to receive calls or control Spotify from your wrist, you always have the Apple Watch or Galaxy Watch, which practically work as fitness trackers. Both fitness trackers and smartwatches help you stay connected, track the activities of your daily routines and monitor your progress towards the goals you set for yourself to achieve a physical balance determined according to your age, needs and lifestyle.
A lot of people don't like to wear watches because they're big and bulky, but they still want something to record their steps and tell them how many calories they burned; that's exactly what a fitness tracker is for. If the previous paragraph doesn't apply to you and you consider aspects related to fitness and health to be more important, you might want to consider looking for activity tracking devices that are more focused and more reasonably priced than smartwatches. Fitness trackers became more complicated, adopting screens and even the ability to display notifications on smartphones, while smartwatches actually leaned towards the fitness side.
