Charge 5

I have a fitbit, my wife has an apple watch. Her apple watch is far superior at being a smart watch. My fitbit is far superior at being a fitness/health tracker. It barely functions as a smart watch. (note: I have a charge5). Both are perfectly competent at being watches. If you just want a watch, get a watch.

Mine more reliably tracks sleep, O2, breathing, and a few other metrics than my wifes apple watch.

For reasons, we have a separate pulse oximeter and my watches figure tends to be more accurate than hers when compared to the dedicated device. Her watch is absolute shit at tracking breathing and often as either no or absolutely impossible data, whereas mine is fairly consistent and reasonable.

My charge 5 is a bit over 2 years old and the battery just isn't lasting.  I moved to a Galaxy ring. It's not quite as accurate and doesn't track as many things, but it's simpler and so far I like it.

Late to the discussion here and not sure what you ended up doing but I’d say it depends on if you have an iPhone or not because of what Google is doing in the near future. From what I’ve read, in order to have full functionality of your Fitbit work with your phone, you’ll need an Android phone. I think this is specifically for the Fitbit Smart watches so not necessarily the Charge which is more of a tracker still.  Either way you’ll have to switch to a Google account from the Fitbit account to use the thing, I think that was supposed to be this year but just read February of 2026. Like many other replies here I’ve been using a Fitbit for close to 10 years (currently Charge 5) for many of the same reasons - smaller design, price, don’t *need* my watch to be a phone, and the battery life is hard to beat which is about a week.  I always forget when I charged it last!   Worst thing with my previous Charges is they didn’t last long, 2 years tops.  Even out of warranty, Fitbit gave me something like 40% off for a new one so that was an easy decision to stick with them.  My Charge 5 has been the best of this experience so far but, I’ve had it for a while now so at this point I’m wondering when it will mysteriously stop working.   I have an iPhone so when my Charge 5 dies I’ll be looking at an Apple Watch simply because I don’t trust Google to require an Android phone for full functionality of the Charge series in the future.  I feel like Google is making Fitbit users with an iPhone decide between switching to an android to still use their Fitbit or leave the Fitbit brand.  My first “real” job 15 years ago came with an iPhone so at this point it would be too much of an inconvenience to switch to Android for any reason.  

Garmin is "a lot." I love it but I'm not your parents. I think you're describing someone who would like a Fitbit. Garmin's are really big and that alone will turn off people, and certainly make it more likely that they'll not wear it at night (which is very important). The Fitbit charge line is sleek. If either of them really get into the Fitbit, you can get that person a Garmin next year. That was my path to Garmin... Fitbit Charge 4, then 5, then 6, then Garmin. And now I go to the gym daily. But the gym came first and the Garmin was a choice because the Fitbit was no longer enough - I didn't want to just look at steps, I wanted to go deep into training. Fitbit has plenty of training and health. Garmin is more for really serious fitness people, I think.

My seventh Fitbit died last week (from Luxe to Versa to Charge 5 and 6, this was my second in-warranty replacement), white line on the screen to no screen at all within 24 hours. So with some Target credit I decided to go with a Garmin Instinct for $200. The GPS is much, much more accurate (even when not paired with my phone), the app tracks a lot more information than the Fitbit app did and takes up a third of the space on my phone. I miss the constant step updates; the Garmin just updates every minute. That's about the only drawback.