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This content originally appeared on Mashable for a US audience and has been adapted for the UK audience.
Most fitness trackers are designed to get wet. It just makes sense that fitness trackers and fitness-focused smartwatches should be able to handle sweaty workouts, rainy weather, and in most cases, swimming.
Indeed, if your workout routine involves the deep end of the pool, you’ll need a waterproof fitness tracker. While most trackers on the market can hold up to a few splashes or be worn in the shower, you’ll want to look for certain features — like a good water resistance rating and open water and pool tracking — before you take the plunge.
But where to begin when choosing one? Here’s some helpful information before you dive in and make a purchase — plus a round-up of the best waterproof devices.
What makes a good waterproof fitness tracker?
If you’re planning on using your tracker in the water regularly, there are a few things to look out for. First, you’ll want a water resistance rating of at least 30 metres (read more on water resistance below). Second, look for watches that can track open water swimming, pool swimming, and can give you lap times. Bonus points if the watch supports underwater heart rate tracking. Lastly, check to see if the watch has a specific water lock feature. Water locks prevent accidental screen touches while submerged, so you’ll never send a text or open apps while you’re swimming.
How is water resistance measured in fitness trackers?
The terms water-resistant and waterproof are used pretty much interchangeably with fitness trackers these days. But, if you’re looking to go for a dip with your smartwatch on, you’ll want to make sure it’s safe to be fully submerged at least 30 metres. Most fitness trackers on this list (and in general) have a water resistance rating of WR50, 5 Bar, or 50 ATM. All of these measurements mean exactly the same thing: That these trackers are waterproof up to 50 metres.
A water resistance rating of 50 metres means that open water and pool swimming is totally fine. However, if you’re interested in an activity that’s more intense than swimming or one that requires long-term submersion — like water skiing, snorkelling, or surfing — you’d probably do best with a watch that’s more durable and has a higher water resistance rating. You’ll need an outdoor sport-focused fitness watch like one from Garmin or Polar for the more extreme water sports if that’s your thing. All of the trackers on this list are waterproof at least up to 50 metres.
What is the most accurate waterproof fitness tracker?
The Garmin Vivoactive 5, Polar Grit X2 Pro, and Garmin Swim 2 are the only fitness trackers on this list that truly support underwater heart rate monitoring, so these are the most accurate for swimming purposes. The Apple Watch Series 10 can also track heart rate during swimming workouts. Fitbits, on the other hand, don’t support underwater heart rate tracking at all. Both Apple Watches and Fitbits rely mainly on their accelerometers to measure calories burned while swimming.
What is the best waterproof fitness tracker?
Whether you’re a casual swimmer looking to track laps or a water sports athlete in need of a durable smartwatch, you’ll find something in these top picks.
These are the best waterproof fitness trackers in 2025.
The upgraded Garmin Vívoactive 5 has an appealing selection of features and sports modes. For wild swimmers, for instance, it offers an open water option. But once crucial feature carried over from the previous model — a feature that other fitness watches don’t have — is the ability to measure your heart rate from the wrist even when you’re fully submerged underwater.
But there’s much more to the Garmin Vívoactive 5 that checking your heart rate underwater. It’s well reviewed as an all-round 24/7 health and fitness tracker. Designed to give you an overview of your daily well being, it gives you detailed insights as well as 30 GPS and indoor sports apps. Sport options include walking, running, cycling, weights, pool swimming.
You also get long-distance coaching and wellness features — things such as meditation, hydration, and mindful breathing — plus a “body battery” feature that combines your sleep, stress, and physical activity data to show you when you have the most and least energy throughout the day. It also gives tips on when to rest and for how long, and the benefits of de-stressing.
Other features include a boosted battery life, workout benefit advice, daily reports, nap detection, and a “sleep coach”. These combine with standard favourites, such as step counting, calories burned, and blood oxygen.
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OK, so the Apple Watch Series 10 is technically a smart watch rather than a fitness tracker. Particularly brilliant for Apple iPhone users, it’s pretty much the best all-rounder for combing lifestyle features and stacks of apps. But amongst all that you get — of course — some of the best on-the-wrist health and fitness features available.
It has accurate and detailed tracking options, which include tracking for distance covered on runs, sleep, daily steps, heart rate, your respiratory rate, temperature, and more. It has you covered all over, 24/7. The ECG app gives you an on-demand scan, and you’ll get irregular heart rate notifications.
And while you might not think of the Apple Watch as a swimmer’s watch, it’s water-based features are impressive. These include automatic stroke detection, lap counting, water depth and temperature gauges, and workout modes for pool and open water swims.
Apple had also introduced a Vitals app. This gives you an idea of your overall wellbeing by presenting overnight health stats — heart rate, respiratory rate, wrist temperature, blood oxygen, and sleep duration — and advises you on your training load. This calculates the impact of workouts and helps you plan training based on body’s readiness and requirements.
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Even though the brand was bought by the almighty Google, Fitbit remains the name in fitness tracking. Which means we can’t not include a Fitbit device in this roundup. Of all the Fitbits available, and that includes the Google Pixel Watch 3, which is basically a smartwatch that does Fitbit things, the Fitbit Charge 6 is among the most popular because it’s a continuation of a model designed specifically for sports and active lifestyles.
It’s quick and simple to set up and feels light on the wrist. As for sports, it offers a respectable selection of 40 modes, including swims. There’s a nice new feature that allows you to connect it with compatible gym equipment to share heart rate monitoring.
As well as heart rate tracking it measures your blood oxygen, sleep, and VO2 Max for aerobic and cardio fitness. It comes with a very good GPS plus notifications for calls and texts, which makes it good for general, everyday use too.
One annoying quirk, which comes from Google’s takeover, is that while it has music controls, those are limited to YouTube Music, which — let’s be honest — is not most people’s go-to music streaming platform. You’ll also need a subscription to Fitbit Premium to get the absolute most out of this tracker, but it thankfully comes with a free six-month subscription to get you started.
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Yes, Garmin makes the list again. But that’s little wonder. You really can’t argue with Garmin’s level of performance and feature selection. Unsurprisingly — and as the name suggests — the Garmin Swim 2 is built for swimming training and water-based activities. That combines with more standard smart features, such as smartphone compatibility and smart notifications.
It tracks all the basics for a good, fitness-focused swim: Distance covered, pace, stroke count, intervals, energy levels, and more. It also tracks your heart rate underwater, a feature that tends to be reserved for the very best in waterproof fitness trackers. It has a built-in GPS which is highly-rated among smart swimmers, allowing you to keep tabs on distance and area covered in the sea, lakes, or rivers. All the key stats are kept in Garmin’s excellent app.
Other features include custom workouts, pool and open water modes, and Critical Swim Speed. This advises you on whether you need to speed up or slow down to hit the sweet spot of your anaerobic threshold.
The downside, as you might expect, is that this model is really for swimmers only. It has features for tracking running and cycling and setting activity goals, not to mention sleep and stress tracking, but these aren’t comprehensive enough to make it a real out-of-water all-rounder.
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Most of the popular fitness trackers and smart watches are only waterproof up to 50 metres, which is good but limits you to laps around the pool or splashing in the sea. For some swimmers though, it’s just not deep enough. That’s why we’re recommending the Polar Grit X2 for serious swimmers and water sports enthusiast. Not only does it have a resistance of 100 metres, it’s built specifically for outdoor activities.
Indeed, this rugged watch is military tested and can withstand more extreme conditions, including temperatures within a range of -20 to 50 degrees Celsius. If you’re going truly off grid, it also uses the best GPS positioning for super accurate data anywhere on the planet. There’s much, much more for outdoor types — as well as general 24/7 health, fitness, and sleep tracking, on-demand ECG reports, and training load and fuel guidance
As for swimming, it offers advanced swimming metrics and automatically detects your swimming style. It can also track your heart rate underwater along with tracking distance, duration, and pace for each stroke.
With the Polar Flow app there’s a huge number of sports modes to choose from, and the watch can carry 20 sports modes at any one time. More rugged sports modes include climbing, cross-training, kayaking, snowboarding, surfing, skiing, and ultra running. A gnarly watch for gnarly sportspersons.
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Don’t be fooled by the name, the Amazfit Active isn’t an Amazon-owned brand device, but a very decent budget offering from Zepp Health’s range of trackers. For under £100, it’s very competitive indeed and will suit anyone who’s taking their first steps into the world of fitness tracking and wrist-based metrics and coaching.
The Amazfit Active gives you everything you need an expect from a fitness-based smartwatch. It has a built-in GPS for runs and tracking for a whole rabnge of health metrics, including heart rate, blood oxygen, sleep, and stress. There more than 120 sports and the option to sync with other health apps, such Apple Health. It also offers AI-powered Training Guidance by Zepp Coach, which gives you specially-tailored workout plans.
Another bonus is 250MB of music storage. That’s something missing many (more expensive) fitness trackers and allows you to run or hit the gym without carrying your phone everywhere. Admittedly, 250MB isn’t a huge amount — enough for roughly 80 songs — but it will handle your workout playlist no problem.
The downside to its budget price is that certainly features, including aspects of the AI-driven coaching and wellness reports, are hidden behind the Zepp Aura app’s paywall. So be prepared to spend money elsewhere. It still comes highly recommended by reviewers, however.
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Joseph Green is the Global Shopping Editor for Mashable. He covers VPNs, headphones, fitness gear, dating sites, streaming services, and shopping events like Black Friday and Prime Day.
Joseph is also Executive Editor of Mashable’s sister site, AskMen.
Jae Thomas is a Colorado-based Shopping Editor for Mashable. They specialize in pet tech, smart fitness gear, finding the perfect gift, and sourcing the top deals on shopping holidays like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Jae has worked at Mashable since 2020, where they’ve written countless deals roundups and product reviews. Before Jae came to Mashable, they received a B.A. in Journalism and English Literature from New York University and wrote food and lifestyle content for publications like Bon Appétit, Epicurious, The Daily Beast, Apartment Therapy, and Marie Claire.
When they’re not testing products or writing about online shopping, you’ll find Jae whipping up an elaborate meal, hiking, camping, or training their dogs, Miso and Dashi. Reach out to them on X at @jaetaurina or by email at [email protected].
Matt Ford is a freelance contributor to Mashable.
