Healthwatch: Do fitness trackers really work?
Published: July 30, 2026 at 7:47 AM
With so many fitness trackers on the market, it can be hard to know which one to buy or if any of them actually work
Michael Dakkak, MD, a sports medicine specialist at Cleveland Clinic provides some insight
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“There’s really a lot more data that needs to be had with these devices. We have over 249 studies that are done with over 400,000 participants, and only 11% of devices that are commercially available have been validated for just one single metric. So, if we think about that, there’s really a lot more that we don’t know than we do know with these devices,” said Dr. Dakkak
He said the most validated metric with fitness trackers is step count
Active and resting heart rate also seem to be fairly accurate
Other metrics, like calories burned, stress level and quality of sleep are considered much less accurate
Dr. Dakkak explains that those kinds of readings require more detail than what these devices can collect
So, does this mean fitness trackers are a waste of money?
Not necessarily
However, he does suggest asking yourself a few questions before buying one
“What are you actually trying to improve? Do you need accountability? Do you need something partly objective to say, here’s what I’ve done, or here’s a way for me to track some of the things that I haven’t been tracking. Will you actually use this? So, if you’re not going to put it on and it’s not going to be on you all the time, how are you going to get data and what are you going to do with that data?” he said
If you opt not to buy a fitness tracker, there are other ways to monitor your progress
For example, you could take before and after photos or document body measurements
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