Both casual and die-hard athletes know that the proper information is key to improving your performance in any sport. Hikers, bikers, runners, CrossFit trainers, yogis, boxers, baseball, basketball and football players, dancers, swimmers, gym rats, and every other kind of sports fanatic – outside of competitive eaters – can find tricks to improve their workout with the right one.

Picking a sports watch is all about what kind of training you do. Triathletes will need different metrics to be tracked than strict mountaineers. Off-road mountain bike riders are going to require things, like a GPS, that won’t help a powerlifter. Runners will want an accurate pedometer and heart-rate monitor to hit their target, while hikers will need elevation tracking so they can find altitude gained. Some will want a strong online community, while others wish to keep their workout secret and safe. However you amp yourself up, the best sports watches from this guide will carry you to the finish line.

What Makes It a Sports Watch?

A sports watch can mean different things to different people. For the sake of our guide, these will be essentially any timepiece that can aid you in an active lifestyle. These can be smartwatches, digital watches, or some hybrid of the two. They will boast some level of significant durability and water resistance. Some of these will have a selection of sports apps and/or health tracking, while others will simply give you the time, date, and perhaps some sort of Bluetooth connectivity with your phone.

What to Look For

Dedicated Apps: Many of the following sports watches have dedicated apps for certain activities such as running, hiking, swimming, climbing, and even golfing. Of course, these well-equipped watches will carry a heftier price tag than the simpler options.

Health Tracking: While not a requirement for our list, health tracking is definitely a benefit to higher-end sports watch models. Some may see heart rate monitoring and the like as too obsessive, but for others, keeping track of these vitals is very important.

Durability: Of course, a watch can’t be used in an active lifestyle if it isn’t all kinds of rugged. Almost all of the picks below can withstand relatively high drops, water submersion, and the much-too-frequent scratch and scuff.

Armitron Sport

Best Cheap Sports Watch: There isn’t much in the way of exceptional features here, so don’t expect to be monitoring your heart rate or getting it to sync up with your smartphone or bike computer. When you just need the basics – lap time, alarm, chronograph, dual time – then this digital watch shows up to play. Black resin body with a gunmetal face, it’s easy to read and blends into most situations. Strong water resistance up to 330 feet allows for swimming and snorkeling while the frame can take plenty of impacts without cracking.

Huckberry x TIMEX IRONMAN Flix Reissue

Best Digital Watch: Not every sports watch has to be a smartwatch, as you can see here by Timex’s IRONMAN Flix, heavily based on its popular 1999 watch, reissued with help from online retailer Huckberry. Incredibly faithful to the original, which was a favorite for the likes of outdoorsmen, first responders, and endurance athletes, the new Flix is housed in the same 44mm resin case with 100m of water resistance. With a hands-free illumination option when raising your arm, the digital watch is highly legible for quick reading of time and date, but can also be used as an alarm, timer, and 10-item memo pad. It also has a Lap Memory feature of up to 100 laps (originally it was just 30).

Fitbit Versa 4

Best for Gym Rats: Fitbit basically started the whole fitness tracker craze over a decade ago and is still an important brand when it comes to sports-focused smartwatches. More Apple Watch than it ever used to be, Fitbit’s Versa 4 is the latest iteration of its goal-oriented fitness watches and serves as a solid workout buddy at a reasonable price point. Not only does it have a 6-day battery life (with 24 hours of charge in just 12 minutes) but it can supply you with real-time fitness stats and an in-depth analysis of your overall health. It can work in tandem with most smartphones and also features over 40 exercise modes and built-in GPS navigation.

G-SHOCK DWH5600

Best Digital-Smartwatch Hybrid: If you’re a fan of G-SHOCK’s timeless watch designs but would love for there to be a smartwatch option, you’re in luck! This year for its 40th anniversary, the Casio sublabel released a fitness-tracking smartwatch version of its very first watch from 1983. Both stylish and useful, the DWH5600 isn’t as high-tech as an advanced smartwatch but still boasts some features such as an optical heart rate monitor, sleep monitoring, blood oxygen level displays, and an accelerometer for counting steps. With the help of its GPS capabilities, there are four sports modes, which include running, walking, gym workouts, and interval training. You can also connect the watch to your smartphone for more accurate readouts and notifications.

Garmin Forerunner 255S Music

Best for Runners: Garmin has so many phenomenal smartwatches and such a wide range of them that it becomes difficult, even for us, to keep track of them all. However, one sports watch that’s impossible to forget is the Forerunner 255S Music (there’s a non-Music version available as well), a solar-powered running watch that comes at a mid-level price point. With the capability of downloading as many as 500 songs from an array of popular services such as Spotify, Deezer, and Amazon Music, the smartwatch also sports a ton of training features. These include over 30 sports apps, race prep tips, adaptive training plans, triathlon profiles, recovery optimization, GPS-based pace guidance, and heart rate monitoring from your wrist.

Suunto Vertical Adventure Watch

Best for Hiking: Earlier this year, Suunto unveiled its latest top-tier adventure line, called Vertical. Extremely rugged with both stainless steel and titanium case options, the smartwatch is designed for those who want to discover new places, navigate more familiar haunts, or simply enjoy the outdoor lifestyle. Utilizing all five GLONASS positioning systems to make navigation ultra-accurate, the Vertical also has a really nice breadcrumb feature for trailblazing, measures distance, altitude, and speed, features offline maps access and over 95 sports modes, and pairs with the accompanying smartphone app for more in-depth information about where you’ve been and discovering new spots.

Apple Watch Ultra

Best for Everyday Wear: Sports watches are great but many of us don’t want to purchase a second watch just for certain activities. For those people, we recommend the Apple Watch Ultra, Apple’s latest iteration of the smartwatch that will serve you well whether running, biking, hiking, or anything in between. The case has been bumped up to 49mm and the screen has increased in size too, giving this some of the best visibility of any watch on this list. Much different than a standard Apple Watch, the Ultra is built of lightweight titanium and has an array of sporty strap options. Sure, it gives you the basic fitness tracking and GPS navigation options but the Ultra is also designed for more extreme activities. Durability-wise, it meets MIL-STD 810H standards, is water resistant to 100m, and has an IP6X dust-resistance rating.

Garmin Fenix 7X Pro Sapphire Solar Edition

Best with All the Bells & Whistles: Garmin’s fēnix 7X is simply the best sports smartwatch you can find. That is, if you want your watch to have literally any app you could think of. With a 1.4-inch screen, the thousand-dollar smartwatch will be a favorite for anyone who participates in a wide array of activities from surfing to skiing to golfing to climbing, and everything in between. There are even satellite maps available to look at onscreen. The X in the name refers to the 51mm case size (there are 42mm and 47mm options too), the “Pro” denotes the new heart rate sensor and equipped flashlights on the case, and the Sapphire Solar Edition comes with a Power Sapphire lens and solar-charging capabilities, which give this baby 122 hours of operation. If you want the sports watch that does the most stuff, and does them well, then this is your best bet.