Best Kids Fitness Tracker Gadgets of 2019
It is not just adults who can be motivated to maintain a healthy lifestyle with the help of fitness trackers. Kids can use them too. With increasing obesity levels amongst kids in America, a fitness tracker specifically made for kids can provide a fun yet very effective way to encourage them to become more active, lose weight and learn some valuable lessons about staying fit for the rest of their lives. Such fitness trackers also help parents understand how active their kids are, come play time or activity time, when they are not around to supervise or monitor them.
In this post, we will introduce you to the best kids’ fitness tracker gadgets out there. With a lot of gadgets specifically made for kids, you can easily pick one up that will not just match your kid’s activity tracking needs, but also match their taste when it comes to design and style. Some of these fitness trackers can also track sleep, giving you crucial information about how well or how badly your child is sleeping, so you can do something about it.
Let’s get right into our recommendations for the best activity tracker for kids.
Garmin Vivofit Jr.
Garmin has made a serious name for itself with very high-end fitness trackers that are used by millions of hard core runners, swimmers and various other fitness enthusiasts. Now, they have introduced their high-end fitness trackers to the kid market as well.
The Vivofit Jr. is a very fun looking fitness tracker that comes in three design styles; Real Flower, Broken Lava and Digi Camo. The Real Flower model is clearly for girls while the Broken Lava and Digi Camo can be worn by either sexes.
Right off the bat, one of the best features of Garmin fitness trackers is that they use a coin battery that will last at least a year. You don’t have to worry about your kid not telling you that their fitness tracker has lost charge. What’s also to love about the Garmin Vivofit Jr. is that it is swim proof. If your child is a swimming enthusiast, the Vivofit Jr. can be a great way to track swim activity. It has a 5 ATM water resistance. This means that the Vivofit Jr can handle depths of 50 meters in a pool! This fitness tracker comes in two strap sizes. The regular band will fit wrists up to 145 mm while the extra-large band will fit wrists as large as 170 mm.
The Vivofit Jr. can also be fitted with any Vivofit 3 bands. There’s a ton of choices when it comes to Vivofit 3 bands at sites like Amazon, allowing you to buy multiple bands that will your kids can mix and match to suit their many looks.
The Vivofit Jr. can track steps, sleep and also suggest 60 minutes of daily recommended activity, to help your kids stay active on days when they are being too sedentary.
The real fun with the Vivofit Jr is actually in the hands of the parent who can use the Garmin app to set up reminders for daily chores, for their kids. Such reminders can be set up to pop up on a daily or weekly basis. There’s also a timer that parents can enable from an app, motivating a kid to complete a certain activity like go for a walk or jog or complete a chore, before the clock runs out. The app allows parents to reward kids with coins that the kids will see on their fitness tracker’s screen, giving them excitement and then motivation to be more active.
The Vivofit Jr is also a great fitness wrist band for kids because it can give your kids fun facts and adventures on the screen, combining them with physical activity. This ensures that the kids are not just active, but having fun while staying active.
Fitbit Zip
The Fitbit Zip can be considered the Fitbit for kids, even though Fitbit doesn’t specifically make them for kids. What makes the Fitbit Zip very attractive for kids is that it is a very small device that can tag on to a kid’s clothing item, if your kid doesn’t like wearing a watch like fitness tracker on their wrist. The Fitbit Zip is available in a very wide range of colors. This is another exciting feature as kids love to choose a color that best matches their personality.
The Fitbit Zip has a replaceable watch battery that will last up to 6 months. Once again, this saves you, the parent, and the hassle of keeping tabs on your kid’s fitness tracker’s battery life.
The Fitbit Zip can track steps, distance and calories burned, with all tracked data being reported to the very impressive Fitbit app that you can install on your phone, as a parent.
The Zip is splash proof, sweat proof and rain proof. However, it can’t be used while in the pool.
LeapFrog LeapBand Activity Tracker
LeapFrog has always been known for their exceptionally good learning toys and this kids fitness watch from their stables is no different. It is available in three colors. The pink is obviously catered to girls, the blue for the boys and the green for either of the two.
Parents have the ability to preload the LeapBand with up to 50 active challenges. For example, parents can make the LeapBand produce a message like “Pounce like a Lion” which will encourage kids to get on their fours and imitate a fun jump, helping them get some valuable exercise.
Hop like a kangaroo, wiggle like a worm are just some of the other animal movement related fun activities that will be prompted by the LeapBand. What kids really love about this band is that every activity they do earns them more points. With more points, they unlock more and more challenges and fun fitness activities. This creates a win-win for both the parent as well as the kid, as fitness is made fun!
The large color screen includes a lot of game play that the kids can easily follow to see how a certain movement is supposed to be performed, if they don’t know what the activity is about.
LeapFrog have also very thoughtfully allowed the LeapBand to feature one of 8 pets. Since different kids relate to different animals or pets, parents can use a pet that their kids will most like, giving them the maximum chance of not just using the LeapBand but actually have loads of fun while doing it!
The LeapBand connects with the Petathlon games app where kids can earn rewards and even virtually compete against other kids using the LeapBand.
Please however note that the LeapBand does not track calories, steps or distance. It instead encourages kids to stay active, throughout the day, using its fun pet themed based watch interface and suggested activities.
iGank T5 Smart Bracelet for Kids
The iGank smart bracelet for kids is the best activity tracker for kids if you need something efficient, durable and also very affordable. Costing less than $15, there’s incredible value on offer with the iGank smart bracelet.
It is available in 6 exciting colors that kids will love. Olive is the most popular while the sporty orange, blue, pink and green colors are very popular as well. The band itself is extremely lightweight, adding just 18 grams to your kid’s wrist.
The iGank can monitor steps, walking distance, calories burned and another interesting statistic in the form of stationary time.
Like a watch, it also shows time and date. This is very useful for kids who need a watch and a fitness tracker. To charge the device, you don’t need a special charger. Directly plug the device into an USB port and it will charge up in a jiffy.
As it is a very affordable fitness tracker for kids, the manufacturers weren’t able to bundle it with an app. You will have to see all fitness related data on the phone’s screen. For example, to view the number of steps, press the main button twice. To clear the step data, simply long press the button again. To view calories, press the button three times. To see distance, press the button 4 times.
The tracker will reset all metrics to 0 at midnight, keeping a fresh count of all activities the next day.
You can either train your kids to keep track of their progress every day or you can have a quick sit down with them every day, making the process of monitoring their fitness activities a fun time for the whole family.
X-Doria KidFit Activity and Sleep Tracker for Kids
Kids love the design of this fitness wrist band for kids that looks very similar to the Wall-E movie character. This kids fitness watch is available in two bright colors. One is blue while the other is an exciting yellow.
This tracker has an IPX3 water proof rating which protects it against splashes. One drawback with this tracker is that it does not display any tracked results on the phone’s screen. You will have to connect this to the KidFit app, to view all the data.
What’s nice about this tracker’s however is that it displays a very simple score out of 100 points. With this progress score, the kids or their parents can stay motivated to log more physical activity. If you have more than one kid, you can fit them all with the KidFit app and track them all through the same app.
With this device, you can track how well your child sleeps. The device uses accelerometers to sense how restless the kids are when they sleep, whether they toss and turn, then sending you a report about sleep quality. This can help you make changes to their sleeping habits by maybe restricting TV or phone time just before bedtime, as time spent in front of electronics can adversely affect sleep quality. Another drawback with this device is that you will have to manually put it into sleep mode if you want accurate sleep tracking. If you forget, it will just act like a day tracker, trying to track steps when your toddler is fast asleep.
The setup with the app is a little cumbersome. But, once you get it going, it syncs automatically and is a breeze to use. There have been many reviews of this device where parents have said that their kids just don’t take the device off their wrists, because they love it so much!
Willful Non-Bluetooth Pedometer for Kids
This funky red fitness tracker has takers who are kids and also adults. Costing less than $20, it does a fabulous job of tracking steps, the one metric that can easily tell you how active your kids have been all day.
It also tracks calories burned, exercise time and also sleep quality. It can also give you details about sport time, meaning the amount of time the kid spent in sport mode, performing rather intense physical activity. What we really like about this kids fitness watch is that you can enter data like age, height and weight to get very accurate calorie burn information.
Other fitness trackers for kids can use a one size fits all formula to calculate calories which doesn’t always provide you with very accurate results.
Like the iGank fitness wrist band for kids, this device also doesn’t sync with an app. Instead, you will have to see all the tracked data on the little but clear screen, with a combination of button presses. The battery is rechargeable and can achieve full charge in just half an hour. Normal usage will result in about 7 days of battery life. Heavy use will only allow it to last for 4 days. All tracked data resets at the end of the day.
GabbaGoods Kids Fitness Watch
This is a brand new fitness wrist band for kids that has quickly gained a nice popularity with kids and parents alike. It is available in very kid friendly colors and designs. Some of the exciting colors are Blue Camo, Neon Aztec, Triangle Pastel and Girl Aztec. There’s even a funky looking rainbow cheetah color as well.
Costing less than $30, this tracker tracks distance, steps, calories and also sleep. As a parent, you have the ability to set daily challenges and goals to prompt your kid to be more physically active. You can also use this watch to set 2 alarms, with customized reminders about whatever you want.
The device wirelessly connects to the Smart Fit app that you can install on your Android or iOS device. Once connected, you can view all tracked fitness data in the form of charts. Though it can track sleep, you will need to manually switch it into sleep mode before your kid goes to bed. If you kid is old enough, he or she can learn to do it themselves as well.
Trendy Pro Fitness Tracker for Kids
This is another kids fitness watch that is an excellent product for less than $30. What is really exciting about this tracker, making it one of the cheapest and best activity tracker for kids is that it ships with charts and bands that make tracking so much more fun for your kids or for you as a whole family.
For less than $30, this tracker has the amazing ability to connect to an app through Bluetooth, saving you the trouble of connecting it with a wire, or worse, not being able to connect it with your phone at all.
If your kid uses a phone, this fitness tracker even has the ability to remind them about missed calls, messages and even receive social media alerts like Facebook and Twitter alerts, right on the band’s little screen.
The charts that come with this device allow your kids to have a visual way to track their daily numbers that are logged by the fitness tracker. As a parent, you can sit down with your kid and discuss these charts to help them understand how their better activity levels are helping them, or how they need to pull up their socks when it comes to exercising more.
The fitness band also features a sedentary reminder as well, notifying the kid when they have spent too much time without any physical activity.
So, there you have it. A quick roundup of the best fitness trackers specifically geared towards kids. It might be a good idea to get a sense of what your kid likes in terms of design before you get one of these are kids are very picky about only wearing something that they like. It must also be comfortable. So, make sure you buy the right size if the product has more than one size variant. Generally, the kid’s fitness trackers will come with 2 bands, with one for a large wrist and the other for a small wrist.
