Chart: Fitness trackers & health data privacy

A comparison of 11 different trackers' cost, functionality, data privacy/ownership, app fees & water resistance — because if you can't get it wet & own your health data, why buy it?

There are many fitness trackers out there. You probably have an idea of what brand, functionality, price tier and look and feel you prefer: Apple, Garmin, FitBit, Oura, etc.

I’m not here to change your mind. What follows, however, is a comparative chart of popular fitness tracker strengths and weaknesses that you can’t find through a normal online search or Wirecutter reviews.

The chart below, which paying subscribers can view and download, compares several different fitness trackers across a few metrics beyond device cost — such as:

• data accuracy

• health data privacy, ownership & jurisdiction (who owns your data & where it’s stored)

• app subscription comparisons and cost comparison over time

• water resistance (for swimmers, surfers and folks who run in the rain)

• notable privacy incidents (server breaches; ransoms paid, etc) for each company

• and more

The data privacy and ability to own your health data is a complex area that isn’t often covered by the (numerous) fitness tracker reviews you can find online. For example, one thing I learned researching the downloadable chart (for paying subscribers) below is that FitBit is now owned by Google — which means that Google also has access to, if not owns outright, all the health data it collects from your FitBit device.

Other, Chinese brands treat your health data as you would expect: it’s theirs now and thanks for donating.

The top of the 4-page comparison of 11 popular and recently introduced fitness trackers, and details on their wildly different data-privacy policies.

The 4-page PDF below, containing a series of charts, covers all the information I mentioned in the above bullet points and presents fitness tracker information you can’t find in one place anywhere else. (NOTE: I used an upper-echelon, paid version of Claude.ai to research and compile this data…and spent several hours vetting it.)

I hope you find it helpful.