Sometimes on Black Friday you find deals that seem too good to be true, especially in the fitness and wearables space where most watches and fitness trackers look and perform so similarly to one another. Sometimes it really is a great deal - but often, people buy quickly, not realizing they’ve bought a cheap clone, usually for around $60 / £55 / AU$100 or under.
One quick search on Amazon around the Apple Watch Black Friday deals or Fitbit Black Friday deals will find your page full not only of official Fitbit or Apple products. Mixed in there are cheap clones, designed to mirror these devices as closely as they can, offering apparently similar functionalities. But don’t buy them.
These clones are sometimes prefaced with a little-known brand, but more often than not, their Amazon listings are stuffed with keywords - one particularly egregious example might be, and I’m not making this up: “Smart Watch, Fitness Tracker 1.69-inches Touch Screen Heart Rate Sleep Monitor, IP68 Waterproof Fitness Watch, 24 Modes, Pedometer Step Activity Trackers Smartwatch for Men Women for Android iOS White”.
The idea of having this long, unbranded title is that the smartwatch cannot be searched by name alone, as it's not one of the best Fitbits or best Apple Watch. Therefore, if you’re searching for one or more of these key terms (such as "waterproof fitness watch"), you’ll land on the product. Clearly, the sellers are casting the net wide here.
There are several problems with these devices. Firstly, they’re just not as good as the best fitness trackers and best smartwatches from mainstays like Google, Apple, Samsung and more. Cheap smartwatches often cut corners, using sub-par sensors and algorithms, and that can mean inaccurate data points.
I personally tested one of these cheap smartwatches against an expensive Garmin Epix Pro, and while the smartwatch was surprisingly rich in features, I found huge differences in heart rate, running pace, distance traveled during a run, and sleep tracking.
While it did lots of things, it didn’t do any of them particularly well. I quickly came to the conclusion the smartwatch was simply too cheaply priced to invest in high-quality sensors or decent health-tracking algorithms, leading to frequent inaccuracies.
While any gadget that doesn’t operate as described ought not to be really worth your time, it’s especially dangerous when it comes to health and fitness devices: when you’re basing decisions about your personal well-being on inaccurate data. Your bad watch might trick you into believing you burned more calories than you really did, or flag up heart rate issues that don’t actually exist.
Another issue is around health data privacy. While companies like Apple, Samsung, and Google have easily accessible privacy policies and some guarantee of data encryption (even if Fitbit and Google’s privacy issues could use some work), giving your data over to cheap, no-name branded smartwatches means allowing an unknown company to have unfettered access to your personal health, sleep and wellness data, your contacts, messages and more.
Even if your budget is on the smaller side, it’s better to get a device from a tried-and-trusted brand. We can recommend the Fitbit Luxe, Fitbit Inspire 2 or Garmin Forerunner 45.
All three can be found for under $100 / £100 / AU$150 in the Black Friday smartwatch deals: while it’s a little more than some of the cheaper smartwatch clones, it’s worth the added price of admission to get data you can trust. Below are a couple of deals we’ve spotted in the US and UK, that are actually worth your time.
US deals
UK deals
More Black Friday deals (US)
- Amazon: 50% off TVs, air fryers, AirPods & clothing
- Apple: AirPods Pro, Apple Watch 8 & iPads from $99
- Adidas: 40% off running shoes, sweatshirts & leggings
- Beauty: 51% off viral makeup, skincare & hair tools
- Best Buy: up to $800 off 4K TVs, laptops & headphones
- Bed Bath & Beyond: 65% off sitewide + free shipping
- Cheap TVs: big-screen 4K TVs from $269.99
- Christmas: 40% off decor, pajamas & trees
- Dell: save on best-selling Inspiron and XPS laptops
- DreamCloud: 40% off all mattresses
- Family pajamas: matching Christmas PJs from $12.99
- Lowe's: up to $800 off major appliances
- Nectar: mattress deals starting at $359
- Nordstrom: 30% off Nike, Levi's, Skims, Adidas & more
- Purple: up to $400 off Purple mattresses
- Samsung: up to $2,000 of TVs, phones and appliances
- Target: 40% off furniture, TVs, clothing & appliances
- Toys: Disney, Barbie, Lego & board games from $14.99
- Walmart: $800 off toys, TVs, vacuums & clothing
More Black Friday deals (UK)
- Amazon: up to 62% off tech and gifts
- AO: up to 40% off vacuums, appliances, and tech
- Argos: up to 50% off toys and tech
- Boots: up to 40% off 1,000s of beauty products
- Currys: up to 40% off TVs, air fryers, laptops and more
- Ebuyer: up to 45% off laptops and PC components
- John Lewis: up to 40% off appliances, TVs, laptops
- Jessops: up to £550 off Sony, Canon, Nikon, and Fujifilm
- O2: up to £600 off iPhone, Samsung and Google
- Samsung: up to £600 off TVs, phones and appliances
- Superdrug: 60% off beauty, fragrances and makeup
- Very: discounts on tech, appliances, furniture and beauty
- Vodafone: six months half-price SIMs from £11.50
