Explore the positive and potentially negative aspects of using fitness trackers for health and wellness before you make the decision to invest in one.

Fitness trackers have become a new craze in the fitness industry. But while you're considering jumping into the trend, you need to consider whether a fitness tracker is worth buying in the first place.

Explore these pros and cons of buying a fitness tracker as you decide whether it's worth getting one.

There are several advantages to buying a fitness tracker for monitoring your exercise habits.

The first advantage of a fitness tracker is that it helps you track your workout activities easily. Manufacturers equip fitness trackers with a variety of sensors that measure specific activities without your intervention, making the whole process hassle-free.

For example, a three-axis accelerometer is a common fitness tracker sensor that tracks forward and backward movements. It also measures your speed change and gravity and determines your body's orientation.

Other common sensors include temperature, gyroscope, altimeter, and optical sensors. Together, they track every body movement and help you track your daily steps, sleep, body temperature, heart rate, and more. Understanding your device's built-in capabilities is the first step in ensuring you make the most of your fitness tracker.

If you're trying to reach your fitness goals and can't find a way to measure your progress, a fitness tracker can help. Most sync with mobile applications through which you can track your workout activities and determine how effective they are at helping you achieve your goals.

Everyone has a fitness goal, whether that's burning calories, building endurance, or becoming stronger. A fitness tracker can be your best companion in ensuring that you are progressively working toward them. Even if your goal is simply to sleep more or walk a certain number of steps in a day, tracking progress can be an extremely motivating factor.

A fitness tracker can also help you train more effectively. If you have not hit your goals for quite a while, having access to detailed health and workout data can help you recognize what works and doesn't.

You can also learn what has a higher impact, so you focus on those activities and minimize those with lower outputs. That's a way of following the 80/20 rule, which states that 80 percent of success comes from only 20 percent of a person's efforts toward a goal.

With a fitness tracker, you no longer need to visit the doctor to measure your sleeping hours, heart rate, blood oxygen levels, and more. Fitness trackers provide you with different health data on your wrist with minimal effort on your side. The only burden you have is to wear your fitness tracker, and it's easy to make that a habit.

The fitness tracker does all the heavy-lifting in the background so that you can focus on your workouts. Typically, the more premium a fitness tracker is, the more health data it provides and the more reliable its readings.

Although fitness trackers have their advantages, some have their fair share of disadvantages, too.

Generally, fitness trackers are cheaper than more complex smartwatches. But since that entry price is still an important consideration. If you're new to the world of fitness gadgets, you should know that there's a difference between a smartwatch and a fitness tracker. The former typically have more features and are more aesthetic.

Another useful tip to remember: many fitness tracking apps are available on Google Play and the iOS App Store for free. Therefore, it's best to consider what you want to get out of a fitness tracker before you commit to an expensive piece of hardware.

If some of the functionality you need can be provided by a smartphone app, you can save some cash by using the app instead. Depending on what you're interested in, it may make more sense to get a social workout app to train with your friends instead of purchasing a fitness tracker. Finally, if you don't think the cost of a fitness tracker is worth it for your needs, you probably don't need a smartwatch, either—they're typically even more expensive.

One of the key questions to ask before buying a Fitbit or any other fitness tracker is whether you're okay with the device collecting your data. You also need to know where your fitness and health data goes.

For example, if you don't agree with Google's data collection practices, you may want to avoid buying a Fitbit device, since the California tech giant owns Fitbit.

Don't trust your fitness tracker to be as accurate as the tools hospitals and professional trainers use. Fitness trackers' sensor readings can be inaccurate. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Leela R. Magavi, a psychiatrist and regional medical director for Mindpath Health, notes that fitness trackers are not regulated as devices for taking "accurate clinical diagnoses."

The level of accuracy can vary, with fitness trackers underestimating or overestimating, depending on your workout type and the metrics you're measuring.

For example, a 2019 report published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that fitness trackers can be inaccurate by more than 10% while measuring your total energy expenditure. Inaccuracy is one of the reasons why you may want to avoid competing in step challenges on your fitness tracker.

Tracking different metrics about the health of your body is easy with fitness trackers, but it's important not to become obsessed with the numbers. You may become so fixated on losing a certain amount of calories per day, hitting a specific heart rate while working out, or walking a certain number of steps that you forget your most important goal: improving your overall wellness.

Specifically, tracking can become a negative obsession if you begin measuring your self-worth by your stats. Such worrying could potentially lead to unhealthy habits. In the short term, you could also hurt yourself by ignoring warning signs from your body.

With all the pros and cons discussed, should you buy a fitness tracker or avoid this category of devices? The answer depends on your wants, needs, and circumstances.

Fitness trackers can be a great source of motivation and help you hit your fitness goals in the long term. However, they may also turn out to be stress-inducing devices that pressure you with numbers. If the cost isn't an issue and the pros outweigh the cons, a fitness tracker might be a good investment for your wellness goals.

Alvin Wanjala is a freelance consumer technology writer. Outside work, he dabs into fitness and watching football while pursuing a second degree.

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