I used to recommend this Fitbit Black Friday deal every year: it's finally gone, but here are some great alternatives

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The best Fitbit Black Friday deal is nowhere to be seen this year

Fitbit Inspire 2
(Image credit: Future)

The Black Friday deals are hotting up, and there are tons of great discounts on fitness trackers in the US and in the UK. When it comes to fitness trackers, Fitbit is the ten-thousand-pound gorilla in the room, with a range including the Inspire, Luxe, Charge, Versa and Sense series, and great deals on all of them. However, the deal I used to recommend to everyone, every Black Friday, is sadly no longer available.

That’s because I used to recommend the Fitbit Inspire 2. The Inspire 2 has since been replaced by the Fitbit Inspire 3, which is better than the Inspire 2 in almost every way from a technical standpoint. It’s feature-rich with a color screen as opposed to the Inspire 2’s monochrome, with new tools such as Active Zone Minutes and scores to help with stress management. The Inspire 2 was a capable tracker, but lags slightly behind the updated Inspire 3 in terms of performance and features. So why did I recommend the Inspire 2 over its updated rival so often?

Simple. The Inspire 2 came with a one-year free trial of Fitbit Premium. In theory, Fitbit offered this subscription with the entry-level tracker to onboard new users, getting them locked into Fitbit’s ecosystem. With subsequent, more expensive trackers, it only offered a six-month subscription.

However, in practicality, this made the Fitbit Inspire 2 a ludicrously high-value buy. The average cost of a Fitbit Premium subscription is $79.99 / £79.99 per year, and $9.99 / £7.99 per month. To buy the Fitbit Inspire 2 for under $60 / £50 on Black Friday, and get a year’s subscription thrown in, more than doubled the value of the deal: you’re effectively getting a discounted year of Fitbit Premium with a free tracker.

Fitbit Premium

(Image credit: Fitbit)

In our Fitbit Premium review, we said “Fitbit Premium is an ideal companion for your Fitbit device, and is worth checking out with the lengthy free trial if you already own a Fitbit. It can seem simple, but there’s a wealth of detail under the surface. Stick with it, and the Daily Readiness Score can be a game-changer for your routine.”

The Inspire 2 hasn’t been available from Google for years, but Fitbit made so many (and continued to honor the year’s free trial) that it remained the best value Black Friday Fitbit deal you could get from retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, Argos and so on for years after being discontinued. However, the supply of Inspire 2s seems to have finally dried up.

Fortunately, there are a number of other great fitness tracker deals you can still pick up for a song. The Fitbit Inspire 3 (with six months of Premium) has hit a record-low price, while the Xiaomi Band 8 Pro outperforms its Fitbit contemporaries (with 4.5 stars in our review) and can be snapped up on Amazon with a 10% discount in the US and 21% discount in the UK.

Today's best fitness tracker Black Friday deals in the US

Fitbit Inspire 3
Fitbit Inspire 3: was $99.95 now $69.95 at Amazon

Last year's best Fitbit Inspire 3 deal has returned to its lowest-ever price of $69.95, $30/30% off the usual list price of $99.95. Available in both colors, you'll get 24/7 heart-rate monitoring, sleep tracking, and notifications from your communication apps.

Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro
Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro: was $99.99 now $89.99 at Amazon

The Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro is a high-performing tracker with a huge 1.74-inch screen, is water resistant, has over 10 days of battery life with always-on-display active, and is cheap. There's no premium subscription, and it's ideal for general gym work, light jogging, yoga, and step counting.

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Today's best fitness tracker Black Friday deals in the UK

Fitbit Inspire 3
Fitbit Inspire 3: was £84.99 now £58.99 at Amazon

For just £58 you can grab a Fitbit Inspire 3 plus six months of Fitbit Premium worth another £50. It's a discreet, low-profile tracker with great metrics and 10 days of battery life.

Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro
Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro: was £91.80 now £72.86 at Amazon

The Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro sees a bigger 21% dscount here, bringing it down to around the price of the Inspire 3. As a better-performing fitness tracker with no subscription attached, it's an ideal fitness tracker for beginners and a decent Apple Watch replacement.

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More of today's Black Friday sales in the US

More of today's Black Friday sales in the UK

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Matt Evans
Matt Evans
Fitness, Wellness, and Wearables Editor

Matt is TechRadar's expert on all things fitness, wellness and wearable tech. A former staffer at Men's Health, he holds a Master's Degree in journalism from Cardiff and has written for brands like Runner's World, Women's Health, Men's Fitness, LiveScience and Fit&Well on everything fitness tech, exercise, nutrition and mental wellbeing.

Matt's a keen runner, ex-kickboxer, not averse to the odd yoga flow, and insists everyone should stretch every morning. When he’s not training or writing about health and fitness, he can be found reading doorstop-thick fantasy books with lots of fictional maps in them.