Best Fitbit compatible apps to step up your tracking game

The Fitbit companion smartphone app, whether you're using it through Android, iOS or Windows (no, we didn't forget about you) is a big reason why we continue to recommend it among our best fitness trackers.

But if you yearn for more data and insight, there's also a healthy amount of third-party app support to make that happen. You can link your Fitbit to a number of other apps, whether they are dedicated running apps, calorie counters or step challenge games.

Read this: Fitbit Alta HR review | Fitbit Charge 2 review

To install a Fitbit app, just head to Account and scroll down until you see Compatible Apps, and try one of our highlighted picks.

Strava

Fitbit is already equipped to track a range of exercises automatically, but we know it's hard to let go of the data you've been saving on your other app favourites. The good news is that Strava is compatible with Fitbit (as are Runkeeper and Endomondo) for tracking both runs and rides.

Read this: Strava tips and tricks

Strava is a personal Wareable favourite, and once you've connected the two apps Fitbit activities will show up in the Strava app. Any of your Strava-logged runs will be fed into your daily Fitbit stats, including calorie burn count and those all important active minutes. That also includes GPS data, if you're rocking a Fitbit Surge.

MyFitnessPal

MyFitnessPal is one of the best calorie counter apps out there, and while Fitbit does offer its own food logging features, linking the two will help provide a more accurate daily calorie goal. Once you've signed up for a MyFitnessPal account, it's time to ditch food logging in Fitbit and start doing it in the Under Armour-owned app instead.

You can leave the step tracking to your Fitbit, so there's no need to manually add in activity tracking. The MyFitnessPal app also takes data related to how many calories you are on track to burn by the end of the day and updates your calorie goal to make sure you keep on track of your target weight loss (or gain).

Weight Watchers

If you're trying to lose weight with your Fitbit, you might be a Weight Watchers member. If so, there's a nice partnership in the US and UK which allows you to convert all your Fitbit activity into Activity ProPoints (or SmartPoints). Weight Watchers is actually selling Fitbit trackers through its online stores.

Amazon Alexa

This one is particularly neat. You can now ask Alexa on the Amazon Echo for your Fitbit stats, such as how you slept last night or a summary yesterday's activity. It also gives you tips on how to hit your goal, taking into the time of day that you speak to it.

If you have more than one Fitbit wearer in the house, there's the option to allocate multiple Fitbit accounts to different profiles in your Amazon Household. We like it a lot.

FitStar & FitStar Yoga

If you own the Fitbit Blaze then you'll probably know all about FitStar. It's a fitness platform dedicated to creating personalised workouts including yoga. The Blaze is the only Fitbit tracker that offers step-by-step workouts you can follow from the Blaze's screen.

Read next: Why hydration monitoring is the next big thing for wearables

That doesn't mean FitStar can't be useful for the rest of the Fitbit fraternity, though. Once you've set up a FitStar account and linked it to your Fitbit account, workout data from FitStar will be synced and fed into the app to complement your daily tracking data.

Lumosity

Living up to the healthy mind = healthy body mantra, Lumosity is a brain training app that aims to improve things like memory and problem solving and increase your speed of processing. When you pull the app together with Fitbit, you'll be able to view step counts against the number of Lumosity games you've played over 90 days.

The idea is that by displaying the information side by side, you'll be able to spot trends with the data and see whether hitting the gym on a regular basis is having a positive impact on your brain power.

MyNetDiary Calorie Counter

While MyFitnessPal does a pretty good job of calorie counting, this alternative also wants to educate you on making the right food choices.

It'll take tracking data from Fitbit including step count, body weight and average heart rate (if you have a Fitbit that tracks that) and can give a better measurement of daily calorie balance to show how much you've burned and eaten during the day. All of the food calories and nutrients tracked in the app will also appear inside the Fitbit app.

Under Armour Record

Just because you don't fancy buying an Under Armour Band or paying out for the UA HealthBox doesn't mean you can't still get good use out of its great fitness app, which can pull in data from MyFitnessPal, Endomondo and MapMyFitness.

Record will store step data from your Fitbit tracker and can feed in any weight measurement data as long you've entered that data in the Fitbit app or via the Fitbit Aria smart scales.

Nudge Health Tracking

For some the flood of data is too much to handle, so Nudge is all about simplifying the process. It can store data from a host of apps and wearables including Runkeper, Strava and of course Fitbit, giving you a single Nudge Factor score to keep things competitive against other users.

When it's connected with Fitbit, you can send tracking data into the Log section where you can also see personalised categories that include beverages, energy and sleep.

Wokamon Monster Walk Quest

Walking can be boring, so why not try to make it more fun? Think Tamagotchi for Fitbit – this app, when connected to your tracker, puts you in charge of a virtual monster. The more you walk, the larger the monster grows, letting you unlock virtual pets to push you to keep walking to the shops instead of jumping into the car.

Waterlogged

If calorie counting isn't your thing, the list of Fitbit compatible apps also includes dedicated drink tracker Waterlogged.

The downside here is that you'll have to pay for reminders and for the Fitbit integration itself, but for those looking to keep tabs on their water intake, Waterlogged is a solid option. This will allow you to store your hydration stats alongside the rest of your Fitbit data.

Peloton

If you're more about sitting in the saddle than pounding the pavement, you can take advantage of Peloton's metrics to keep tabs on your workouts. And once you've connected your Fitbit and Peloton accounts, data such as workout length, distance travelled and calories burned will be delivered right onto your dashboard.