Smartwatch Fitness Tracker App Development: Features & Cost

Nowadays, a fitness tracker app development benefits fitness and sports brands and the medical industry. Every second business person is looking to develop a smartwatch fitness tracking app. 

As more and more people are being more cautious about their fitness, fitness tracking apps are witnessing a surge in the mobile app market. 

Well, it’s not hard but challenging to root a fitness brand. 

This post will explain a fitness tracker app, its benefits, top features, steps to develop a health tracking app, and much more. 

What Is a Fitness Tracker App?

Also known as an activity tracker, a fitness tracker is a type of wearable technology that allows users to track the amount of sleep they get, the number of steps they walk, their heart rate, and various other factors. 

The compatible fitness trackers can be connected with these apps and synced, showcasing the tracked data on the monitors. You can set your daily fitness goals and check your routine report. 

What Market Stats Say About Fitness Tracker Apps?

• The size of the fitness app market worldwide was worth USD 1.3 billion in 2022, and it is projected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.6% from 2023 to 2030.
• In 2023, the percentage of users is projected to be 9.76%, and it is anticipated to increase to 12.21% by 2027.
• A recent report says, about 96% of users use fitness tracker apps. 
• The revenue from the leading fitness and healthcare apps surged by approximately 61% last year and reached $327 million worldwide.
• Also, fitness app users will likely increase by 2022, touching 353 million. 
• Research claims that by 2023, the global fitness trackers market is expected to reach $62.128 million with a CAGR of about 19.6%. 

Popular Smartwatch Fitness Tracker Apps

1. Fitbit – Health & Fitness

One of the top fitness tracker apps, Fitbit, is used to track your day and night progress anytime and stay motivated on your fitness journey. You can connect your smartwatch or Fitbit tracker to check your workouts, activity, nutrition, sleep, stress, and more. The users stay dedicated to attaining their fitness goals using such apps. 

2. Garmin Connect

Once you pair this app with a compatible Gramin device, you can track activity, create new workouts and courses, and even challenge your friends. Moreover, this app analyzes your health and fitness activities and shares the recorded data by your paired Gramin device. You can even sync with apps like MyFitnessPal, Apple Health, etc. 

3. MyFitnessPal – Calorie Counter

You can track your fitness journey progress with the MyFitnessPal app. This health-tracking app helps you know your eating habits and lets you choose smarter food picks, find motivation and support, and meet your health goals. 

You can connect your MyFitnessPal account with various apps that support and target a healthier lifestyle. 

Benefits of A Fitness Tracker App

A fitness or health-tracking app holding the caliber to stream workouts can deal with various challenges for end-users and app owners. 

a) Benefits of A Fitness Tracker App For App Owners

• Reduced churn rate and better user engagement.
• No need for open gyms in various locations to scale.
• Efficient cost-savings
• One trainer can perform virtually to train various customers. 

b) Benefits of A Fitness Tracker App For App Users

• Set a timetable or schedule with on-demand workouts.
• Work out with ease being at home.
• Socialize and participate in health and fitness movements from anywhere. 
• Train with or without sports equipment. 

Fitness Tracker App Features

1. Achievements

For downloading a fitness tracking app, achievements can be one of the crucial elements. The first and foremost reason people join fitness programs is to transform their bodies, and the second is the fitness goals they want to accomplish. So, include various icons indicating the users’ progress, such as calories burnt, steps walked, and more. 

Tips

• During the workout, you can exhibit some unlocked achievements that will keep them dedicated to their fitness targets.
• Show their performance compared with other users. 

2. Maps & Routes

Various fitness applications integrate mapping software to showcase the activity routes of the users, like cycling or running, or walking paths. 

Tips

• You can pick the map detailization carefully to reduce elements. 
• On a map, you can mark the key locations. 

3. Workouts

Exercising, including various workout activities, is essential for any fitness tracker app. It would be best to integrate a filter into your app for grouping fitness activities by duration, music, equipment, difficulty mode, etc. 

Tips

• You can display heart rate and other live health metrics during an exercise.
• Recommend mostly-picked workouts.
• Display previous workout history or show workout instructions before the workout starts. 

4. Notifications

Notifications can serve as notices about the new messages from your friends and scheduled workouts reminders. 

Tips

• You can send a notification if your app users haven’t opened the app for a while. 
• Also, you can facilitate rapid actions for notifications. 

5. Social Interactivity

Recently, fitness platforms have been appending messaging between feeds and users’ meal photos. The platform is to make them engaged in communication with like-minded fitness supporters. 

Tips

• You can add a messaging facility.
• Newsfeed would also be a fantastic feature. 

6. Profile & Settings

These may be boring but essential. Users can adjust their physical parameters, health, age, and everything they want to include in their profile. 

7. Music

Athletes and fitness enthusiasts usually have a typical behavior of listening to music while performing workouts. So, a fitness tracker app may provide a music ecosystem to enhance the overall user experience. 

Steps to Develop a Fitness Tracker App 

a) Better UX/UI 

As users will use your app, be sure to develop an easy-to-use app. Keep UX/UI simple so users can perform their actions efficiently, with 3-4 taps max. And, as it’s a workout streaming application, you should target users’ activities around the primary feature, video classes. 

So, You Need To:

• Be creative at stacking workout classes (ensure it includes a playlist, description, playlist, and more).
• Offer a filter option that may allow them to find classes as per their preferences. 
• You can craft an iconographic timetable for users’ live classes. 
• Facilitate users to switch their profiles, so they can participate as users and train as fitness experts using the same device, like TV., or tablet. 
• Allow preloading video to avoid buffering during the workout. 

b) Choose a Platform Suiting Your Needs

Besides a phone, users want their apps to perform expectedly on TV, tablet, or smartwatch. These platforms augment users’ sports experiences. 

You Can:

• Use sensors and hardware for every platform to accumulate user performance data. 
• Use the Apple Watch app as a remote control to start or stop a training session. 
• Integrate instant sync to allow users to switch rapidly from an outdoor activity to an indoor one by shifting from, say iPad version of an app to an iPhone fitness tracker app. 

c) Add Social Interactivity and Gamification

While developing a fitness tracker app, you can add socializing options and gamification into your app to make the users stay for a long time. As users attend classes at their place, their sense of community and socializing instill. 

You Can:

• Let users review, rate, and share their classes using social media platforms like Facebook and other networks.
• Be sure the users’ names are accessible by trainers so that they can call them by their names and make the ambiance interactive.
• Besides, you can offer users a list of basic interaction options while conducting their live fitness classes, like a high-five option and more. 
• You can make your app rank your users based on their performance in their class, which will appear as an incentive to them. This way, they will be motivated to leave their records and compete with their classmates. 
• Also, crafting badges for the live class attendees will keep the users engaged with your health tracking apps. 
• After a workout, showcase current performance stats, like pace, miles, calories, and other metrics. 

d) Use In-Built Sensors

You can integrate hardware in your health tracker apps that may show the users their workout progress using their gathered workout data. 

You Can Use the Below Hardware:

• Accelerometer: It will help track the users’ body movements when connected with a gyroscope. 
• GPS: This hardware will let users see their tracks on a map, and the compass will facilitate users to navigate while they are on the run. 
• Motion processors: These are best at counting steps.
• Altimeters and Barometers offer accurate data about latitude, altitude, and longitude. 
• Some Android handsets include an optical heart rate monitor installed on their backs.

Note: Be careful while researching available in-built sensors on a smartwatch or phone you are targeting and make the best use of the data they accumulate. You can choose native apps as they have complete access to in-built sensors. 

e) Connect Your Healthcare Tracker App to Software and Gadgets

If in-built sensors fail to meet your app needs, you can connect your app to various health and fitness trackers, such as Galaxy Fit or Fitbit. This option will lead to the best possible outcomes when you want to connect your app to trackers that can track users’ activities. 

You Can:

• Accumulated activity data from the external sensors in your app to adapt your users’ experience. You can mark their preferred activities, notify them to take a break, etc. 
• You can include add-on data into user statistics for a complete view of their performance. 

f) Allow Them to Train With Beats

During workouts, enthusiasts usually prefer listening to music. When mixed with some enjoyable tunes, users can perform outstandingly. So, integrating music streaming apps into your app will make your app climb up to success and stay ahead of the competition. 

You Can:

• Choose Apple’s MusicKit to integrate it with Apple Music. 
• LastFM and Soundcloud are fantastic alternatives to include beats into your fitness tracker app. 
• In the market, there’s no official API, Google Play Music. Still, you can move ahead with an unofficial version or just be in a queue for YouTube Music API. 

g) Consider the Backend

While developing a fitness tracker app, one of the biggest challenges you may face is streaming video classes, their availability anytime, and more. Well, the backend makes the app run, streaming workouts, software, and server hosting. 

You Need To:

• Ensure that your app’s back end depends on a CDN infrastructure if you aim at customers in multiple locations, especially worldwide. 
• Craft a bit of a web UI for your staff to let them upload and manage their billing, classes, and other content in your health-tracking app. 
• Google, Microsoft, and AWS are the best cloud service providers to support your app. 

How Much Does It Cost to Make a Fitness Tracker App?

The cost of developing a wearable fitness tracker app can vary widely depending on several factors. These include the complexity of the app, the features it offers, the development platform chosen, and the experience level of the development team. Basic apps may cost around $35,000, while more complex apps can cost $50,000 to $150,000 or more. 

Creating a high-quality and user-friendly wearable fitness tracker app requires significant time, resources, expertise, and consultation with an experienced app development team that can provide an accurate estimate of the cost of your specific app idea.

Monetization Strategies for A Fitness Tracker App

Today, app owners monetize their projects through subscription mode. The app users subscribe to enjoy music, order food at the best price, buy groceries, find life partners and stay mentally and physically fit. 

Some standard monetization modes are:

• While an app can offer some features for free, it can provide some extra features with more potential at additional charges.
• In advertisements, you need to provide apps free of cost and display ads to generate revenue.
• Affiliates can allow app owners to sell their products or services through an app.
• In one-time, free membership plans, the app owners generate yearly revenue. This same option applies to the subscription model, where the app generates monthly income. 
• You can implement subscription payment choices also in Google’s or Apple’s ecosystems; that’s comparatively simple. The app owners need to provide a 30% cut to the platform owners.
• In-app purchases are also an alternative, but they may be less convenient for the users. 

Why Choose Emizentech for Wearable Fitness App Development?

One of the factors that a business person should consider while choosing a mobile app development company is a portfolio. We have an applauding portfolio of multiple successful mobile app development and more. Besides this, 

we have a skilled and professional app development team that follows an agile methodology to accomplish the project’s expected ends. Overall, Emizentech is a reliable and competent partner for wearable fitness app development, and they can help you create a successful and innovative app that meets your business needs.

Conclusion

A fitness tracker is a must for a company operating in the fitness and sports industry. These apps help meet the varied needs of athletes and fitness enthusiasts. 

While developing a fitness tracker app, one may face varied challenges. If you are also devising building a mobile app, you can hire a fitness app development company to meet your healthcare tracking app development needs.