Digimon watches, pedometers and Digivice wearables

Digimon watches fall into three camps: the Vital Bracelet line that turns your heart rate and steps into a living partner, the classic Digivice pedometer toys that started it all in 1999, and plain fashion watches with Agumon on the dial. This guide ranks the ones worth your wrist, explains how each device actually plays, and tells you which to buy if you want a real Digimon fitness tracker rather than a knock-off from a marketplace listing.

The short answer

If you want the Digimon watch that does the most, buy a Vital Bracelet BE. It straps to your wrist, reads your pulse, counts steps, and feeds all of that into a Digimon that digivolves based on how hard you train. Nothing else in the franchise comes close for a fitness-minded Tamer.

If you want nostalgia, hunt down the original 1999 Digivice or one of its anniversary re-releases. Those are pedometers rather than watches, but they are the direct ancestor of every wearable Bandai has made since. And if you only want to tell the time while showing your love for Digimon Adventure, licensed fashion watches exist, though they do not raise anything.

What actually counts as a Digimon watch

The phrase gets used loosely, so it helps to sort the field before spending money. Bandai has never shipped a mass-market Digimon product that is primarily a timepiece with a Digimon game bolted on. What it has shipped is a series of small LCD devices that happen to sit on your wrist, plus a line of belt-clip pedometers that make you walk to progress.

Here is how the categories break down:

Category	Worn on the wrist?	Tracks your body?	Raises a Digimon?	Examples
Vital Bracelet family	Yes	Steps and heart rate	Yes	Vital Bracelet (2021), Vital Bracelet BE, Vital Hero
Pedometer Digivices	No, belt clip or pocket	Steps only	Yes	Digivice (1999), D-3, Digivice Ver. 15th, Digivice Ver. Complete
Fashion watches	Yes	No	No	Licensed Digimon Adventure collaboration watches
Unlicensed “Digivice watches”	Yes	Usually no	Sometimes, badly	Marketplace knock-offs

That last row matters. A search for “digivice watch” on Amazon or AliExpress turns up a lot of cheap silicone bands with an unbranded LCD and a Digimon sticker. None of those are Bandai products, and the ones that include a “game” are generic virtual pets. Stick with the devices below.

1. Vital Bracelet Digital Monster (2021): the first true Digimon fitness watch

Bandai launched the Vital Bracelet Digital Monster (バイタルブレス デジタルモンスター) in Japan in March 2021, in ver. White and ver. Black. It looks like a chunky fitness band: a monochrome LCD on top, two physical buttons, a rubber strap, an optical heart-rate sensor on the underside, and a small covered slot at the top where you insert a “Dim” card. The Dim card holds the Digimon data, so one bracelet can host many different lines depending on which Dim you slot in.

This is the device that redefined what a Digimon toy could be. Previous virtual pets asked you to feed and train a monster by pressing buttons. The Vital Bracelet asks you to move. Your pulse and your steps generate “vitals”, and vitals are the main fuel for digivolution.

How the Vital Bracelet plays

You hatch a Digi-Egg from the Dim, then wear the bracelet through your day. The heart-rate sensor reads your pulse at intervals, and the accelerometer counts steps. Light activity trickles in vitals. Real exercise, the kind that pushes your heart rate up, fills the gauge far faster. A brisk twenty-minute walk outside does more for your partner than a lazy afternoon on the couch, which is exactly the point.

Vitals alone do not get you to Mega. Each evolution stage in the Vital Bracelet has conditions that mix vital totals, battle results and trophies earned from missions. Missions are short timed challenges, for example hitting a step count within a window. Battles run against other Digimon stored on the Dim, or against friends by tapping bracelets together. Win rate matters, so a Digimon you neglect in battle can branch to a weaker or darker form even if your vitals are high.

The two buttons do everything: cycle menus, confirm, start a battle, check stats. There is no touchscreen. The screen shows your partner walking, its current vitals, your heart rate and the clock, so yes, it also works as a basic watch. Battery is the weak spot. You charge it over a USB cable and you will be doing that every couple of days with regular use.

Pulsemon, the mascot you will meet first

The Impulse City Dim introduced a brand-new Digimon built around the device. Pulsemon is a small electric beast with a heartbeat motif, and it is the face of the whole Vital Bracelet line.

In the Impulse City Dim, Pulsemon’s main line runs Pulsemon to Bulkmon at Champion, Boutmon at Ultimate and Kazuchimon at Mega. Every one of these was designed for the bracelet first and appeared in the Digimon Reference Book afterwards, so this is a rare case where a toy created an entire family of official Digimon. Pulsemon later turned up in Digimon Seekers, the 2023 story project that puts a Vital Bracelet on its characters’ wrists in-universe.

The exact numeric thresholds differ by Dim and stage, and Bandai does not print them on the box, so treat the community-maintained requirement sheets as your reference and your own bracelet as the final word.

The launch Dims and the Digimon Adventure crowd

Alongside Impulse City, Bandai sold Dims built on Digimon Adventure partners. Volcanic Beat centres on Agumon, with the line everyone expects: Agumon (Rookie, Vaccine, Reptile type per the Digimon Reference Book) to Greymon, then MetalGreymon, then WarGreymon at Mega. Blizzard Fang does the same job for Gabumon. Each Dim also holds branch forms you reach by failing or exceeding certain conditions, so a careless Tamer can wander off the “digimon evolution chart” they memorised from the anime. Check your win rate before you blame the bracelet.

2. Vital Bracelet BE (2022): the current flagship

The Vital Bracelet BE followed in 2022 and is the model to buy today. Bandai kept the formula and fixed the complaints. The BE accepts both the original Dim cards and the newer “BE Memory” cards, so your 2021 collection still works. BE Memory cards carry more data per card and unlock extra features on the BE that the first bracelet could not run.

From a hardware perspective it is still a wrist LCD with two buttons and a heart-rate sensor on the back, but the shell is refined and the whole experience feels less like a prototype. If you are choosing between a used original and a new BE, the BE wins. It plays every Dim ever released and it is the platform Bandai keeps supporting.

BE Memory releases pushed into Digimon Tamers territory with Guilmon, and tied into Digimon Seekers with Loogamon, the wolf Rookie partnered with Eiji Nagasumi in that story. Seekers treats the Vital Bracelet as canon technology, which makes the BE the first Digimon toy that is also the “in-universe” device for a current storyline.

3. Vital Hero and the English-language Vital Bracelet BE

For a long time the only way to get a Vital Bracelet outside Japan was import. The menus are in Japanese, which is manageable because the interface is icon-heavy, but it kept plenty of Western Tamers away. Bandai America answered with Vital Hero in 2022, a localised version of the hardware sold in English-speaking markets with its own English Dim cards featuring Digimon. Bandai then brought the Vital Bracelet BE itself westward with English text, which is now the easiest route for a reader in the US or Europe.

If you search “digimon digivice watch” on Amazon, the English BE and leftover Vital Hero stock are the legitimate results that will show up among the fakes. Check for Bandai branding, a Dim slot at the top edge and a heart-rate sensor window on the back. A listing without those three things is not a Vital Bracelet.

4. The Digivice -V- edition and the Digimon Ghost Game connection

The Vital Bracelet is also an anime Digivice. In Digimon Ghost Game, which ran 67 episodes on Fuji TV from October 2021 to March 2023, the protagonists use the Vital Bracelet Digivice -V- on the wrist, and Hiro Amanokawa activates the one left behind by his father. It is the Vital Bracelet silhouette almost exactly, and Bandai sold a Digivice -V- styled edition of the bracelet around the show’s launch, paired with a Gammamon Dim.

Gammamon, Angoramon and Jellymon each got their own Dim, so you can raise the three Ghost Game partners on the same hardware the characters use on screen. Gammamon’s Dim follows its anime branches, including BetelGammamon, KausGammamon and WezenGammamon at Champion, with Canoweissmon at Ultimate and Siriusmon at Mega. Ghost Game is also the first series where the Digivice is genuinely a watch, and the toy is genuinely a watch, which is why “digivice watch” became a popular search in the first place.

If you want the deeper history of how each anime’s device differs, our explainer on how a “digivice works” walks through every generation from the original Digivice to the Digivice -V-.

5. The original Digivice (1999): the first Digimon pedometer

Long before fitness bands, Bandai built walking into Digimon. The 1999 Digivice toy, released alongside Digimon Adventure, is the device Tai clips to his shorts in the anime, and the toy version contains a pedometer. You pick a partner, then the screen shows a map with a distance bar. Walking advances the bar. When you reach the destination, a wild Digimon or boss appears and you battle. Wins push your partner toward Champion and beyond.

This is why “digivice pedometer” is still a real search a quarter century later. The Digivice was a step counter with a game attached, and it predates the Pokéwalker that came bundled with Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver by a decade. It runs on a button-cell battery, has no heart-rate sensor and no wrist strap, so it is not a watch in any practical sense. It is, however, the grandfather of the Vital Bracelet and a must-own for any serious “digimon toy” collection.

Partner coverage on the first unit was limited. Not all eight DigiDestined partners shipped in the first release, which is part of why Bandai kept returning to the mould with fuller versions.

6. D-3 and the anniversary Digivices

Digimon Adventure 02 brought the D-3 in 2000, and the toy kept the pedometer loop while adding Armor Digivolution via Digi-Eggs for Veemon, Hawkmon, Armadillomon and the rest of the second-generation cast. Same belt clip, same walk-to-battle structure, bigger roster.

Bandai then mined the design for anniversaries. The Digivice Ver. 15th in 2015 packed all eight Adventure partner lines into one unit. The Digivice Ver. Complete, a Premium Bandai release for the 20th anniversary, upgraded the screen to colour and covered the partner evolutions across Digimon Adventure, Digimon Adventure tri. and Last Evolution Kizuna. Walking remains the core. You still count steps to reach each area, which keeps these honest to the original even with the fancier screen.

None of them strap to a wrist. If someone sells you a “Digivice wristwatch” using photos of a Ver. Complete, they have either glued a strap to it or they are selling something else.

7. Licensed fashion Digimon watches

Then there are watches that are only watches. Japanese brand Super Groupies, which makes character-inspired fashion lines for anime fans, has produced Digimon Adventure wristwatches themed on the partner Digimon, with colourways and motif details nodding to Agumon, Gabumon and company. These are quartz timepieces with subtle branding rather than cartoon dials, aimed at adults who grew up with the show.

They are nice. They also do nothing beyond telling the time, so do not confuse them with the Vital Bracelet when you see “Digimon watch” in a product title. Prices on the second-hand market swing wildly because runs are small, and most never got an official release outside Japan.

Every Digimon wearable compared

Here is the field side by side so you can see what each device actually does.

Device	Year	Form factor	Sensors	Card system	Language options
Digivice	1999	Belt clip pedometer	Step counter	None	Japanese, English (US release)
D-3	2000	Belt clip pedometer	Step counter	None	Japanese, English (US release)
Digivice Ver. 15th	2015	Belt clip pedometer	Step counter	None	Japanese
Digivice Ver. Complete	2020	Belt clip pedometer, colour LCD	Step counter	None	Japanese
Vital Bracelet Digital Monster	2021	Wrist band	Steps, optical heart rate	Dim	Japanese
Vital Bracelet Digivice -V- edition	2021	Wrist band	Steps, optical heart rate	Dim	Japanese
Vital Hero	2022	Wrist band	Steps, optical heart rate	Dim (English)	English
Vital Bracelet BE	2022	Wrist band	Steps, optical heart rate	Dim and BE Memory	Japanese, later English edition

Two things jump out. First, only the Vital Bracelet family reads your heart. Second, the BE is the only device that plays every card ever made for the platform, which settles the purchase decision for most people.

Dim cards and BE Memory worth knowing

The bracelet is only as good as the cards you feed it. These are the releases most Tamers start with:

Card	Format	Lead Digimon	Source series
Impulse City	Dim	Pulsemon	Vital Bracelet original
Volcanic Beat	Dim	Agumon	Digimon Adventure
Blizzard Fang	Dim	Gabumon	Digimon Adventure
Gammamon	Dim	Gammamon	Digimon Ghost Game
Angoramon	Dim	Angoramon	Digimon Ghost Game
Jellymon	Dim	Jellymon	Digimon Ghost Game
Guilmon	BE Memory	Guilmon	Digimon Tamers
Loogamon	BE Memory	Loogamon	Digimon Seekers

Each card holds a full tree, not a single line, with branch forms reached through different combinations of vitals, battles and trophies. Levels follow the standard ladder of Rookie, Champion, Ultimate and Mega. Japanese packaging uses Child, Adult, Perfect and Ultimate for those same four stages, which trips up importers reading the back of a Dim for the first time.

Dims are the collectible layer of this hobby. Early print runs sold out in Japan and some, particularly the Ghost Game trio, now trade well above retail. If you spot a Dim bundled with a used bracelet, check that the card is genuine Bandai before paying a premium.

Vital Bracelet Lab: the app and the smartwatch question

The bracelet connects over Bluetooth to Bandai’s Vital Bracelet Lab app on iOS and Android. Through it you can view your partner’s stats in detail, see progress toward the next evolution and take part in Vital Arena, the online battle mode where you pit your Digimon against other Tamers’ partners without being in the same room. The app also handles firmware updates.

This is as close as Digimon gets to a “digivice smartwatch”. The bracelet is not a smartwatch in the Apple Watch sense. It does not show notifications, run third-party apps or sync to Apple Health or Google Fit. It is a dedicated game device with a clock on it. Treat it as a second wearable you wear alongside your main watch, or on the opposite wrist, and you will be happier with it.

Is there a Digimon Fitbit or Apple Watch app?

No. There is no official Digimon Fitbit, no licensed Apple Watch game and no Bandai Digimon face for Wear OS. Searches for “digimon fitbit” pull up custom watch faces made by fans and the occasional silicone band printed with Digivice artwork. Those are cosmetic. Nothing on a Fitbit will hatch an Agumon from your step count.

The Vital Bracelet exists precisely because Bandai wanted to own that experience on its own hardware. If you already wear a Fitbit for sleep and workouts, the bracelet will duplicate the step count and heart-rate reading during the day, and you will need to decide which device gets the wrist during exercise. Most Tamers put the Vital Bracelet on for walks and gym sessions, since those are when vitals pile up, and switch back afterward.

Buying advice: where to shop and what to check

Bandai sells the Japanese Vital Bracelet BE and new Dims through Premium Bandai and major Japanese retailers, and import shops forward them worldwide. The English BE and Vital Hero appear on Amazon and at larger toy chains. Prices move with stock, and limited editions like the Digivice -V- bracelet are second-hand only now.

Before you take the plunge on a used unit, run through this list:

• Confirm the model. The BE plays Dim and BE Memory cards; the original only plays Dim. Vital Hero uses English Dims.
• Ask about the battery. Original bracelets from 2021 have been through many charge cycles and some hold a charge poorly.
• Check the Dim slot cover. It is a small hinged piece that cracks when forced.
• Inspect the strap. Replacements exist, but a torn band at the lug is a hassle.
• Verify the heart-rate window on the back is clear, not scratched, since scratches throw off readings.
• Count the included cards. A bundle with Impulse City and a Ghost Game Dim is worth more than the bracelet alone.

If what you really want is to raise and digivolve dozens of Digimon without exercising for it, a console game is the better buy. “Digimon Story Time Stranger” has the biggest roster the Story series has ever had, and “digimon story cyber sleuth” remains the easiest entry point to that branch of the franchise. The bracelet is for Tamers who want Digimon to push them outside.

FAQ

Is the Vital Bracelet an actual watch?

Yes, in the basic sense. It shows the time on its LCD and sits on your wrist like a fitness band. It does not show phone notifications or run apps, so it is a game device with a clock rather than a smartwatch.

Does walking count toward evolution in the Vital Bracelet?

Walking adds steps, which feed missions and contribute to vitals. The bigger gains come from raising your heart rate, because the optical sensor on the back weights harder exercise more heavily. A short jog beats a long shuffle.

Can I use a Vital Bracelet without the app?

Yes. The bracelet is fully playable on its own, including hatching, raising, battling against on-card Digimon and tapping another bracelet to battle a friend. The Vital Bracelet Lab app adds detailed stats, firmware updates and the online Vital Arena.

Will my 2021 Dim cards work in a Vital Bracelet BE?

Yes. The BE is backward compatible with every Dim card. The reverse is not true: BE Memory cards need the BE hardware.

Did the 1999 Digivice really have a pedometer?

It did. You walk to fill a distance bar across each area on the map, and reaching the end triggers battles that drive your partner’s digivolution. It clips to your belt rather than strapping to your wrist.

Which Digimon anime uses a watch-style Digivice?

Digimon Ghost Game. Hiro, Ruli and Kiyoshiro wear the Digivice -V- on their wrists, and the real Vital Bracelet shares its design. Earlier series like Digimon Adventure used handheld or clip-on devices.

Is there an English Vital Bracelet?

Yes. Bandai America released Vital Hero with English Dims, and the Vital Bracelet BE later shipped in an English-language edition. Japanese units work fine too, since the menus lean on icons, but you will be reading evolution conditions off community guides.