From the humble days of Pebble, where smartwatches were essentially just wrist-worn pagers, the market has blossomed and these days there are a wealth of great wearables to choose from for all sorts of interests. Whether you’re looking for a device to control your music or you’re a hardcore triathlete in need of a serious training companion, there’s surely a smartwatch for you, But while this choice is great, it can also make knowing which smartwatch is right for you fairly difficult. With so many wearables focusing on specific types of user and the market, and many still costing a fair amount of cash, it can be a costly mistake to plump for the wrong option. There are also a number of often-unforeseen pitfalls that can lead to you outright wasting your money. Apple Watches, for example, still only work when paired with an iPhone, making them a poor investment for Android users. Based on our experience many seemingly-strong smartwatches don’t perform well with real world use, offering terrible battery life and poor build quality, despite having decent specs sheets. To help you avoid these problems and get the right smartwatch for your specific needs and budget, we’ve put together this buyers’ guide which details all the top performing wearables we’ve tried and tested. Every wearable on this list has been used by the reviewer for at least a week, during which they test all the key areas most buyers care about. These include tracking accuracy, battery life, ease of use and build quality, so you can count on our buying advice. If you don’t find exactly what you’re looking for here you can also check out our best fitness tracker, best Apple Watch and best running watch guides, which go into more detail for those specific categories.
At a glance
Best smartwatch: Apple Watch Series 8 – check priceBest value smartwatch: Apple Watch SE – check priceBest Wear OS smartwatch: Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 ProBest for serious athletes: Garmin Fenix 7 – check priceBest for entry-level fitness tracking: Fitbit Versa 3 – check priceBest rugged smartwatch: Apple Watch Ultra – check price
Car crash detection (which is also available on the iPhone 14) is the headline feature here. Much like Fall Detection, Crash Detection can register the impact from a collision and contact not only the local authorities but also anyone listed in your emergency contacts. Cycle tracking has also been greatly improved thanks to the new temperature sensor built into the Series 8. The watch is now able to pick up on changes in your skin temperature to determine when you’ve ovulated, which can be a huge help for people who are trying to conceive or establish a better understanding of their ovarian health. The Series 8 uses the same end-to-end display that was brought in for the Apple Watch Series 7, which makes great use of larger watch faces, including Modular Max which crams a ton of information into the watch face. While the battery hasn’t been changed over its predecessor, the Series 8 does now come with a ‘Low Power Mode’ that shuts off features like the always-on display and fall detection, but in doing so it can bump the battery life from 18-hours to a whopping 36-hours. The list of available colour variations have also changed, moving to a more subdued palette in the form of Midnight, Gold, Silver and Graphite, just to name a few. Reviewer: Max ParkerFull review: Apple Watch 8 Review W found the Apple Watch SE still feels like a premium wearable. Despite being smaller than the Apple 7, it remained wonderfully comfortable to wear throughout and we never once struggled to interact with the screen using touch inputs and the crown control. The SE also has the exact same software as the 7 and is more than fast enough to run any app or feature we threw at it without any issue. The experience never felt compromised throughout our tests. There are a few compromises you should be aware of though. First, it’s not as ruggedly built as Apple’s priciest option. Though it feels premium the watch doesn’t have the same dust resistance rating as the 7 and its screen isn’t Sapphire Glass, it’s ionX. We never had any issue with build quality, but this means it will pick up scratches more easily, especially if you take it to the beach or use it for more animated exercise tracking. Health tracking has also been stripped down with it lacking the blood oxygen and ECG sensors seen on its more expensive sibling. Based on our testing this means it’s not as useful for people that want a wearable to keep tabs on their health and fitness. Reviewer: Max ParkerFull review: Apple Watch SE Review Fenix is one of Garmin’s most premium sports watch lines and if you’re a regular reader you’ll know we’re big fans. Over the past four years Garmin’s Fenix watches have consistently impressed when we’ve gotten them in for testing with every one since the Fenix 5 scoring at least 4.5/5. This remained true when we put the Fenix 7 through its paces. Out of the box the Fenix 7’s sports focus is immediately obvious with it having a utilitarian black finish that combines a chunky metal chassis with a comfy, but undeniably industrial looking rubber strap. This is a wearable that’s designed to survive everything from tumbles into the open sea while surfing to the extreme temperatures and conditions of an ultramarathon. With our reviewer having accidentally bashed the screen into a rock while using a climbing wall we can personally confirm the Fenix 7 is the most rugged wearable on this list. But what really sets it apart is its best in class tracking options and post workout analytics. During testing we found the Fenix 7 can track pretty much every activity you could ever think of. These include running and swimming, but extend to some activities we’d never even heard of, such as “Pickleboarding”. Doing our standard suite of tests the device offered best in class location tracking. The GPS connected within milliseconds and after a month using it our reviewer never noticed any serious anomalies in distance or dropouts. Heart rate tracking is also excellent for a wrist based wearable. The Watch’s real-time directions and mapping powers proved to be a boon when we used them to navigate a cycle route we weren’t familiar with in London and hike in the Lake District, with the watch offering reliable turn by turn instructions. The multi-sport functionality is much more developed than the Apple and Galaxy Watches on this list, with it having dedicated modes and much more intuitive transition controls that let us switch sports in a couple of clicks. Post work analytics are where the wearable really differentiates itself from its more generalist competition, however. The watch can track blood oxygen, VO2 Max Estimates and a few other metrics that are important to serious athletes or health conscious buyers. But it’s the guidance it offers that’s best. The watch uses heart rate zones, VO2 Max Estimates and all the other data it collects to offer guidance on how effective your workout was and recommendations on how long you should rest before your next session. This made it very easy for our reviewer to tailor their workout to always be productive and gauge when they were close to overstraining during testing. The 1-2 week battery life we detected during our tests also means the Fenix 7 offers the best battery life of all the wearables on this list. The flipside of this is that the Fenix 7 offers incredibly limited smartwatch functionality compared to its Apple and Samsung rivals. The app library is limited to fitness, location tracking and a small collection of music streaming services (Deezer and Spotify). Though it supports NFC the watch is also only compatible with Garmin Pay, which doesn’t support every mainstream bank in the US or UK. As a result, we generally just found ourselves using it for basic notifications and music controls for audio coming from our phone during testing. The only other downside is its upfront cost, with the base model retailing for $700. This, plus its undeniably hardcore focus is a key reason we recommend entry lever runners go for a more affordable wearable: the Fitbit Versa 3. Reviewer: Michael SawhFull review: Garmin Fenix 7 Review We were impressed how many features Fitbit managed to cram into the tiny square chassis, despite the Versa 3 costing nearly a third of the Garmin Fenix 7. For starters, the watch is incredibly comfortable to wear, even when exercising. The slim, almost Apple Watch SE sized frame gives it a fashionable and discrete look that let our reviewer comfortably wear it while out of the gym, and at smart casual work events. Based on our experience, it’s only up close that most people will notice it’s not an Apple Watch, due to the slightly larger bezel surrounding the screen. Despite its low cost the wearable does have a few pluses we’ve not seen on many other wearables at this price. For starters, there’s an inbuilt GPS chip and SpO2 sensor. These let the watch offer reliable fitness tracking without the need to lug your phone along, as you have to on many other affordable wearables, such as the Garmin Vivosmart 5 we reviewed earlier this month. The SpO2 sensor also lets it track your blood oxygen to gauge performance improvements. With real world use both performed admirably. The GPS does take longer than the Fenix to connect, but once it did the tracking was uniform. The only time our reviewer experienced any drop outs was during city runs and cycles, where tall buildings would on occasion block the signal. Heart rate tracking remained uniform outside of our HIIT test, where it struggled to keep up with the rapid spikes during high intensity segments of the workout. During testing, Spotify still wasn’t on the app store, though you could download music to play from Deezer and Pandora locally. The ability to store any music locally is again a rare luxury on a tracker this price so the absence of Spotify is forgivable. The only real downsides are that its app offering is behind Apple and Google’s and Fitbit, unlike Garmin, asks you to pay a subscription to access all the post workout analytics the Versa 3 offers, which feels a bit cheeky. Reviewer: Thomas DeehanFull review: Fitbit Versa 3 Review It’s got a highly robust design, including a titanium bezel and sapphire screen, along with IP68 impermeability and 5ATM water resistance. The Super AMOLED screen may lack a variable refresh rate but it’s brilliant bright and packs excellent contrast, while it’s large enough that text and icons are shown off well too. We found the health tracking options to be varied and useful, with the focus on sleep tracking being a particular highlight, and the on-board route navigation is a brilliant boon if you’re an outdoorsy adventurer (although can be finicky to put into place). Fitness tracking is generally accurate as well, though you may not get quite the same wealth of post-workout analytics as you would from a top-end Garmin. Battery life tends to last 3-4 das of moderate use, which is decent for a smartwatch such as this, and the charge speeds (1 hour 22 minutes to full) are decent but not best-in-class. If you’re into ultra running, diving, or long-distance cycling then this would be a good choice as it can stand up to the environment and has much-improved battery life by comparison to the standard line of Apple Watches, lasting up to 60 hours when in low-power mode. Activity tracking was generally accurate, with strong dual-band GPS cover even when surrounded by high-rise buildings, and you’ll once again have access to Apple’s brilliant software and app library, which is the best of the bunch when it comes to smartwatches, as far as we’re concerned. However, we would note that the likes of the Garmin Fenix 7 offer better mapping support if you’re a keen hiker, and the Apple Watch Ultra is a large and relatively bulky watch to wear on your wrist especially if you want to use it for sleep tracking. 2,373 Wearable & Fitness
