The Best Smartwatches

With that said the number of available apps is nowhere near Apple’s, Samsung’s, or Google’s WearOS offerings. This, however, can change very quickly given that Huawei’s own Harmony OS allows for cross-platform development. We also liked the Huawei Watch 3 Pro's resource management features as it remains well usable even in low-power mode and will last up to three weeks in this energy-saving mode of operation.

The Watch 3 Pro is one of the first smartwatches to measure skin temperature.

When it comes to fitness and health data Huawei’s smartwatch offers extensive and detailed analysis features.

The Huawei Watch 3 Pro is currently unavailable in North America.

Samsung’s smartwatch is one of a select few that not only records heart rate and measures your blood oxygen level but also records an EKG and measures your blood pressure. In our review of the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 its optical sensor readings never matched the systolic and diastolic values recorded by a traditional blood pressure meter but the delta between the two, which is an important point of data, was identical.

Athletes will find a variety of exercise profiles with extensive options for analysis. For example, runners will find information about both airtime as well as ground contact time.

The operating system was replaced with Wear OS 3, a collaboration project with Google. Accordingly, it now features even more apps through its Galaxy Store. Battery life, a traditional sore point with Samsung smartwatches, did unfortunately not improve with the new OS and continues to hover at around one day. The Watch 4 is available in two sizes, four colors, and three SKUs on Amazon with prices starting at $250.

The Apple Watch is very popular with athletes. Thanks to its built-in ECG, heart rate sensors, and blood oxygen saturation sensors it offers a wide array of health data.

In our review of the Apple Watch Series 6 we found the blood oxygen saturations sensor to be fairly accurate. It can either take automatic readings or perform a manual one. Its sleep tracking feature that Apple introduced with watchOS 7 and that is also available on older watches, on the other hand, was not particularly great. Should your battery charge drop below 30 % before you fall asleep it will not record any data, which means you need to make sure to give it a quick top-up if necessary before you go to bed. The Apple Watch remains a functional and matured smartwatch with a short battery life.

In addition to its five grippy buttons the Polar Vantage V2 also comes with a touchscreen, something that is not yet standard for sports watches.

Athletes can connect the watch to additional sensors for running or cycling and will find a few unique features, such as for example performance tests for running or cycling to help improve your training using the Polar app. In addition, it also supports various workout modes offered by streaming provider Les Mills. Komoot users can transfer routes onto the watch and then follow turn by turn instructions.

Smartwatch features include notifications, rejecting phone calls (it does not support taking or making phone calls), and smartphone remote controls for music.

A blood oxygen sensor that has become very common in the last few months is missing though.

The Polar Vantage V2 is available on Amazon with prices starting at $500.

Its bright AMOLED display will dim automatically, and thanks to 8 GB of built-in storage the smartwatch can moonlight as offline music player by either synchronizing music from a computer or by using apps such as Amazon Prime Music, Deezer, or Spotify. Apps are downloaded from Garmin’s own app store, and playlists are synchronized automatically via Wi-Fi. Keep in mind that the smartwatch does not come with a speaker and will require Bluetooth headphones in order to play music.

The good-looking Venu 2 hides its fitness features very well.

Fitness features include preconfigured cardio and strength workouts as well as a distance meter and geographic support for golfers. The Venu 2 can also automatically count repeats, detect swimming metrics, and record a walk including its track automatically so nothing ever gets lost.

Both, the Garmin Venu 2s and Garmin Venu 2 start at $399, and both are available on Amazon.

The Fitbit Sense is one of the more advanced health tracking wearables available right now.

The Sense is very similar to Fitbit’s own Versa series but offers a variety of additional health features on top of it. For example, it can display an ECG, read and record your skin temperature at night, and track electrodermal activities in order to detect typical stress symptoms. It will read your heart frequency all day long but limits blood oxygen saturation readings to nighttime in order to detect sleep apnea.

The Suunto 9 Peak is one of the most elegant sports watches currently available in Germany.

Its GPS works reliably and can connect to up to three satellite systems simultaneously. If you happen to be using Komoot you can synchronize your tours with the watch and enjoy turn-by-turn navigation on your wrist. In our review of the Suunto 9 Peak we also found a noteworthy flaw: when measuring blood oxygen levels, a new feature first introduced with the 9 Peak, its readings were unacceptably inaccurate. We can only hope that Suunto will address this with a future software update.

The Suunto 9 Peak is available on Amazon with prices starting at $569.

The touchscreen and three buttons, one of which is a crown, make using the Fossil Gen 5 LTE a breeze.

The fairly WearOS-typical short battery life can be extended to various days using a variety of available battery profiles. The Fossil Gen 5 LTE comes with 8 GB of storage, GPS, and a barometer, and turned out to offer a very accurate pulse rate monitoring in our review. While the optical sensor was not any more accurate than other wearables during fast interval workouts it came very close to a chest strap with heart-rate sensor during a normal run.

The LTE version is currently unavailable in North America. Prices for the GPS-only model start at $240, and the device is widely available through the regular retail channels, such as for example Amazon and Best Buy.