The 8 Very Best Smartwatches
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I’ve been using a smartwatch since 2015, when my sister gifted me the first Apple Watch. At the time, I liked its convenience, but now I struggle to imagine my life without a smartwatch. In addition to being an excellent fitness tracker, it’s become integral to how I go about my day. I use voice input to jot down quick notes and ideas, and I skip or favorite tracks with it on Spotify as I blitz through chores around the house.
To be honest, if you’re just looking for basic tracking for workouts and sleep, you may be better off with a more affordablefitness tracker. But smartwatches can not only do everything fitness trackers do, they also provide some of the functionality of your phone. If you have a version with cellular support — this usually comes with an additional carrier fee every month — they can even be used without your phone to make or receive calls and respond to texts if you need to run a quick errand, download music for offline playback, and mirror your phone’s notifications so you don’t have to reach into your pocket for every ping. Many smartwatches can also download third-party apps, like the fitness tracker Strava, a sleep tracker, or even an app to make voice-to-text notes. Many flagship smartwatches also allow you to make contactless payments straight from your wrist, plus access membership cards and airline tickets for more convenient scanning. If you want to listen to music on a run without having to carry your phone, you can pair a smartwatch with Bluetooth headphones as well.
Picking a smartwatch isn’t as simple as buying the best-looking or most feature-packed one you can find. In addition to finding a stylish design that you like, you’ll want one that has the right health-tracking features for you, and one that integrates well into your smartphone’s ecosystem. That means being able to see and react to notifications from your wrist, sync apps and data between your phone and watch, and having some sort of voice assistant built in.
I’ve been writing about smartwatches for five years and have tested nearly every flagship smartwatch available in that time. I also spoke with a marathon runner, a smartwatch reviewer, and a fitness writer to make sure I left no stone unturned. Whether you’re afitnessenthusiast or just looking to spend a little less timelooking at your phone, I’ve found the best smartwatch for every kind of person, in both major ecosystems.
Updated on January 16, 2026
I updated this guide with all new picks.
Whatwe’relookingfor
Platform support
Every time I think aboutswitching to Android, I remember how tethered my life is to the Apple Watch now. Over the past few years, the big three companies in the smartphone space — Apple, Samsung, and Google — have started treating smartwatches as a way to further lock you into their respective platforms. Victoria Song, senior reviewer at the Verge, says that approach makes things tricky for consumers. “Your smartwatch has a very close relationship to your phone because it’s there to make you look at your phone less, and if it’s not a stand-alone device, you’re more tied to your phone,” she says, “so think about how married you are to your phone and its ecosystem; that’ll tell you which smartwatch is best for you.”
Thomas Watson, editor and running coach atMarathon Handbook, echoes that sentiment. “It’s also a big deal because there’s a big switching cost if you change devices. If you’ve used one platform for a couple of years, you’ve built up swathes of personal health and fitness data on that platform,” he says. “Changing to another manufacturer will probably mean you can’t port all that information straight over and may lose it.” The solution, he suggests, is to think long-term about what brand you’ll still be happy with in a few years and which one you’ll trust with all your health data.
Given the commitment a smartwatch requires, that sort of longevity is important — you want one that’ll get plenty of software updates for both security and new features, as well as support all the apps you want to run. To avoid having your new smartwatch left in the dust when new features arrive, Song suggests staying clear of watches with anything but the newest chip, even if you can find one for a good discount. She also recommends paying attention to the watches that have a third-party app ecosystem (an app store that’ll let you download apps like Strava or Spotify), as they’ll offer more capabilities than a watch without one.
If you like to keep all your personal data close to the chest, a smartwatch probably isn’t for you, Song says. Even an Apple Watch, with all of Apple’s promises of protecting your personal data, can’t protect you once you hand that data over to a third party like Strava or Peloton. “Once you use theirHealthKitAPI with another app, all bets are off,” Song says. “Apple doesn’t have control over what that third party does with your data.”
Health and fitness tracking
Most smartwatches these days flaunt pretty robust capabilities for tracking workouts and overall health. Companies like Apple and Samsung highlight features like ECG (electrocardiogram) and blood-oxygen monitoring, as well assleep trackingand even fall detection. These flagship watches will have more health-related features than cheaper models, but for more serious monitoring like heart health, Song says those features don’t mean much, although she suggests making sure any watch featuring ECG capabilities beFDA-cleared.
Casey Johnston, author of theShe’s a Beastnewsletter, says tracking all that data can be useful for athletes training for specific cardio-based workouts, but that for regular people just looking to be a little more healthy, it can be more detrimental than helpful when taken too seriously. “Virtually all long-range studies on workout-tracking via smartwatches have shown that, while the tracking can be exciting and motivating feedback maybe at first, the feeling wanes for almost everyone,” she says. “Most people need a more personal or impactful reward than data in order to achieve long-term adherence to exercise.”
Watson agrees. “While this information is undoubtedly valuable, unless you’re competing for a podium position in your field and working with a coach who can interpret all the data, focusing too much on the myriad of metrics available can take your mind further away from where it should be: on the activity in hand.” With this in mind, I use my phone’s health data as a general point of reference to notice trends over time but don’t pay too much attention to the nitty-gritty details.
Battery life
Flagship smartwatches can have a battery life ranging anywhere from 18 to several days, depending on your usage and if there’s a low-power mode. Fitness trackers, on the other hand, can often go for weeks off a single charge, though they sacrifice more powerful software features like app syncing and voice assistants.
You should also look for a smartwatch that supports quick charging. If you only charge overnight, that might not seem like an important feature with a fresh watch, but batteries deteriorate over time and you’ll need to plug it in more often, so you’ll want a watch that’s with you for the long haul. This has come in handy for me when I’ve needed to top off my aging watch before a night out, especially on days where I tracked a workout.
Because battery life on smartwatches is so dependent on your activity level and how often you track workouts, battery life will vary from person to person. I’ve listed the estimated maximum battery life for each watch in both standard mode and low power mode (when possible).
Water/dust resistance
Unlike smartphones, smartwatches don’t have the benefit of being protected by something like your pocket, bag, or a protective case. They’re exposed on your wrist all the time, leaving them more vulnerable to damage from falls, general clumsiness, or unfortunate weather.
Most smartwatches will come with an IP (Ingress Protection) rating, which indicates how resistant they are to water and dust. The higher the IP rating, the better the protection. Some watches use the more traditionalwater-resistance rating, given in atmospheres (ATM) of pressure.
Screen size
The bigger your watch’s screen, the easier it’ll be to read at a distance. At the same time, bigger screens may look and feel more obtrusive on your wrist, depending on your wrist size (I have fairly small wrists and even larger screens feel fine to me, so your mileage may vary). Smartwatch sizes usually range from 36 to 46 mm., but if you’re unsure of which size to go with on models with multiple options, it’s best to go into a store and see how each looks on your wrist before taking the plunge.
Cellular support
Many smartwatches offer both GPS-only and cellular models of their flagship smartphones. The Bluetooth-only models (sometimes labeled as the GPS model) can only receive notifications and new information when in close proximity to your phone, while the cellular options allow you to take a call from your wrist even if you’ve left your phone behind. Typically, you’ll need to pay an additional fee for your watch to access a cellular network, so keep that in mind. Do note, though, that you don’t need a cellular model to track workouts without your phone nearby; if you go on a run or bike ride (or any other activity your watch can track), the watch will sync that data when you’re back near your phone.
Best smartwatch overall for iOS
![Apple Watch SE 3 [GPS]](https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/9d2/701/71034f8b27e1f9adfcb9339de984bfa97c-apple-watch-se-3.rsquare.w215.jpg)
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Platform support:iOS |Health and fitness tracking:Heart rate and irregular heartbeat, ovulation cycle, sleep cycle, fall and crash detection, and workout tracking for walks, runs, cycling, and strength training |Battery life:18 hours (32 hours in low-power mode) |Water/dust resistance:Water resistance up to 50 m. |Display size:40-mm. and 44-mm. |Cellular support:Bluetooth-only and cellular models
If you have an iPhone, there’s little reason to get a smartwatch other than the Apple Watch. In previous years, we’ve recommended the flagship version of Apple’s smartwatches, but the Apple Watch SE 3, which was released last October alongside the Series 11, has nearly all the same features as the more expensive Series 11. Its bezels are slightly larger and it lacks EKG and blood oxygen monitoring, but that’s well worth spending $150 less.
This is the first in the Apple Watch’s SE line to have an always-on display, and it’s as good as any other Apple Watch’s screen. It’s bright enough to read your texts even in direct sunlight and provides information at a glance without having to grab your phone. Its models are slightly smaller than the options available for the Series 11 — 40- and 44-millimeter models versus 42 and 46 millimeters — but both are big enough to see from a distance. Like the Series 10, the SE 3 can last up to 18 hours on a single charge, or 32 hours in low-power mode. That means you’ll probably have to charge it every day, which hasn’t been true of the Series 11 in my testing, but that’s a negligible trade-off for the SE 3’s notably lower price. It’s also not a huge issue as this is the first in Apple’s SE line to have fast charging; about 15 minutes of charging is enough to get you through the rest of the night if you’re heading out.
What makes the SE 3 such a noteworthy upgrade over the SE 2, though, is that unlike its predecessor, this model has the same processor as the latest flagship Apple Watch. Both the SE 3 and Series 11 use Apple’s S10 chip, and performance seems about equal on both in my testing. This brings features that were previously limited to the flagship models, namely the double-tap and wrist-flick gestures, as well as on-device Siri. Those gestures are handy if you want to do things like answer calls, pause music, and dismiss notifications without having to tap your watch’s screen, and it’s nice that such conveniences are no longer locked to Apple’s pricier watches.
The SE 3 is packed with health-tracking features, too. It can track your heart rate (and tell you when it’s irregular) and your sleep (and look for signs of sleep apnea) as well as your ovulation cycle. Unlike the Series 11, however, this watch doesn’t have blood oxygen monitoring or an EKG sensor. If you need (or just want) to monitor as much of your heart health as possible, you may prefer the Series 11, but most people will do fine with the metrics the SE 3 is capable of tracking.
It’s worth noting that unlike the flagship Apple Watch, the SE doesn’t get updated every year, so there’s a chance that this year’s Apple Watch does get a significant update and the SE 3 loses feature parity. That said, Apple Watch updates have been quite marginal over the past several years, and even the Series 9 is still a solid watch, so I’m confident the SE 3 will have plenty of longevity.
Best upgrade smartwatch for iOS
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Platform support:iOS |Health and fitness tracking:Heart rate and irregular heartbeat, ovulation cycle, sleep cycle, fall and crash detection, and workout tracking for walks, runs, cycling, swimming, and strength training |Battery life:24 hours (38 in low-power mode) |Water/dust resistance:IP6X, water-resistant up to 50 meters |Display size:42-mm. and 46-mm. models |Cellular support:Bluetooth-only and cellular models
Although the Series 11 has more in common with the SE 3 than differences, its upgrades are worth the additional cost if you want a watch with a larger display, more robust health-tracking features, and slightly longer battery life. Those extra health features are particularly noteworthy, as the Series 11 can monitor your blood oxygen levels, do on-demand EKGs, and notify you of hypertension.
I didn’t miss those extra health-tracking features when I switched from the Series 11 to the SE 3 for testing, but the drop in battery life was noticeable. I had to charge the SE 3 every night before bed so I could use it to track my sleep, but I could usually wear my Series 11 to bed and wake up with some juice leftover. I’ve found that super-handy if I get home late from a night out or just forget to toss it on the charger for an hour while I get ready for bed, but you may not notice the boost if you’re frequently by your charger.
Best rugged smartwatch for iOS
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Platform support: iOS |Health and fitness tracking: Heart rate and irregular heartbeat, ovulation cycle, sleep cycle, fall and crash detection, and workout tracking for walks, runs, cycling, swimming, and strength training |Battery life: 42 hours standard, up to 72 hours in low power mode |Water/dust resistance: IP6X |Display size: 49-mm. |Cellular support: Bluetooth-only and cellular models
While the SE 3 has a lot in common with the Series 11, that’s even more true of the Apple Watch Ultra 3. It has all the same health-tracking features and core functionality, but in a more rugged case with emergency satellite radios inside, a brighter and larger display, and longer battery life. It’s twice the price of the cheapest Series 11 model, but this is not a simple matter of more is more but rather how you use your smartwatch. If you spend your weekends out on the trails or camping, or need a watch that’s durable enough to withstand a bumpy bike ride, this is arguably worth the extra cost. But its brighter display and longer battery life alone don’t justify its high price tag; if that’s all you’re looking for, the Series 11 is more than sufficient.
That’s especially true with the display. In previous years, the difference between the Ultra and the larger Apple Watch models was more noticeable — though still not enough to make a huge difference — but now it’s negligible. While it’s true that the Ultra undeniably looks bigger, it doesn’t do much more than let you see a tiny bit more on the screen.
That said, whenever I move from an Apple Watch Ultra to a regular Apple Watch, I always miss the Action Button. You can program it to start a workout in your app of choice, launch a custom automation from theShortcuts app, or even just turn your watch’s screen into a flashlight (though it’s not as bright as your phone’s flashlight function). I have mine connected to a Shortcut that lets me dictate my thoughts to my notes app. It’s not a crucial feature — I can always pull out my phone to quickly start a workout — but it’s hard to go back once you’ve gotten used to it.
Best smartwatch overall for Samsung phone users
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Platform support:Android |Health and fitness tracking:Heart rate and ECG monitoring, sleep cycle, and workout tracking for walks, runs, cycling, and strength training |Battery life:30 hours |Water/dust resistance:IP68 |Display size:40-mm. and 44-mm. |Cellular support:Bluetooth-only and cellular models
Consider this Samsung’s version of the Apple Watch: It’s the company’s flagship model, and it works best with Samsung phones, though it does work with non-Samsung Android phones, too. The Classic version of the Watch8 has a dial around thesquircle-shaped display that’s both fun to play with and useful thanks to its added functionality (you use it to move between tiles such as a workout launcher, your health dashboard, a media controller, or custom options from third-party apps) . You can get a model without it, but I’d only recommend that if the look of the dial doesn’t appeal to you — I wish my Apple Watch had one.
Other than that, both the Watch8 and Watch8 Classic have the same processor and sensors as the Watch7, so if you have that model, it’s safe to skip this one. But if your smartwatch is starting to slow down, I truly enjoy using the Watch8. I tested the 44-millimeter model, and its screen was bright enough to see in direct sunlight; text also looked crisp on it thanks to the OLED display. Battery life is on par with the Apple Watch Series 11: You’ll get a little over a day’s worth of a full charge, and you can recharge enough in less than an hour to get through the rest of the night.
On the fitness front, the Watch8 has all the same features as the Watch7, including workout tracking for runs, swims, and bike rides; sleep tracking; and heart-rate monitoring. You can use the watch without usingSamsung’s Health app (which has features like turn-by-turn directions while hiking or cycling), but not all features are accessible outside Samsung’s first-party apps, which you’ll have to use for things such asECG monitoring and sleep-apnea detection. Overall, you’ll have to use two apps to totally manage the watch (Galaxy Wearable and Samsung Health). If you’re already in the Samsung ecosystem, that won’t be too much of a hassle, but you’ll have to deal with a bit more friction if you’re on a Google Pixel or another Android device.
I have one main issue with this watch: I cannot get used to its button arrangement. Perhaps it’s because I’m an Apple Watch user by default, but the Watch8’s three-button arrangement consistently throws me off. Where pressing the Apple Watch’s digital crown opens the watch’s app list, the Watch8’s opens the workout menu; the home screen button is right above that one. That’s probably useful if you use your watch mainly as a fitness tracker, but it feels counterintuitive to assign a core function to a secondary button.
Still, I do appreciate how much youcancustomize those buttons. The center button can be programmed to do many of the same things as the Apple Watch Ultra’s Action button. You can assign functions to double and long pressing the center button, including launching Google Assistant and going to your most recent app. Finally, the bottom button, which mostly services as a back button, can either move to the previous screen or show all your recent apps.
Best smartwatch for non-Samsung Android users
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Platform support:Android |Health and fitness tracking:Heart rate and ECG, sleep cycle, and workout tracking for walks, runs, cycling, and fall detection |Battery life:40 hours |Water/dust resistance:IP68 |Display size:41-mm. and 45-mm. |Cellular support:Bluetooth-only and cellular models
Unlike the new Galaxy and Apple watches, Google’s Pixel Watch 4 is more than a marginal improvement over the previous version. It has a slightly larger and brighter display that’s now domed rather than totally flat and a new side-mounted charging mechanism, plus a replaceable battery and display. That, plus upgraded specs like a faster processor and better speaker, make it the best watch for non-Samsung Android devices, and the best Pixel Watch to date.
The domed display — which gets as bright as the Apple Watch Ultra 3 — gives the Watch 4 a unique look that’s quite fun compared to the flat screen on the Galaxy Watch8. It comes in both 41-mm. and 45-mm. sizes and has an always-on display that’s easy to see in direct sunlight. It seems like a minor tweak — for many it may feel that way, too — but Google’s colorfulMaterial 3 Expressiveinterface takes full advantage of it by making UI elements feel like they’re coming from the edges of the screen. And if you use this watch with a Pixel phone, it’ll even sync the primary color of your device’s theme so the devices feel more like one unit rather than two devices working in tandem. That doesn’t allow you to actually do more on your watch, but it does make doing things feel more fun than Apple’s utilitarian watchOS design.
Under the hood, the Watch 4’s faster processor will ensure it gets more software updates than the Watch 3, plus overall snappier performance, and the longer battery life has given me up to a day and a half out of a single charge. On that note, I’m a big fan of the new charger Google included with the Watch 4. Unlike previous models that wirelessly attach to the back of the watch — which is also what the Apple and Galaxy watches have — the charger acts like a stand that charges your phone while keeping the display upright. Because of that, you can use it like an alarm clock without resting the watch itself on your desk or nightstand. As for charging speeds, you can get from 10 percent back up to fully charged in just about an hour, so you won’t have to go long without tracking your steps.
On the health front, it can monitor your heart rate for irregular rhythms, has sleep and workout tracking, and has Fitbit integrations like more accurate heart-rate monitoring, A-fib detection, stress monitoring, and sleep tracking. It’ll also track your heart rate in “zones” depending on the intensity of your workout and give you guidance on pacing to prevent you from pushing yourself too far. The Watch 4 also has improved GPS tracking, so if you like to map your runs or rides, they’ll be more accurate than with previous models. Finally, it’s faster to start automatically tracking workouts: After 15 minutes of observed activity, the watch will automatically start logging a workout — it’ll even try to specify what kind of workout it is. If it gets it wrong, you can edit it post-workout and Google’s machine learning will improve over time to better guess what you’re doing.
Google also included some nifty new software features that make the Watch 4 more useful than its predecessors. It supports Google’s Gemini assistant, which you can trigger by simply raising your wrist, rather than having to hold down a button or say “Hey, Google.” The Watch 4 also uses Gemini to generate automatic replies to messages, though it’s not always the most accurate.
I love that Google has made this the first flagship smartwatch that’s easily repairable. Where previous models just had to be replaced when severely damaged, the Pixel Watch 4’s display and battery are easy to swap out; all you have to do is send your device back to Google — or go to one of the company’s fewbrick-and-mortarstores — and wait for it to fix it. The company doesn’t recommend doing it yourself, but you can get arepair kitif you’re particularly daring or know what you’re doing.
Best rugged smartwatch for Android users
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Platform support:Android |Health and fitness tracking:Heart rate and ECG monitoring, sleep cycle, and workout tracking for walks, runs, cycling, and strength training |Battery life:Three days |Water/dust resistance:IP68 |Display size:47-mm. |Cellular support:Bluetooth-only and cellular models
Samsung’s version of the Apple Watch Ultra didn’t receive an upgrade last year, but it’s still a worthwhile purchase if you want an Android-friendly watch that’s better suited for the weekend-warrior lifestyle. It has a more rugged design than the Galaxy Watch 8, the same processor, and longer battery life (a little under three days in my testing). I do wish, however, that its bezels weren’t quite so large. The display itself is circular, but the watch has a squarer shape with corners around the circle that make the watch look quite bulky. Despite having a similar footprint to the Apple Watch Ultra 2, this watch doesn’t look nearly as sleek
Best for fitness tracking
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Platform support:iOS andAndroid |Health and fitness tracking:Heart rate monitoring, sleep cycle and menstrual cycle tracking, and workout tracking for walks, runs, cycling, golfing, swimming, and fall detection |Battery life:11 days |Water/dust resistance:5 ATM (water resistant up to 50 meters) |Display size:41-mm. |Cellular support:Bluetooth-only
If you’re not sure whether you can commit to Android or iOS for more than a year or two, or you like to lean heavily into thefitness aspectof wearables, get Garmin’s Vívoactive 6, which works with both operating systems. It has a bright display that’s perfectly visible in broad daylight and multi-day battery life — and it is able to receive emails, texts, and alerts just like a smartwatch.
Garmin specializes in making fitness trackers, and this one is chock-full of tracking capabilities: There are countless different types of workouts it can track, including running, cycling, swimming, Pilates, elliptical workouts, rowing, kayaking, and evenwheelchair-based activities. There’s also a new smart alarm feature that gently nudges you awake at the ideal time based on your sleep metrics.
In addition to being a solid fitness tracker, the Vívoactive 6 has the longest battery life of any watch on this list, and it’s not even close. This watch can last for up to 11 days on a single charge, meaning you might not even have to worry about bringing a charger with you if you’re going away for the weekend.
In exchange for longer battery life, you do lose the integration that true smartwatches like the Apple Watch and Pixel Watch offer. You won’t be able to download the same apps or unlock your phone without passcodes or biometrics; notification interactions are also more limited than what you can get with a first-party smartwatch. If you’re mostly looking to track your workouts and stay on top of your health data, Garmin’s tech can’t be beat, but you won’t get a full-blown smartwatch experience. For that, it’s best to go with one of our other recommendations.
Best (upgrade) smartwatch for fitness tracking
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Platform support:iOS andAndroid |Health and fitness tracking:Heart rate monitoring, sleep cycle and menstrual cycle tracking, and workout tracking for walks, runs, cycling, golfing, swimming, and fall detection |Battery life:16 days |Water/dust resistance:10 ATM (water resistant up to 100 meters) |Display size:43-mm., 47-mm, and 51-mm. |Cellular support:Bluetooth-only
Strategist contributor Brent Rose says this is thebest sports watch ever made. It’s a part of Garmin’s do-everything line of watches; there’s even golf and surf tracking. It has a vibrant, bright AMOLED display that’s visible indoors and outdoors, and an LED flashlight. That’s particularly useful, as at best, most other smartwatches have a “flashlight” mode that turns the whole screen white to give you some illumination, but not much.
Like the Vívoactive 6, this watch can last for days. In fact, Rose says it lasted up to two weeks in his testing. It also has top-of-the-line GPS and vitals sensors, making it a suitable companion for marathon training or staying on course during a long hike or bike ride. You can even get on-device coaching to help you reach your goals. While the Vívoactive 6 offers a lot of those same features, the Fenix’s much better sensors will give you more accurate readings. Additionally, its multiband GPS allows you to retrace your steps if you get lost on a hike; it even comes with a preinstalled map of North America.
Our experts
- Casey Johnston, writer ofShe’s a Beast
- Victoria Song, senior reviewer at the Verge
- Thomas Watson, ultrarunner and editor-in-chief ofMarathon Handbook
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