Smartwatches offer notifications, fitness tracking, and more. Choosing one is the hard part, so to help, here is our list of the best smartwatches in 2023.
Smartwatches allow us to live like Dick Tracy by giving us notifications, health/fitness tracking, the ability to send and receive calls and messages, play music, set timers, and do various tasks via voice command, and so much more — all on our wrists. It truly is a great time to be alive, because smartwatches just keep getting better and better. But what are the best smartwatches?
For most people, we think the Apple Watch Series 8 is the best smartwatch, especially if you are already an Apple user with an iPhone. But we know that not everyone uses an iPhone, because there are a ton of Android phones out there, and Apple Watches only work with iPhones, unfortunately. Still, there are plenty of Android smartwatches out there as well (and many of these work on either platform), so there’s something for everyone.
Without further delay, here are our picks for the best smartwatches in 2023!
Apple Watch Series 8 Best smartwatch
Why you should buy this: It’s the best smartwatch available.
Who it’s for: Anyone who seeks a beautiful, feature-rich, easy-to-use, fitness-oriented smartwatch.
Why we picked the Apple Watch Series 8: The Apple Watch Series 8 follows closely in the footsteps of its predecessor, the Series 7. Apple’s smartwatch is currently the best watch money can buy. Its style has been slightly updated over the years but has mostly stayed consistent with its signature rounded square design. Its large screen and slim bezels combine with 1,000 nits of peak brightness to make all data easy to see and interact with on its always-on display.
Despite the market competition for fitness trackers from the likes of Fitbit, Garmin, Amazfit, and others, Apple Watch’s health and activity apps remain the easiest to use and its activity rings have evolved as a linchpin for the activity metrics genre — covering disparate activities like steps, distance, heart rate, blood oxygen, and sleep.
New features in the Series 8 dovetail with watchOS 9 to show real-time heart rate zones and facilitate custom workouts and sleep tracking. Features include car crash detection and automatic contact of emergency services. The Compass app shows the current direction and degree and indicates a permanent marker depicting north at the top of the screen. For those with no sense of direction, a new Backtrack feature helps retrace your steps. The Medications app tracks the medicine and vitamin intake, atrial fibrillation patients can use the watch to track their AFib history, and the Calendar app lets you create events directly on the watch. Battery life lasts a day — sometimes longer — and supports fast charging.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Best smartwatch for Android
Why you should buy this: It’s ideal for people with smaller wrists who want a fully tricked-out smartwatch.
Who it’s for: Anyone who values fast charging and improved health tracking on a Wear OS watch.
Why we picked the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5: Despite abundant similarities to its predecessor and fairly iterative improvements, Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 5 features a larger battery, faster charging, a durable design, and enhanced health tracking. The only difference is the larger 3-in-1 BioActive Sensor at the bottom, designed for more accurate health data. The Watch 5 is a bit heavy but is so comfy it almost disappears on your wrist and is especially fitting for smaller wrists.
The 40mm model’s always-on Super AMOLED display measures 1.2 inches with 396 x 396-pixel resolution, while the 44mm is 1.4 inches at 450 x 450 resolution. It has an easy button or swipe interface and bright colors, with an ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts brightness and is easy to see in direct sunlight. It’s powered by Samsung’s Exynos W920 chipset, 1.5GB of RAM, and 16GB of internal storage. It runs Wear OS 3.5 and the company’s One UI Watch 4.5.
The Galaxy Watch 5 battery life is respectable, but nowhere near the company’s claims of 40 to 50 hours. Fast charging worked extremely well — better than Samsung’s claims — but the Galaxy Watch 5 uses restrictive WPC charging instead of Qi, so it’s not compatible with third-party chargers.
Google Assistant is available and works well and the watch features a full QWERTY keyboard for tap and swipe typing. The software now supports dual-SIM switching for multiple SIMs. While there’s easy access to a range of Google apps, there’s a paucity of third-party apps available. Health tracking includes step tracking, auto workout detection, manual workout tracking, and sleep tracking, accompanied by 24/7 heart-rate monitoring, SpO2 tracking, an ECG app, and a Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis sensor for viewing body fat, skeletal muscle, body water, and more.
Amazfit GTR 4 Best budget smartwatch
Why you should buy this: It does everything you want a smartwatch to do and looks great.
Who it’s for: Anyone on a budget who seeks all the benefits of a fitness tracker and a smartwatch.
Why we picked the Amazfit GTR 4: Don’t let its low price fool you. The Amazfit GTR 4 has all the functionality you’ll ever need in a smartwatch. It runs on the Zepp 2.0 operating system and features a large 1.43-inch AMOLED display with an anti-fingerprint and anti-glare technology on the glass bezel. Its one-piece aluminum alloy middle frame and stainless steel navigation crown look elegant and attractive. In addition to its dual-band polarized GPS, it ensures 99% accurate positioning compared with other high-quality handheld GPS locators. It even lets you import a route file from the Zepp App, so you can navigate in real time. For sports and fitness activities, it offers a selection of over 150 sports modes and recognizes eight specific sports. It supports live notifications for heart rate and hydration, distance, and more. The fitness tracker can track swimming data and withstand up to 50 meters of water pressure. The Amazfit GTR 4 also makes a huge splash with a new BioTracker 4.0 PPG biometric sensor, which gives you accurate 24-hour monitoring of heart rate, blood-oxygen saturation, breathing rate, and stress levels.
All that functionality requires a top-notch battery, and the Amazfit GTR 4 can operate for up to two weeks without needing a charge, while the watch’s new battery-saver mode enables continued use of sports modes and health metrics measurements even while saving power. The watch can be used with Amazon Alexa, supports offline voice commands, and enables phone calls via your phone’s Bluetooth connection. You can even add membership cards and store codes for convenient shopping around town.
Apple Watch Ultra Best luxury smartwatch
Why you should buy this: This is a beautifully constructed smartwatch built with high-quality materials, the ultimate health and safety functionality, and outstanding battery life.
Who it’s for: Those iPhone owners who can afford to buy the most functional smartwatch available.
Why we picked the Apple Watch Ultra: If you want a big beautiful smartwatch, and you have some money to burn, do not hesitate to consider the Apple Watch Ultra. It’s not just for athletes, deep-sea divers, and marathoners. It’s almost the same old Apple Watch, only bigger at 49mm by 44mm by 14mm and 61 grams (sans band). We said almost because it also sports a brand new orange Action Button that triggers the Workout mode by default, but can be customized to do many other things, and also serves as the emergency siren that emits a frightful noise if you are in trouble.
Its luxury status is derived from its superior build quality — titanium case, sapphire crystal cover, and ceramic back. Its beauty is enhanced by a rugged exterior that meets MIL-STD 810H standards, IP6X dust resistance, and 100-meter water resistance that’s great for diving.
It offers the same workout modes, shows the same information, and generally operates analogously to its sibling Apple Watches — except you can see everything so much better on its larger 49mm screen. Battery life lives up to the hype of 36 hours per single charge on a battery built with 76% more capacity than other Apple Watches. With normal, non-extreme work-athletic use, you can squeeze three days out of one Apple Watch Ultra battery charge.
Garmin Quatix 6 Best smartwatch for swimmers
Why you should buy this: It’s specifically designed for people who spend time in the water, whether it’s on a boat or swimming.
Who it’s for: Swimmers, or those who require a water-resistant smartwatch.
Why we picked the Garmin Quatix 6: The Garmin Quatix 6 is described as a marine smartwatch, due to its strong features for anyone who spends time in the water, whether it’s on a boat or swimming. Water-resistant to 100 meters, the Quatix 6 has activity profiles for pool and open water swimming, where it measures distance, pace, stroke count and rate, swim efficiency (SWOLF), and will even detect your stroke type and take heart rate measurements underwater.
If you’re into boating, the Quatix 6 connects to a host of Garmin equipment from chart plotting GPS hardware to wind monitors. It can interact with the autopilot function, display data like engine RPM and water depth, and mark waypoints on a map.
