The Apple Watch Series 9 offers a broad suite of built-in lifestyle, fitness, health, and safety tools, plus the best selection of third-party apps for any smartwatch. The newest version features an impressively bright 2,000-nit display (up from 1,000 nits last generation) for improved outdoor visibility without an impact on battery life. Its new S9 SiC chip enables even more features, like on-device Siri processing, precise directional device finding with the iPhone 15 family, and a double-tap gesture for one-handed operation. With these upgrades, the Series 9 remains the best iPhone-compatible smartwatch for most buyers. Who It's For As the latest device in the mainline Apple Watch range, the Series 8 builds upon the solid foundations of its predecessors by bringing a few new features to the table, making the watchOS experience better than ever.

OMRON is better known for a wide range of clinical devices that includes blood pressure monitors, Nebulisers, thermometers and pain relievers. Let's not forget: You're also going to wear this thing. And unlike your Timex, it's probably not going to remain in style for years. Smartwatch design is rapidly changing, so hold out until you find something you actually want to wear. And keep in mind that smartwatches are still gadgets. The coming year is sure to bring new iterations of pretty much every watch on this list, not to mention completely new ones. Other smartwatch brands that did not provide us with information on minimum update support periods include: Amazfit, Huawei, Mobvoi, Realme and Xiaomi.The Garmin Vivomove Trend has a fantastic design, offering a combination of an analogue case and a traditional watch-faced design with a discreetly hidden display. It can be found in four colours, Cream Fold, Slate, Peach Gold and Silver, giving customers plenty of choice when it comes to styling. Safety features include Emergency SOS, Fall Detection, and irregular heart rate and rhythm notifications. Cellular SE models also now support international emergency calling, so you can reach emergency services in more than 120 countries and regions without your phone while traveling. On the health front, we especially like the automatic 20-second handwashing timer. Who It's For If it can detect movement it will wait for input, but if it doesn’t detect any motion after a minute it will automatically call 911 (in the USA) and get you assistance.

Overall it doesn’t boast the amount of upgrades that Garmin Fenix fans were probably hoping for, but that doesn’t mean that the Fenix 7 Pro isn’t still a great watch for fitness enthusiasts, and unless you want a few more smartwatch features from the more expensive Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2), then you’ll get on well with what’s on offer here. The first digit after the IP reflects the level of protection against solids, such as dust or grit. The second represents the protection against moisture. An IP code with an X in place of either number means the device hasn't been tested for that element. With the third-generation, Apple Watch fall detection was first introduced. It isn’t configured as on by default, but making it active isn’t difficult.

There are a few exceptions, including the Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 5 and the Apple Watch Ultra 2, which offer multi-day battery life. In general, you get much better battery life with a Fitbit or Garmin watch. They typically last around six days on a single charge. Unlike the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, the regular Watch 6 is a small upgrade compared to its predecessor – the Watch 5. This more affordable option ditches the Classic’s physical rotating bezel for an underwhelming virtual version, but it’s still excellent in many areas. We test smartwatches during low-intensity exercise, high-intensity running and cycling as well as while resting, to see how accurately each one monitors your heart rate. We compare these results to those taken by chest belts, which are known to be much more accurate. One smartwatch we tested from a popular brand was more than 60% out when measuring heart rate at rest. You’ll also want to make sure it’s compatible with your smartphone – some are only for iPhone or Android, while others support most phones.

Galaxy Watch 6 smartwatches run Wear OS 4 with Samsung's One UI 5 Watch software. They require a smartphone running Android 10 or higher with more than 1.5GB of RAM. Note that although you can pair the Watch 6 with non-Samsung Android phones, some features work only with Samsung handsets, including irregular heart rhythm notifications, phone separation alerts, and the Camera Controller app.Fitbit watches still run their own operating system (despite being owned by Google) and so will work well with iPhones too – and even some Wear OS watches are compatible with iOS too. Meanwhile other manufacturers like Amazfit and Huawei also run their own software, and often work well with both types of phone.