The line between fitness trackers and smartwatches has become ever more blurred over the years – most smartwatches stray into tracker territory and even the cheapest trackers provide notifications from a paired phone. That means that you can call pretty much any tracker a smartwatch (and some do), but we prefer to be a little more discerning when selecting our smart devices. Essential, that means we have some conditions that a wearable must meet for us to consider it truly smart.
It’s partly down to form factor. While a typical fitness tracker is typically a plastic wristband with a removable tracker that’s around 2.5cm in size, smartwatches tend to have larger faces allowing more data to be read on the screen. They also offer more features, providing not just notifications but also built-in software that makes them more of a “phone away from phone” – storage space for music, NFC for contactless payments, additional apps and so forth. And the very best smartwatches also bring top-quality activity and sports tracking, ideally using built-in GPS and a heart rate monitor.
Below you’ll find a range of smartwatches that fit the bill, with models to suit all budgets and lifestyles.
The Best Fitness Smartwatches
The second generation of the Apple Watch Ultra mostly sticks to the set-up of the original, but the screen is now brighter and the processor faster, and the new watch also has Apple’s Double Tap feature. The updates don’t change the sports or fitness tracking experience much, but the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is comfortably the sportiest true smartwatch available, with impressive native tracking backed up by the App Store, which contains many brilliant sports tracking apps for committed athletes.
The Ultra 2’s upgrades are vital for sports and give it a serious advantage over the Apple Watch Series 9. Having double the battery life is obviously handy for long events, and the Ultra has more accurate multi-band GPS and the Action button, too, which can be used as a lap button. On many counts, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 rivals the best sports watches, while adding smarts and having a more attractive design.
Read more in my Apple Watch Ultra 2 review
The classic Apple Watch might not have some of the bells and whistles on the Ultra, but it’s still an excellent sporty smartwatch with a slimmer lighter design that’s more appealing in many ways. The Series 9 has the same software as the Ultra 2, so you get great native sports tracking and access to the App Store and its many sports apps.
Not having the Action button for laps is annoying at times, and the one-day battery life on the Series 9 means you have to have a plan for charging it each day if you want to track your sleep. However, it’s still a great sports and activity tracker, and a brilliant smartwatch; minor updates on the Series 8 include a faster processor, brighter screen and the new Double Tap gesture control.
Read more in my Apple Watch Series 9 review
The Pixel Watch 2 may not be a great sports watch, but it is an excellent activity and sleep tracker, and a proper smartwatch with the smooth integration of Google’s apps. It’s also a great-looking device, as well as being small and comfortable enough to wear 24/7. You’ll still have to take it off every day to charge it, but the battery life has been improved since the Pixel Watch and now lasts through the day reliably with the screen always-on.
The health, sports, sleep and activity tracking is all powered by Fitbit, which means it has similar strengths and weaknesses to Fitbit devices. The health features are impressive and include electrocardiogram and electrodermal activity measurements, and the sleep and activity tracking are good too. The sports tracking is basic, though, and falls short of the features and accuracy you get from the Apple Watch, let alone Garmin devices.
Read more in my Google Pixel Watch 2 review
Garmin leads the way in sports watches and its Fenix range has included some useful smart features in recent years too. However, it’s the Epix 2 that stands out as the best option for people who want a mix of smarts and top-notch sports tracking, because it adds a bright AMOLED touchscreen to the Fenix 7’s feature set.
The sports tracking is a significant step up on what you get from a smartwatch, with every detail of your workout logged and then fed through Garmin’s insightful training analysis tools to help you get fitter and faster. The Epix 2 also has colour maps and brilliant navigation tools to help you explore outdoors.
There’s music storage on the Epix 2 and you can link the watch to a Spotify Premium or Amazon Music account to sync playlists wirelessly for offline listening. The Epix 2 also has NFC payments and an app store, though the range and amount of apps available fall well short of what you get from the Apple or Android stores.
It’s a terrific watch that excels on the sports front and includes useful smart features, but the Epix 2 does come at a staggering cost. If you can live without its AMOLED screen you can get the same features and more battery life with the Fenix 7 for £200 less.
Read more in my Garmin Epix 2 review
The Venu 2 Plus plays nice with both iOS and Android phones, and pairs Garmin’s native sports tracking with smart features like an AMOLED display, music and NFC payments. The sports tracking is not as impressive as on the Epix 2, and the limited app store caveat applies here too, but it’s much cheaper than Garmin’s top watches and offers a notable upgrade on the native sports tracking on smartwatches.
Compared with the standard Venu 2, the Plus version of the watch allows you to make calls and use the voice assistant on your smartphone, using the new mic and speaker. These are two small but welcome steps towards true smartwatch status, and the Venu 2 Plus offers a good balance of sports and smarts for its price – though those who take their sport seriously will be better served by dipping into Garmin’s Forerunner range.
Read more in my Garmin Venu 2 Plus review
The Fitbit Sense 2 is not a brilliant smartwatch or sports watch, but if you’re committed to the Fitbit ecosystem and want great health tracking features in particular, it’s the watch to get. It actually lost a few smart features that were available on the original Fitbit Sense, including access to third-party apps like Spotify and Starbucks, but the Sense 2 does have the Google Pay and Google Maps apps, both of which are useful.
There is still a case for getting the original Sense since it has similar features to the Sense 2, but the Sense 2 has a sleeker design plus a functioning button as opposed to the useless touch panel on the Sense. We’re also being optimistic and hoping that more Google updates will come to the newer watch in time to make it smarter, though the arrival of the Google Pixel Watch might mean that’s where the smart money is for Fitbit users in future.
Read more in my Fitbit Sense 2 review
The Galaxy Watch 5 Pro has a hardier design and better battery life than the standard Watch 5, and the increase in durability will appeal to fitness-focused users in particular. It has built-in GPS and an advanced HR sensor that can take ECG measurements and track your body composition, though not always with accurate results in our experience.
There are advanced running features on the watch as well: it measures technique stats like ground contact time and vertical oscillation. However, while the activity and sleep tracking on the watch are good, the sports tracking is basic and often produced inaccurate GPS and HR tracking during testing. The Watch 5 Pro is a great Wear OS smartwatch and fine for casual sports use, and the relatively long battery life for a smartwatch is a boon.
Read more in my Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro review
Garmin’s entry-level smartwatch is a terrific option for those who want a good-looking device with great sports tracking at an affordable price. The AMOLED display on the watch is bright and clear in all conditions, and the battery life is impressive, lasting us six days even with heavy use.
The Venu Sq 2 Music is worth the upgrade on the standard Venu Sq 2 because of the music storage and ability to link up with streaming services like Spotify. Other key smart features include NFC payments through Garmin Pay and access to the Connect IQ app store, which does have useful apps even if it falls short of the range you get from the App Store and Google Play.
Read more in my Garmin Venu Sq 2 Music review
The GT Runner offers the most impressive native training analysis for runners we’ve seen on a smartwatch. Its sports tracking is good in general, with customisable data screens, training plans and structured workouts to follow. It also offers dual-band GPS tracking, though we were unimpressed with the accuracy of the GT Runner during our testing.
As with all Huawei watches that use its HarmonyOS software, there are few apps available compared with the App Store and Google Play, but there is a maps app among other useful options. In general you will need a Huawei or at least an Android phone to get the most from the GT Runner, which has several features, including music storage, that are not available to iPhone users.
Read more in my Huawei Watch GT Runner review
