Smartwatches have come a long way from when they were first introduced. Many modern watches available today are now capable and powerful enough to replace your phones for tasks such as taking calls, making payments or receiving/sending messages. The smartwatch market has never been more lucrative as companies are investing more in smartwatches now than they have ever done.
Smartwatches have also evolved into much more than they used to be thanks to merging with the fitness industry. Many fitness enthusiasts like to track everything about their regime, from their food intake to their workouts to their sleep. Tracking all of this can become very bothersome unless it’s all built into one device such as a phone or smartwatch.
However, many people don’t prefer using their phones when working out or running which is why smartwatches have become perhaps the most preferred device for fitness freaks. If you’re unsure of which smartwatch to buy, here are the best smartwatches available right now:
Apple Watch Series 3
Although Apple gets a lot of criticism for setting incredibly high prices for their products, the quality always delivers. The Apple smartwatch is not even the most expensive one out there but it’s arguably the world’s best. The best thing about the Apple Watch Series 3 is that it’s an all-purpose watch with plenty of cool fitness features. Therefore, you can use the watch for a lot more things that aren’t related to fitness.
The small watch has a lot of power alongside a bright and beautiful screen. The Apple Watch Series 3 comes with the latest WatchOS 4 which provides more fitness features than any of the previous smartwatches, thus, making it the more suitable option fitness-wise amongst all other Apple watches. It has all the basics such as calorie counting, steps, daily food requirements, heart, sleep and much more.
The GPS in the watch is also a great thing to have that sets it apart from a few other options available. With the help of GPS, you can accurately track the distance of your running/jogging/walking session and it also means you can leave your phone at home during these sessions. Moreover, GPS is available for all sorts of activities such as running, swimming etc.
The watch is waterproof for up to 50 meters, which is remarkably deep, meaning that you can take the watch for swimming without worry. The Series 3 also has an altimeter, which is a godsend for people who love to hike or those who like going to places at high altitude. The altimeter is able to tell changes in altitude and thus, informs you accordingly.
The smartwatch also has great utility features and to cap it all of; it also has an 18-hour battery which will easily get you through the day. You can get the watch for around $330 or close to $400 if you want the one with GPS and cellular services.
Samsung Gear Sport
The Samsung Gear Sport is another smartwatch that’s not only good for daily usage, but it’s also a great pick for fitness, making it an overall great watch. The Gear Sport comes with all the essentials for fitness, including all the required sensors to track your workouts, sleep, heart rate etc.
The design for the Gear Sport is simplistic, you won’t be able to tell that it’s a fitness or sporty watch, it’ll fit right in with any sort of clothing. The watch has a rotating bezel and it’s no slouch when it comes to power either, it’s a pretty powerful device. The battery is great too as it’s able to last 2-3 days depending on usage, so you won’t need to worry about charging it every single day.
One of the best parts of the watch is its 5ATM waterproofing. The 5ATM waterproofing standard is in place to make sure that no matter how deep the device goes or how much water gets exposed to it, the device will not let any water get inside it. To put into perspective, 1 ATM is roughly 50 meters of water depth and the Gear Sport has 5ATM waterproofing, you don’t have to worry about water damage with this device.
The watch also works great with the significantly improved Samsung Health app. The app is not only able to track your workouts effectively, but it also gives you reminders to meet your goals if you’re falling behind and you can also track your calories with it as well. The app is also in collaboration with companies like Under Armour and MapMyFitness. Therefore, you can simply send all your data to a different system according to your needs.
Fitbit Versa
Fitbit never disappoints in delivering top quality fitness smartwatches. The latest Fitbit Versa adds to the list of top quality fitness watches available right now. Comfortable, lightweight, alongside a sleek design and affordable price, you can’t go wrong with the Versa.
The Versa has over 15 different exercise modes and it will also display your workout stats such as calories burned during the workout. It also gives a postworkout summary in order for you to assess each of your workouts. The smartwatch not only comes with waterproofing but it also comes with tracking the number of laps or distance traveled during swimming, thus, putting the waterproofing to a meaningful use.
The watch is also a powerful one and it uses its own optimized OS that doesn’t run into any performance lags. The display is also better than ever with the Versa and to cap it all off, the watch has an amazing battery life. The advertised battery life is 4 days and even if that might be misleading, it can fully charge in 2 hours, so that’s not a big issue. Apart from the fitness related stuff, the watch is a decent choice overall too as it has a ton of apps and features, such as music, notifications and even the option to make ‘contactless’ payments through its NFC chip.
Despite being much cheaper than its predecessor, the Fitbit Ionic, no compromise has been made on quality with the Versa and overall, it’s an amazing watch with tons of features and capabilities. You can buy the watch for $200, making it one of the most affordable fitness smartwatches out there alongside being one of the best. You can also find an in-depth review here.
Suunto 3 Fitness
Being another cheap option on this list, don’t let its price fool you, it has a ton of fitness features that will absolutely blow you away and make it look like a bargain. The watch has a decent design and it comes with its own app that integrates with the watch to log all your workouts and give you weekly summaries to help you stay on track.
The watch can measure and produce stats for a lot of activities, such as running, cycling, swimming, gym training, hiking etc. It can also measure speed, cadence and distance traveled alongside sleep. It doesn’t just measure sleep, the quality of sleep matters as well so it also tells you how well you’ve been sleeping and how your recovery throughout the day is coming along. The watch has all the fitness essentials one would need, but that’s not it, there’s more to this watch.
The feature that sets this watch apart from all the other ones is the adaptive training guidance feature. The feature acts like a personal trainer and takes into account your current fitness level and previous training history along with other measurements such as weight, height etc.
Using all of the information you provide it with, the watch’s adaptive training will give you a sample seven-day plan to follow, specifying the intensity and duration of each workout and going over the workouts exercise by exercise. It’s a great feature to have especially if you like apps that make workouts for you and love switching things up every now and then.
The guidance feature also automatically readjusts your schedule if you miss a workout by either altering the intensity or changing up the workout entirely to compensate for the missed workout. Therefore, in under $230 you can get a smartwatch that not only tracks your workouts, but creates them for you as well.