We Tried Over A Dozen Smartwatches To Find Our Top Picks

Smartwatches are like tiny smartphones strapped to your wrist. Most support texting, calls, voice assistants, maps, fitness tracking, tap-to-pay and more. For many folks at NBC Select, a smartwatch is an essential wearable that enhances your everyday life.

But the best smartwatch for you is almost entirely decided by which smartphone is in your pocket. Many of the best smartwatches only work with iPhone or Android phones, not both. Some even have features that only work when paired with a specific type of smartphone. Smartwatches are often tailor-made to a specific smartphone, like a square peg built for a square hole, working in-tandem to deliver the best experience possible.

That’s why I’ve tested over a dozen smartwatches using Apple, Samsung and Google phones. Below you’ll learn about how smartwatches work and where each brand excels.

SKIP AHEAD Staff-favorite smartwatches in 2024 | How to get the most out of your smartwatch

Table of Contents

How we picked the best smartwatches

Most NBC Select staffers use a smartwatch — either for notifications, exercise or sleep tracking. Combining their experience with my time testing, we selected smartwatches keeping the following in mind:

Ease of use: Smartphones have so many features and options that they can easily become overwhelming. We selected products that are easy and enjoyable to use out of the box, both glancing at your wrist and scrolling in the app. We also favored watches that let you customize settings, watch faces and notifications to your liking.
Compatibility: Not all smartwatches are compatible with all smartphones — it’s quite the opposite. We included wearables for people with all kinds of smartphones.
Price: Most smartwatches cost between $100 and $500. We included wearables across different price points, but again, your choices are largely limited by which smartphone you own.

How I test smartwatches

I’ve tested over a dozen smartwatches for NBC Select. I am a runner and cyclist, and often use them to track and monitor stats like heart rate, pace and time. I am also the tech reporter at NBC Select, so I tend to spend hours tinkering with product settings, exploring what a product offers out of the box and what I can fine tune later.

I receive smartwatches from different brands, and test each watch for at least a week, using as many of the features as possible. I pair each watch with either an Apple, Samsung Galaxy or Google Pixel smartphone, depending on its compatibility.

Staff-favorite smartwatches in 2024

Most of our top overall picks come from Apple, Samsung and Google, companies that make up a large majority of smartphone sales in the U.S. All of our top picks have very similar features — they can all send and receive texts, make calls, use a voice assistant, track health and wellness metrics, log workouts, use apps, find your phone and more.

Our budget picks are slightly more limited — some cannot answer calls or lack an on-watch keyboard to type out texts. We discuss all of these limitations in each recommendation.

We linked to the Wi-Fi versions of these devices, but many of them also have Wi-Fi plus cellular versions that, when set up with their own phone plan, can do most tasks without being connected to your smartphone.

Best smartwatch for iPhone users: Apple Watch Series 9

What we like

Info-rich display
Syncs with most iOS apps

Despite constantly testing new smartwatches, the Apple Watch stubbornly remains on one of my wrists most of the time, at the very least to compare to other smartwatches. This Series 9 model is an NBC Select Wellness Award winner and a popular pick among the NBC Select team.

It has a large, square, always-on display with narrow bezels (the frame that borders the screen). The watch’s form-factor means it can comfortably show a lot of text on screen at once — I find it easy to read and swipe through notifications without accidental misclicks or swipes.

Compared to the previous model, the Series 9 has faster speeds, a brighter screen, improved Siri voice assistant functionality and a new gesture called “double tap.” When you raise your wrist and pinch your index finger and thumb together twice you can answer calls, open incoming notifications, control music and more. In cold-weather, “double tap” is much faster than peeling off my gloves and pulling back my long-sleeve layers to touch the watch’s screen. You can learn more about this feature in our Apple Watch Series 9 review.

It easily syncs with Apple apps like Health and Fitness to show data about your workouts, health and sleep. It can also take calls, send texts, make requests via Siri voice assistant and more.

The Series 9 gets up to 18 hours of battery life — less than Android options like the Galaxy Watch 6 and the Pixel Watch 2. It comes in two sizes, 41mm and 45mm, with many watch band options.

Best smartwatch for Samsung users: Samsung Galaxy Watch 6

What we like

Sleek and comfortable
Easily customizable

Something to note

Needs Samsung phone to use EKG

Voted the best smartwatch for Android in our NBC Select Giftable Tech Awards, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 stands out because of its sleek design, comfortable fit and customizable screen.

It has a circular always-on display that’s colorful and responsive. The watch has two buttons, which, by default act as a home and a back button. More importantly, you can reprogram these buttons to do other things like open a specific app or show your most recently used apps. I love physical buttons on watches — touch controls are not ideal for outdoor runs, hikes or bike rides, especially in bad weather or while wearing gloves.

You can customize watch faces directly on the watch itself or through Samsung’s Galaxy Wearable app. I used it to create multiple faces with custom stats, colors, fonts and layouts in minutes, and found the experience easier and more intuitive than with most other wearables.

It is compatible with all Android phones, but some of its features only work if you pair it with a Samsung phone, such as EKG readings, irregular heart rhythm notifications and smartphone camera control.

Like other smartwatches, it can send texts, answer calls, receive app notifications and more. It supports tap-to-pay, which I used to pay for groceries and public transport with no issue.

Best smartwatch for Google users: Google Pixel Watch 2

What we like

Syncs easily with Google apps
Automatic workout detection

Something to note

Love it or hate it round shape
Fiddly charger

The Pixel Watch 2 is a massive improvement from the original, with a plethora of upgrades that make it one of the best options for anyone with a Google Pixel phone. It has improved battery life, charging speed, health sensors, fitness tracking, safety features and more. It syncs easily with your Google account (think apps like Gmail, Google Calendar and YouTube), providing a similar seamless experience to an Apple or Samsung watch.

The watch has built-in Fitbit fitness tracking. Similar to the Fitbit Charge 6, it automatically detects walking, running, biking, treadmill, elliptical, rower and spin exercises after 5 minutes (15 for walking), and asks if you’d like to start the workout. As someone who often forgets to log walks, I love this feature.

Like the original Pixel Watch, the Pixel Watch 2 has a rounded watch face design. It is much rounder than the other watches on our list. While I found the curved look stylish and aesthetically-pleasing, I did not find it as comfortable for swiping and tapping compared to the flatter watch screen seen on something like the Samsung Galaxy Watch.

It is available in one size, with dozens of watch bands available.

Best smartwatch for fitness: Garmin Venu 3

What we like

Excellent battery life
Robust fitness tracking

Something to note

Pricey
No on-watch keyboard on iPhone

Garmin makes some of the best fitness trackers, and the Venu 3 is one of its smartest wearables.

It is one of the most comfortable smartwatches I’ve tested. It has a metal case and silicone band that feels soft and flexible. The watch itself is very flat, mostly because the sensor on the back is much flatter than sensors on the Apple Watch and Google Pixel Watch. It has three buttons along the side that are especially useful for starting and stopping a workout, or logging laps or reps mid-exercise.

The Venu 3 puts fitness and health data front and center, with detailed charts and graphs about metrics like pace, heart rate, cadence and more. It is also very customizable — you can change everything from the home screen to the exact metrics that appear when doing different workouts. This is great for anyone who loves data, but can be a little overwhelming for Garmin newcomers.

Another strength is battery life — the Venu 3 gets up to 14 days of battery life. 14 days. That is far longer than our other top picks, and more than most smartwatches on the market. Switching to always-on mode, I still averaged 6 days before needing to charge.

The Venu 3 (linked above) is available in black or white, and the smaller Venu 3s is available in five colors.

Best budget smartwatch for iPhone users: Apple Watch SE

What we like

Competitive price
Syncs with most iOS apps

The Apple Watch SE cost much less than the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, but has much of the same design and features that make those watches great.

It syncs seamlessly with your iPhone and iPhone apps — it feels like a natural extension of your phone, straight out of the box. Like the Series 9, it connects with Apple Health and Fitness apps to show detailed workout, sleep and health data, with more info than many competitors at this price point, no subscription required.

Compared to the Series 9, the SE is a little slower, smaller and has a dimmer screen that cannot be changed to an always-on mode. It also does not have an on-screen keyboard — you can send pre-set responses or dictate using voice-to-text with Siri. It comes in two sizes, 40mm and 44mm, with many watch band options.

How to get the most out of your smartwatch

Smartwatches have so many features that they can be overwhelming out of the box. Most people I know complete the initial setup and never customize anything aside from the background on the watch face. Below are a few of the most useful features across every smartwatch you may want to try out:

Watch face

Almost every smartwatch lets you customize the default watch face. Scroll through the watch or watch companion app settings and tinker with customizing the watch face. All of our top picks let you change the layout, colors, background and stats, with many more options if you dig a little deeper. One NBC Select staffer has her Apple Watch face set to a picture of her cat, for example.

Safety tracking

Most smartwatches have robust safety features available. This means you have the option to manually or automatically send your live location to a list of emergency contacts, depending on how you set it up. If you are planning an activity where you would feel safer having the option to automatically reach out to emergency contacts (or emergency services), be sure to set up this feature.

Contactless payments

Smartwatches generally support one form of contactless payment, think Apple Pay, Samsung Wallet, Google Wallet or Garmin Pay. These apps can store your debit or credit information and let you tap-to-pay at supported businesses like cafes, restaurants and even most public transport. This is a useful feature to set up if you hate carrying your wallet everywhere you go.

Battery-saver settings

You can get much longer battery life if you change a few of the settings on your smartwatch. Turning off the always-on display, lowering your screen brightness and adjusting background app refresh settings, can all help extend the time you get between charges.

Why trust NBC Select?

Harry Rabinowitz is a reporter at NBC Select who covers technology and fitness including recent stories on fitness trackers, running shoes, workout earbuds and more. For this piece, he tried over a dozen top-rated fitness trackers and smartwatches. For a broader perspective, he spoke with other NBC Select staffers about their experience with smartwatches.