8 best smartwatches of 2024, tried and tested

While the Apple Watch Series 9 looks identical to the older Apple Watch Series 8, which was crowned top dog in last year’s version of this article, the Apple Watch Series 9 is no slouch. It has the brightest display of all, meaning we could easily see it on a sunny day, and the always-on display is as useful as ever.

But it’s all systems go on the inside. Fast and responsive, we can still track our heart rate, sleep, blood oxygen, ECG, temperature and 20 different workout types, as well as clever car crash detection and fall detection features, but there’s also a neat new feature that we haven’t stopped using since getting the smartwatch. Double tap. Instead of touching the screen, we can end calls, open stacks, skip songs, start and pause timers and scroll through widgets, just by tapping together our thumb and index finger. It made us feel like we were magic.

The other neat feature is that the newest Apple Watch also has an in-built second-generation ultra-wideband chip, so we could easily locate our phone with more precise directions using our watch. And lastly, while Siri is always being ridiculed for being downright dumb, thanks to its really powerful S9 chip, we were able to ask it all kinds of questions about our health and fitness, from how much we slept last night to our current blood oxygen levels. This makes it so much quicker than swiping and tapping on the small display. It’s a great smartwatch, and while it looks the same as its predecessor, the features are way better.

Now a year and a half old, is the original Pixel Watch still worth it in 2024? The newer Pixel Watch 2 introduced a faster processor, more health sensors and an improved battery life – it was always going to be the better watch of the two – but it’s a marginal enough upgrade that we’d recommend most existing Pixel Watch 1 owners wait around for a potential Pixel Watch 3.

That said, the original watch is still being sold by Google and can usually be picked up with a generous discount. Find it on sale for under £200 and you’ll be getting a serious bargain on a still-brilliant Android smartwatch. You’ll miss out on some second generation features like Fitbit’s stress management features, which might be important for you, as well as irregular heart rhythm detection. Battery life is underwhelming compared to the Pixel Watch 2, so you’ll have to do without the always-on display to reliably get a full day’s wear out of it.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 is still the best Android smartwatch for Samsung users, integrating as seamlessly with Galaxy phones as Apple’s watch does with iPhone. Elegantly designed, powerful, packing a wealth of health tracking features and running on Samsung’s constantly improving, Wear OS-based operating system, it’s the high-watermark of the Android wearable scene and the result of years of gradual improvements.

The bright and fluid OLED screen is the star of the show here. Navigating the watch interface feels smooth and responsive, and a wide selection of well-designed faces and straps allows for plenty of customisation. The Galaxy Watch 6 straddles the line between fashion accessory, fitness tracker and smartwatch, and while battery concerns are still present for those who regularly work out, this year’s model will comfortably last a full day between charges. Fast charging speeds mean you can top up with a few hours of charge while you jump in the shower.

Google’s second generation Pixel Watch is far and away the best Android smartwatch for Pixel phone owners, predictably enough, but also has enough great health-tracking features that it could entice non-Pixel users to strap it to their wrists too.

The Pixel Watch 2 is essentially a premium Fitbit in disguise, packing all of the fitness band’s best-in-class tracking and sensors into a sleekly designed Wear OS 4 smartwatch. That means you get accurate, per-second, round-the-clock heart rate tracking. You get comprehensive sleep tracking, stress and mood tracking, period tracking, nightly temperature and SpO2 tracking, a range of workouts, fall detection and ECG tests – the works.

On top of the fitness features you also get seamless access to your Google stuff: the on-watch Google Assistant, Google Wallet for payments, and Google Maps (which finally supports transit directions). A premium Fitbit in Google clothing, and an impressive smartwatch all-round.

Launched in 2022, the Sense 2 is our favourite smartwatch out of Fitbit’s entire portfolio. Despite being acquired by Google in 2019, the Fitbit Sense 2 still runs on FitbitOS, which is great news for us, because we adore how clean the system is.

As well as being able to track our recovery and readiness to take on the day based on activity; how well we’d slept and our sleep cycles; SpO2, heart rate and skin temperature, the Fitbit Sense 2 is also the best smartwatch out there for those who want class-leading stress tracking features.

What continues to set the Fitbit Sense series apart from the competition is its focus on mindfulness. Just like the first Sense, the Sense 2 can monitor your stress levels, but the second-generation model has upgraded this sensor so that it’s now continuous. It told us whenever our emotions were heightened, and it was very accurate. It made us more mindful about how we were feeling – whether anxious, angry or excited. It then sends us a notification telling us that we might be feeling stressed, and we can take one of the breathing sessions on the app.

The downside is, the Sense line of smartwatches no longer support third-party apps, making it feel more like a fitness tracker, despite being a smartwatch. There’s no music playback controls anymore either, which is a real shame. It does have an in-built GPS, however. The best part about the Fitbit Sense 2 remains its battery life – we easily get six days of use wearing the Fitbit Sense 2, and the stress-tracking features are worth it alone.

Looking for a Garmin smartwatch that can do it all? The Garmin Venu 3 is a brilliant smartwatch that mixes everything we love about its more sporty, adventure watches with some really fantastic lifestyle-focused, wellness features. A great all-rounder, the Garmin Venu 3 has a big, bright and colourful 1.4in AMOLED screen that always displayed our metrics in even the harshest of lighting conditions. The UI is a little bit messy and cluttered, but it’s kitted out with every sensor for tracking sleep, exercise and wellbeing, as well as navigation with its in-built GPS.

We could track our heart rate, measure heart rate variability, see stress scores and track our sleep stages automatically as we slept through the night. There are a huge number of exercises onboard too, including swimming and strength training.

We loved that it took a more holistic view at our overall health, giving us a score based on sleep (and naps), previous workouts and stress, letting us know when we should take it easy and when we could push a bit harder. The Venu 3 also features a speaker and microphone, meaning we could take calls from our wrist, but it also enabled us to take guided yoga and meditation classes, without having to take out our smartphone. The screen even showed us our respiration rate and heart rate as we breathed in and out.

Another clever little feature of the Venu 3 was that we could connect it to our Ring doorbell, sending us a picture of who was at the door, though we couldn’t speak to them when they rang. And lastly, there are loads of great features on the Venu 3 for wheelchair users, whether it’s tracking the effort exerted by pushing a wheelchair or wheelchair-specific sports. It’s a great all-rounder smartwatch.

Whether you’re getting ready for your first marathon or are a regular at your local Park Run, the Garmin Forerunner 265 is the absolute best running companion. As well as performing brilliantly when it came to tracking our stress levels, sleep and even our strength training classes, the Forerunner has detailed running stats and running-focused features that aren’t available to us on any other smartwatch.

The 265 features a beautiful AMOLED touch screen display and a big start/stop button that makes it easy to hit when out paving the street, quickly starting and stopping our runs (even with gloves on).  It gave us feedback on our cadence, ground contact time, balance, stride length and even how our running dynamics matched up against other runners.

The latest Forerunner also features that fancy training readiness score, which considered all our metrics (sleep, stress and previous workouts) to quantify whether our body was ready to go again, or it needed a break. If you’re a keen runner, the Forerunner 265 will keep you on track, especially with its daily workout plans and live track feature, which lets your fans (read: significant others) watch where you go when you run, and cheer you on with encouraging messages to your smartwatch.

The OnePlus Watch 2 boasts an impressive 100-hour battery life, which it achieves by cleverly splitting its workload across two specialised chips: one designed for background processes and another for active tracking and apps.

In practice, expect to get something closer to 48 hours if you’re using the always-on display, accurate GPS tracking and regularly working out. That’s still an excellent battery life for a smartwatch, particularly one this rich with features. The OnePlus Watch 12 is IP68 resistant, meaning you can swim with it. It runs on Wear OS 4, so you’re getting the Google Assistant and Google Play Store apps. Fitness tracking is comprehensive with dozens of workouts to choose from, though it’s missing some advanced features like fall detection.

The large OLED touchscreen is luscious, bright and responsive, and encased in sapphire crystal. That’s a surprising inclusion for a £299 smartwatch, and gives the OnePlus Watch 2 deluxe, flagship appeal at a mid-range price point.