Today’s smartwatches offer more advanced features, such as detailed 24/7 health and wellness tracking, voice assistants, call and text message support, and a variety of apps and services that extend the power of your smartphone to your wrist. Some models have cellular support and can serve your needs independently from your phone for limited functionality.
In 2022, there are several powerful options available to help you get work done through a wearable device. The latest Apple Watch is the best smartwatch overall – and especially for Apple users. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 is the best option for Samsung phone owners, and there are a few others that some consider best for both Android and iOS. Read on to learn more.
In 2015, Apple released its first Apple Watch, and over the next seven years, it secured its place as the best smartwatch available. No other watch has such vast application support while also getting all the smartwatch essentials nearly perfect. It may be debatable if an iPhone is the best smartphone or not, but it is clear the Apple Watch is the wearable to beat.
And the Apple Watch Series 8 continues this legacy. New for this version is temperature sensing. It reads your temperature as you sleep. Combined with the Sleep app, you receive a more complete picture of your sleeping habits.
Also new is Cycle Tracking, which estimates when ovulation occurs–essential for couples looking to start or add to their families. The system can also detect deviations, such as prolonged or irregular periods.
Then, there’s Crash Detection, also new for the Apple Watch Series 8. It can detect when you’re involved in a car crash and connect you to emergency services. Overall, the new Apple Watch Series 8 continues the legacy of setting the bar high.
Apple made an interesting move in 2020 and released a lower-priced Apple Watch designed to expand the use of an Apple Watch to other family members. The newest version of Apple Watch SE starts at just $249 and if you are an iPhone user it’s an easy wearable to recommend.
The next generation of the Apple Watch SE contains many of the features found on the Apple Watch 8 Series. You gain Crash Detection, where the watch detects you’ve been in an accident and can contact first responders.
It also features the enhanced Workout app, giving you access to custom workouts, and advanced metrics like heart rate zones, stride, length, and vertical oscillation.
Ultimately, the newest version of the Apple Watch SE proves great things can come in small packages.
Samsung is clearly not standing by as Apple continues to update and improve the Apple Watch. Samsung’s latest Galaxy Watch 5 Pro offers many of the same advanced health tracking features, such as blood oxygen monitoring, ECG, and sleep tracking, with longer battery life than the Apple Watch.
We also see the addition of body composition measurements in the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro, skin temperature sensor, and materials typically found in high-end GPS sports watches priced at twice the cost of the Watch 5 Pro. We spent a few weeks with the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro conducting our full review and prefer using it over the Apple Watch Series 7.
The Watch 5 Pro runs Google Wear OS 3 powered by Samsung. This means it still looks like a Samsung smartwatch, but also supports Google Assistant, Google Maps, Google Wallet, Google Play Store, and more Google apps.
It has an operating system optimized for the round watch design with a virtual rotating bezel. Fall detection, messaging, phone calls, and more are available on the watch, with advanced fitness data such as VO2 Max and advanced running dynamics data also supported.
Google and Samsung have partnered up for Samsung to offer outstanding watches targeted to Samsung phone owners. There are also Google Wear OS watches for other Android phones and iPhone users. The latest watch from Mobvoi is the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS, the second model from Mobvoi with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 4100 platform.
The TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS is one of the best Wear OS watches available with a unique layered display design that has an LCD display on top of an AMOLED display so users can have extended battery life. The watch has a massive 577 mAh battery and is built to withstand the elements with IP68 and MIL-STD-810G durability ratings.
While not as well supported as the Apple Watch, Wear OS is still a very capable wearable platform with an extensive number of available watch faces, plenty of popular third-party apps, Google Assistant voice support, advanced health tracking, and stress tracking. The TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS has all of the latest advanced health metrics, such as blood oxygen monitoring, and is also a very capable GPS sports watch.
At just $299.99, often on sale as low as $224.99, it’s tough to beat the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS. With support for five global satellite systems, the watch is built to help you explore the world.
The Fitbit Sense has a stainless steel ring around the watch face and additional sensors on the back so that it offers support for ECG, skin temperature, and a few more advanced health metrics. If you want to save $70 then you can buy the Fitbit Versa 3 and lose out on a few advanced wellness metrics.
A significant improvement in this watch compared to previous Fitbit watches is the integrated GPS receiver that will help you more accurately track your outside activities.
The Fitbit ecosystem is well supported, with many people on the platform to help motivate you toward achieving your daily activity and fitness goals. The smartphone app is fantastic and offers a ton of insight, recommendations, and understanding of the data collected by the watches. Android smartphone users enjoy a better experience with support for quick text message replies, but these new Fitbit watches work well with Android and iOS for most functions.
If you’re an Android user, you may prefer a Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro. I picked up the LTE model that provides cellular connectivity independently from my phone, but when paired with the Galaxy Z Fold 4 it’s a perfect combination of elegance and power. The battery life even exceeds the Apple Watch.
With the move from Tizen to Google WearOS, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 models are amazing smartwatches that may soon top Apple with the ability to work with both Android and iPhone devices. There is a lot of potential here with this new partnership and we look forward to more developments. The Galaxy Watch 5 Pro has better materials than the Apple Watch Series 8 and is built to withstand the elements.
A cellular-enabled Samsung Galaxy Watch can indeed act as a stand-alone mobile device after initial setup. With the latest Galaxy Watch 5 running Wear OS powered by Samsung there are many more apps that can be used on the go so you can leave the phone behind in most cases.
All of these smartwatches can also serve as capable GPS sports watches to track the details of your outdoor activities. Exercise guidance is provided on the watch with connected health applications on your smartphone so you can keep track of your progress too.
