Smartwatches can do a number of things that actually do make sense on a watch and it can save you some real time which is always nice.
You can read and reply to text messages using your voice which is arguably faster than typing and you can see who’s calling you.
Basically, any notification can be viewed at your wrists instead of taking your phone out of your pocket which takes time.
Smartwatches can also do things like measure how many footsteps you take and measure your heart rate as well.
If you get tired of a watch face you can pretty much change it to anything to help better match an outfit.
Here’s a list of 10 Best Smartwatches you can buy for Android and IOS devices.
Apple Watch Series 4 – Best Smartwatch For iPhone
Apple actually stepped up this year and they redesigned Apple Watch from scratch and to the top.
Although the look and the feel and the shape of it still hold kind of the same to the older generation.
They have changed now they are slimmer, they’re smaller, they’re more accurate, they’re faster, they’re more lightweight, more resistible, and on top of that, the screen is now bigger.
Over 30% this is huge.
A fun fact is that Apple doesn’t include the band inside of the actual packaging anymore. They ship them separately
underneath the actual watch itself, so this is nice now that they have their own proprietary box.
Holding it in your hand you can already tell that this thing is so much thinner than the old generation.
Another thing that Apple did this year is that they removed this little red dot. Now some people hated that red dot and some people loved it. It was just a hate or love thing.
Next thing is the band itself now the bands are nothing special. They’re just regular bands that you would get with any watch it and now it comes in a separate box.
Comparing it to my old generation Apple Watch. If you look at it, it is much thinner. The screen is so much more beautiful it’s so much more clear. It just looks amazing.
Another change that Apple did is that now the microphone is on this side. The old generation had the microphone and speaker on the same side so speaking to it as a phone was kind of hard they couldn’t really hear you.
The speaker on the new generation is on the other side, and we have the microphone right here. It’s much easier to communicate.
Apple does not anymore make the 38 millimeters they replaced it with the 40 millimeters. I think this is much better the size is better, the look is better, the feel is better.
First of all, we have a better processor, so things work here super fast we still have the same storage I believe is 16 gigabytes.
The cellular connectivity is much better than the older generation I really am fond of the way it works right now.
Another option that they have included in this new version is Siri. Siri is much more improved and now simply its Siri always listening to your conversations.
Whenever you raise your hand up it starts listening. Another thing that I am really glad they included in this update is that they included fall detections, so if you’re an elder person or you have some problem if you fall down it will recognize it and will call emergency response and it will pinpoint your location.
Another really cool concept that they included in this watch is an ECG monitor that basically records your heart rhythm. Then you can export it into a PDF file and send it to your doctor.
Or have it and just monitor your health to make sure your heart is not elevated or you don’t have an elevated heart rate, or you don’t have any heart problem.
Apple has done a great job in terms of health, fitness, and tracking your movement everything about you.
You ever think it’s a good time to buy this Apple Watch?
I absolutely think it’s a great time. This year it is the time to buy it.
Samsung Gear S3 – Best smartwatch for android 2019
Straight out of the box you have the watch, Charging dock, micro USB cable, small-sized wristband, and a quick start guide. The watch looks gorgeous and I kinda mean it in a bold way.
It has a tough look, definitely a look for men. The bands look great with their texture on top, and the metal in the watch is black glossy; brushed; anodized – black stainless-steel – I said it. It’s tough.
Quality wise Gear S3 is no joke at all. The bands are high-quality rubber and give a really-really sturdy grip on the wrist while being a bit flexible which is always good for fits.
The watch all around is complete metal means no plastic, and no plastic means all metal means good quality. Samsung advertises the watch as IP68 Certified and MIL-STD-810G standards for durability.
The watch is water and dust resistant as well as for handling high temperatures and any sudden shocks by fall. However, not a watch suitable for swimming,
On the other side of the page, the rotating bezel’s texture and paint do act to scratchy materials and do leave stretches and marks, but it does a great job of protecting the already scratch resistant glass.
Even the glass at the bottom is really really durable. It is the surface which comes in contact with all kinds of the ground as you keep it flat but does not have a hard time resisting scratches.
Now let’s talk about the technical bits. Of course, in the front you have a round display, which although isn’t perfect for any videos or photos, but does a great job of maintaining watch type looks, because I think this watch is more of for people who want to have a smart watches but not too tacky or too different from any other watches.
The display has a diameter of 1.3 inches and is a super good-looking super AMOLED Display, and as we know Samsung, they are good at the display business.
Design-wise, this is a really-really well-designed watch because there are bezels to the display but they are actually rotating and do have a function unlike something which doesn’t and here I am comparing it to an Apple Watch – which has huge bezels, which don’t do anything but interrupt with the looks, so this is an A+ use of space and maintaining the good looks.
The screen has a resolution of 360×360 pixels. It’s bright, it’s black and it’s bonkers! There is 4GBs of space inside which is decreased by the system, however, you can put a good bunch of songs and photos in there, just for quick browsing.
The battery is 380 mAh. Tiny but really good for this piece of tech. It charges fast and goes on for about working day easily, sometimes one and a half day or even two days with no issues so the battery life is great.
So, of course being a smartwatch, it has its sensors and features as well as S Health, activity tracking, heart rate measure, barometer, GPS and stuff and it even has a small speaker, in case you want to attend and answer a call from the watch which will be super weird in public, if you do it, but hey it’s there!
There are quite a few choices of watch faces and apps by Samsung which work great, and then there are third-party watch faces that you can download from the Gear app to the watch and this is where the problem is, there are neither many app choices nor enough good watch faces.
Ticwatch 2 – Best smartwatch 2019
Ticwatch 2 is an Android smartwatch but it doesn’t use Android Wear. It uses kind of a scaled-down version of Android with a custom skin on it.
It comes in two versions there’s the Ticwatch 2 sport and that’s the Ticwatch 2 which is geared more for workouts and for the gym environment and then there’s the classic that’s geared more for a professional environment at work.
Ticwatch 2 looks more like a classic watch. Both of them have a round OLED screen with a pixel density of 287 PPI. It is very readable in most conditions except direct sunlight.
Both of them use a standard 22-millimeter band. so if you don’t like the fact that the sport comes with a rubberized band and the classic comes with more of a leather band you can swap them out with just a standard off-the-shelf one that uses the 23-millimeter size.
They both have GPS and GLONASS in them so you can track your workouts when you don’t have your phone with you. They also have an accelerometer a gyrometer.
It does do activity tracking as a certain set of activities that it tracks and you’re kind of locked into that there’s no way to add additional activities.
It has a pretty decent heart rate monitor that works really well for like cardio workouts and you know riding exercise bikes but not so much for high-intensity workouts and things like that but that’s pretty typical with a risk-based heart rate monitor.
The only thing about it is it doesn’t do all day heart rate monitoring. It’ll track your activities and you can go into an app and track your heart rate at any given time but other than that it won’t track it.
One thing this doesn’t do is sleep tracking. That’s pretty common these days with smartwatches and fitness watches but this one does not have any sleep tracking capabilities.
There is a store where you can go and you can add apps. There’s a ton of watch faces in there but there’s only just a sprinkling of apps at this point that may change in the future.
The watch is compatible with both Android and iOS. The only caveat is that with the music app. You can’t transfer files from iOS to the watch.
You can do that in Android. On that point, you can load files onto the watch and play them directly from the watch with a Bluetooth headset without having to have your phone so you could really track your entire workout and listen to music with just the watch without having your phone there.
It’s also IP 65 certified which means you don’t have to worry about sweating while you’re working out. You can wash your hands, splash water around it’ll be fine.
But don’t take it in the shower, don’t take it swimming you’ll lose fit that point.
The battery life is a 300 Mamp battery which in a device like this isn’t too bad and they rate a day and a half to two days of battery life.
If you use that GPS it’s going to kill the battery pretty fast and you know if you’re a reasonably heavy GPS user you’re going to have to charge your watch multiple times throughout the day.
So, all in all, I would say the Ticwatch 2 is a good SmartWatch depending on your needs. If you’re looking for just straight SmartWatch capabilities it’s actually a really nice device.
It’s very responsive, the screen is beautiful and it has all the basic features. You get your notifications, you can change watch bands and the addition of being able to dial out from this watch and take calls on it is a nice addition.
Xiaomi Amazfit Pace – Best smartwatch of 2019 on a budget
The watch is aesthetically pleasing. Compact, round case measures a reasonable wrist of a cyclist as well as a larger hand of a body-builder.
The color display is surrounded by a ceramic ring which is very scratch resistant – I’ve used this watch for months now and there’s not a single scratch.
Silicon strap comes in red or black and it suggests that Amazfit Pace is meant for various sports activities. The case 12 mm thick and on its bottom, there’s a set of contacts and an optical heart rate sensor.
On the side, there’s a single physical button which is used to wake up the watch. The pace is IP67 compliant, which means that you can go running in the rain and even dip your hand in the water.
Amazfit Pace is configured using Amazfit watch app available for Android and iOS. The setup process is straightforward and takes less than three minutes.
Pace’s touch interface is surprisingly polished. Screens are well designed and the user interaction scenarios are intuitive.
Each feature can occupy a dedicated screen in the main menu or it can be accessed from the last screen which aggregates all other apps.
As far as displaying current time is concerned, Pace offers tens of different watch faces. From classic ones imitating analog watches to more advanced ones which display all sorts of additional information.
The display is easily readable, especially in well-lit conditions. When it’s a little darker, the colors seem a little washed out.
It’s worth noting that the current time is displayed all the time and not only when you activate the watch. The screen lights up automatically when the built-in accelerometer detects hand movement.
The battery has 280 mAh capacity but Huami managed to implement quite efficient power management system.
The pace is charged via a small dock that you connect to your regular smartphone charger using a micro USB cable.
It will do just as good job tracking some casual cycling. When it comes to recording data, Pace seems to be doing a very decent job counting the distance.
What does Amazfit do with recorded data? The watch syncs activity data with the smartphone app, which forwards the data over to Strava.
Interaction with the Amazfit Watch app isn’t limited to transferring activity data as the watch also downloads weather information as well as GPS satellites positions so the watch can find them much quicker.
A very welcomed addition is the build in audio player which can stream music to headphones connected over Bluetooth.
What’s important, is that Xiaomi is still working hard on Pace’s development – it frequently publishes updates introducing new features and polishing existing ones.
Amazfit Pace with its superb battery life can be used on daily basis. I wouldn’t wear it with a shirt, but with a more casual outfit – most definitely.
Amazfit Pace is a surprisingly good product. It’s not very suitable for professional runners but it will be more than enough for amateurs such as myself.
ASUS ZenWatch 3 – Best Android smartwatch
Asus Zenwatch 3 is available in gunmetal dark brown as well as silver beige. All you have to do is look at the Asus Zenwatch 3 and you realize that this is no standard SmartWatch or a piece of wearable technology.
The actual watch face is created from cold forged steel which means it’s stronger than traditional steel and it’ll stand up to everything.
It also has a diamond cut bezel. The Zen watch 3 comes with six custom design themes and it has more than 50 exclusive watch faces.
You can use the face designer app to choose more watch faces or you can just pre-select one of the watches faces available right on the watch.
Some of the watch faces make the Asus ZenWatch look like a classic timepiece while others are pretty quirky.
Whether you have an Android phone or an iPhone the Asus ZenWatch watch will connect to your phone and let you know all of your text messages your Instagram notifications any social media and it can also tell you when somebody is calling you.
There’s also a handy little flashlight built-in that you can use if you’re in a darkroom. It will emit a cozy glow.
For me what makes the Asus design ZenQatch 3 outstanding is the fitness program that’s built-in. You can track your walking, running push-ups or sit-ups just by tapping the top button near the crown.
Once you tap that you can set your distance and hit start and it will track your distance covered it will also track your calories burnt as well as the length of time that you are running and the kilocalories.
It’s also really handy to have your fitness history right on your watch. It will also track your sleep. I found it pretty interesting that my light sleep was pretty much equal to my deep sleep which is exactly how I sleep every night.
To access the main menu of the ZenWatch 3 all you have to do is tap the crown button. From there you can scroll through all of the different choices that you have for this watch including the fit workout which is the Google workout.
Google fit lets you choose quite a few more options than the other fitness program on the Asus Zenwatch. You can do bike riding set up challenges or strength training.
What’s really cool about this program is that it will show you the proper form before you start a sit-up or push-up challenge.
The Asus Zenwatch 3 is a beautiful timepiece and if you didn’t know, it was a SmartWatch you could never tell just by looking at it.
Fitbit Versa
The Fitbit Ionic wasn’t the mega-hit Fitbit hoped it would be. But I personally think Fitbit is on to something with their new pebble-like Fitbit versa.
It has a new minimalist design that’s reminiscent to the Apple watch but at a much more reasonable price.
It’s still a fitness tracker first and a smartwatch second. Depending on which Fitbit Versa you get they’ll either cost you $199.95 or $229.95.
The $200 models come with either black, rose gold, or silver aluminum casings and they all come with your classic silicon wristbands.
The $230 models, comes with either graphite or rose gold aluminum casings and in addition to your classic silicon wrists bands, they also bring a fabric wristband.
Actually removing the wristbands from the versa isn’t as easy as the Apple watch, but after you get the hang of it it should be painless.
Fitbit also gives you the option to choose from leather or stainless steel bands as well which are sold separately.
Aside from the extra fabric wristband and the built-in NFC chip on the Special edition Fitbit Versa, Both versa models are identical.
The Versa itself is surprisingly thin and lightweight, its a watch that you actually forget you’re wearing after a while especially with the fabric wristband.
There are three buttons on the sides of the watch which are all very easy to find and they all have great tactile feedback.
The versa also comes equipped with a touchscreen LCD display protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. And even in direct sunlight on a clear sunny day, I have no issues actually seeing the display.
The touchscreen controls and responsiveness of the Versa when navigating through the menus and opening apps is good but there might be some hiccups here and there.
Either the watch might need a second to catch up or your swipe might not register. The Versa is also water resistant down to the pool, in the rain, and you don’t have to worry about it if you sweat on it while you’re working out.
If you’re someone who regularly workouts and you want to maximize your results then a fitness tracker like the Versa can help you quantify your daily activity so you can better program your training and or your diet.
With the Versa you can monitor your heart rate walked, flights of stairs climbed, track how many calories you’ve burned, track your sleep and you can get a better breakdown of your performance during your workouts.
The heart rate monitor on the Fitbit Versa is fairly accurate, but don’t expect it to be as precise as a dedicated chest strap heart rate monitor.
The Versa is using Bluetooth 4.0 and you can pair your wireless headphones to it so you can play your stored music off of it, but you can’t connect a chest strap heart monitor.
For the runners who might be interested in the Versa, just know that it comes equipped with a 3 axis accelerometer and gyroscope and an altimeter.
Unfortunately there is no built-in GPS, instead, the Versa uses Connected GPS which means the Versa relies on the GPS from your phone.
This means the Fitbit Versa will only be able to map out your runs if you bring your phone along. If you decide to leave your phone behind the Versa will still be able to track your performance during your run, but your speed and distance ran won’t be as accurate if you brought your phone along.
As a smartwatch, the Fitbit Versa plays nice with both Apple and Android devices. You can see your notifications like text messages, emails, and incoming calls. But you can only do quick replies with android devices.
You can also control your music playback. As a smartwatch, the Versa does enough to show you quick notifications at a glance so you can decide to whip out your phone or not if something important comes through.
You cant take phone calls like you can on the Apple watch and you can’t talk to your voice assistant through the Versa like you can on either the Apple Watch or Android smartwatches.
But if you’re looking into a Fitbit you’re probably more interested in the fitness tracking aspect anyways. And Fitbit still has the best fitness tracking mobile app out there.
The Fitbit mobile app also lets you track your sleep cycle so you can see when you’re in light, deep or REM sleep.
Fitbit Advertises a battery life of 4+ days. Your battery life will definitely vary depending on your workout frequency and what features you use.
The new design doesn’t scream fitness tracker and you also get some of the benefits of having a smartwatch on your wrist.
The Versa isn’t the fitness tracker for your serious athlete trying to shave a few seconds off of their mile and its it’s the Smartwatch for a hardcore power user. It just works.
Xiaomi Amazfit Bip
Amazfit Bip comes in four different colors there’s onyx black, cinnabar red, white cloud, and Kokoda green.
The most prominent feature on the Amazfit Bip is that 1.28-inch always-on color display. It’s got Corning Gorilla Glass 3 so it has excellent scratch resistance and it’s very readable in direct sunlight no problem at all.
inside it’s got backlighting so there’s no problem reading it inside in low-light either.
The watch band that comes on the Bip is a rubberized band that feels very nice and the clasp is very tight. The nice thing is that it’s a standard 20-millimeter watch band so you can buy one off the shelf and put it on your Bip and use it just fine.
They sell some that are customized specifically for the Bip but you can buy any of them that are 20 millimeters and use it no problem at all.
So I already mentioned the screen and the only other things on the watch are the single buttons and that’s used for
some menu navigation as well as turning on the device.
On the back is the heart rate sensor and the connection port for the charging cradle.
The watch snaps right into the charging cradle. It’s a very solid snap and there’s no doubt that it’s seated correctly when you get it in there.
So as thin and light as this watch is it’s packed with all kinds of sensors. It’s got a barometer it’s got a 3-axis accelerometer, GPS and GLONASS, compass and that heart rate sensor that I mentioned.
It’s IP 68 certified and all this at just 1.1 ounces, so it feels like you’re wearing almost nothing on your wrist even with all that functionality packed into it.
Now the watch has a really good combination of fitness tracking capabilities as well as SmartWatch capabilities. You can sync your notifications with it.
You can’t reply to any of the messages on the watch itself you have to use the phone to reply to those and you can’t load music on it and there’s no way to control your music from here but for the notifications and things like that, it actually works really well.
So in addition to the SmartWatch capabilities, it’s also got some really nice fitness tracking capabilities.
Amazfit says that in basic watch mode you’ll get about 45 days of battery.
The mix of SmartWatch and Fitness watch capabilities I would say this is a really really good option for anybody
that wants a really lightweight no-nonsense watch that tracks your activities.
Anybody that’s looking for a basic device like that I can definitely recommend the Amazfit Bip, the battery life alone makes it worth looking into this device.
Huawei Watch 2 – Best hybrid smartwatch 2019
The watch itself is larger than the original Huawei Watch. In fact, it’s a decent amount larger. But along with that, it
also feels pretty solid, and I’ve always kind of been a fan of Huawei’s because their materials always feel premium, the devices feel solid.
There are only two buttons on the watch. One is the home button, basically, that brings you back to the main screen, as well as opens the app drawer.
Now the other button is a dedicated workout button. Pushing it brings up quick options for starting a workout.
There’s a ton of options and they are being pulled from the Huawei Health app, that you can use to customize these options as well as create a training plan.
The watch has built-in GPS, accelerometer, a continuous heart rate monitor, and a barometer as well to help the fitness conscious.
It’s also IP68 certified, which means rain and sweat aren’t an issue but don’t try to swim with it.
Now it has a 1.2 inch AMOLED screen that can be seen easily in daylight and has a resolution of 390 x 390.
Internally, it has a Quad Core Snapdragon Wear 2100 chipset with 768 MB of RAM and 4 gigs of internal storage.
And that internal storage is useful because it actually has the ability to put music directly on the watch.
So if you wanted to say leave your phone at home, and take the watch with you, and pair a set of Bluetooth headphones to it, you can listen to the music that’s on the watch.
It can also use NFC and Android Pay to make payments at store terminals that support contactless payments.
There’s 420 milliamp battery, which lasts about 2 days without a charge.
Now on the software side, it’s running Android Wear 2.0, so it’ll run all the same apps like Uber, Foursquare, Messages, et cetera, that any Android Wear 2.0 device will run, and has a few additions from Huawei.
First up, we have the battery app that includes optimizations and a power saver mode, and lets you turn the watch into an actual watch and nothing else, giving you almost a month of battery life if you put it into that mode.
Then there’s a daily activity, which lets you track your VO2 max, along with all the other usual stats that you care about, calories, steps, elevation, setting daily goals, etc.
There’s also a built-in fitness coach that can give you audio feedback as to how you’re doing during workouts.
Misfit Vapor – Best designer smartwatch
The vapor is Misfits newest device in the lineup with smartwatches and for $200 it doesn’t exactly break the bank.
With its premium metal body and AMOLED display, it certainly catches the eye.
The 44 millimeters stainless steel body has a nice premium feel and the 20-millimeter removable strap is comfortable enough, however, the body is pretty thick at 13 and a half mm.
So it’s really not the slimmest thing ever. On the front of the body, misfit vapor has a 1.3 full round AMOLED display with 326 pixels per inch.
The screen is very sharp and the colors are vibrant. It also features an ambient light sensor to adjust your brightness according to their lighting environment.
Google assistant misfit vapor ships of Android wear 2.0 meaning you can simply download the Android Wear app on your iPhone or Android to be able to pair your watch.
Android wear also allows for quick swapping between different watch faces provided by misfit or if you don’t like what they supply you can always install watchmaker to create your own.
It has a Qualcomm® Snapdragon Wear™ 2100 processor with 4 GB of Ram.
It has connectivity features like
- Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity
- 7 Accelerometer, Altimeter, and Gyroscope
- 8 Optical heart rate sensor
The smartwatch is Compatible with iPhone and Android phones.
It has features like On-display email, call, text, and app notifications + vibration alerts and alarms. Misfit Vapor has a Virtual Touch Bezel for seamless scrolling and navigating.
It is Swimproof + water resistant up to 50m. There is a Connected GPS which displays run and activity routes, metrics, and stats.
The straps are Interchangeable along with the watch faces.
Moto 360 (2nd Gen) – Best stylish smartwatch
Moto 360 is powered by Android Wear brings your favorite Google services right to your wrist. It is Android and iPhone compatible.
The watch is available in silver/metal band and silver/cognac leather band.
Moto 360 features exclusive bands in stainless steel and genuine horween leather, including a distinctive, double-wrapped leather design. A new lug design and quick-release bands make it easy to swap your everyday band for something new.
Wrists come in different sizes, so watches should too. Men can choose from two case sizes—a 46mm design or 42mm for a sleeker look.
The women’s 42mm case is specifically designed for smaller wrists.
Moto 360 includes a built-in activity tracker to monitor your daily efforts and offers coaching advice to help you meet your goals.
It measures your heart rate every 5 minutes, then analyses how active you are on a daily and weekly basis to help you stay fit.
It also estimates the calories you burn throughout the day to help you stay on track.
There’re beautifully designed watch faces with customized Dials that give you information at a glance and shortcuts to the apps you use the most.
Motorola Moto 360 2nd Gen has a 300 mAh battery with up to 1.5 days of mixed use with Ambient off. Up to a full day of mixed use with Ambient on.
It is IP67 dust and water resistant.
There is an Ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts the display to the surrounding brightness.
The watch has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor with 1.2 GHz quad-core CPU and Adreno 305 with 450 MHz GPU. It has 4 GB internal storage + 512 MB of RAM.
It has an Accelerometer, Ambient Light Sensor, Gyroscope, and Haptics engine for vibrations.
