Top 10 smart watches: the best wrist gadgets for 2022 | Articles | Gadgets, gifts and accessories

Pho­to: pixabay.com

Ini­tial­ly, these devices were con­sid­ered hip­ster toys. Then — an indi­ca­tor of sta­tus. Now smart­watch­es make life eas­i­er for ath­letes, busi­ness­men and just peo­ple who active­ly use smart­phones. With this gad­get, you can receive calls, answer SMS mes­sages and emails, con­trol the play­er, mea­sure heart rate and solve many oth­er tasks. The range of smart­watch­es is huge, but we caught a dozen of the best mod­els suit­able for dif­fer­ent tasks, tastes and bud­gets.

Apple Watch Series 6 is the best smartwatch for iPhone

Apple sets trends in many areas, includ­ing in the smart­watch seg­ment. Apple Watch Series 6 is the sixth gen­er­a­tion of the flag­ship line of these wrist gad­gets. Com­pared to its pre­de­ces­sor, the mod­el has not changed sig­nif­i­cant­ly, but a few inter­est­ing fea­tures have been added.

Users can now mea­sure blood oxy­gen lev­els and mon­i­tor sleep. The man­u­fac­tur­er improved the S6 chip and added a brighter Reti­na dis­play. With the Always on Dis­play enabled, the screen is 2.5 times brighter than the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tion watch, and remains leg­i­ble even in direct sun­light. This smart­watch con­tin­ues to run for up to 18 hours on a sin­gle charge, and up to 24–28 hours when used spar­ing­ly.

Despite the brighter dis­play and oth­er improve­ments, the Apple Watch Series 6’s bat­tery life has­n’t been com­pro­mised. Pho­to: reviewed.com

You can read more about the Apple Watch Series 6 in our review, but here are the most inter­est­ing fea­tures:

• the pos­si­bil­i­ty of con­duct­ing an elec­tron­ic ECG;
• heart rate mea­sure­ment;
• built-in com­pass and GPS;
• mea­sure­ment of oxy­gen con­cen­tra­tion in the blood;
• fall detec­tion (with auto­mat­ic send­ing of an “alarm” mes­sage);
• mon­i­tor­ing of sports modes;
• NFC mod­ule for con­tact­less pay­ment using Apple Pay;
• voice assis­tant.

The watch costs about 32,000 rubles, but this is not the low­est price due to the large num­ber of gad­get func­tions.

Benefits of Apple Watch 6

• Styl­ish design, like oth­er Apple gad­gets
• Lots of fea­tures
• ECG sen­sor
• Vari­ety of body col­ors
• Strap change­able

Disadvantages of Apple Watch 6

• Price
• Rel­a­tive­ly short bat­tery life
• Com­pat­i­ble with iOS only

Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 is one of the best smartwatches for Android

If the Apple Watch Series 6 is the best gad­get for iOS, then Android users can rec­om­mend the Sam­sung Galaxy Watch 3. It has a 1.4” Super AMOLED dis­play and durable Goril­la Glass DX. The hous­ing com­plies with the IP68 stan­dard in terms of dust and mois­ture resis­tance and can with­stand pres­sure up to 5 atmos­pheres. At the same time, the man­u­fac­tur­er allows you to immerse the gad­get only in fresh water to a depth of 1.5 meters, for a max­i­mum of 30 min­utes.

Galaxy Watch 3 runs on the Tizen 5.5 oper­at­ing sys­tem, they have 8 GB of inter­nal mem­o­ry and 1 GB of RAM. Oth­er fea­tures of the gad­get include:

• Blue­tooth 5.0 inter­face;
• NFC mod­ule for con­tact­less pay­ments;
• sup­port for Wi-Fi, GPS and GLONASS;
• 350 mAh bat­tery (enough for sev­er­al days).

The Sam­sung Galaxy Watch 3 can be charged from a smart­phone that has a wire­less or reverse (reverse) charg­ing func­tion.

Sam­sung Galaxy Watch 3 is the stan­dard of lacon­ic design. Pho­to: techradar.com

Benefits of the Galaxy Watch 3

• Styl­ish design
• A large num­ber of func­tions
• Con­ve­nient nav­i­ga­tion
• Auton­o­my up to sev­er­al days

Disadvantages of the Galaxy Watch 3

• Eng­lish Bix­by (vir­tu­al assis­tant)
• A small num­ber of col­ors

Xiaomi Amazfit T‑Rex is a smart watch with a good battery

The Xiao­mi Amaz­fit T‑Rex watch was pre­sent­ed at the begin­ning of 2020 at the largest tech­no­fo­rum in Las Vegas. The gad­get has an expres­sive design in a mil­i­taris­tic style, which some peo­ple real­ly liked, although it does not go well with strict clas­sic cloth­ing. All in all, Amaz­fit T‑Rex is the per­fect option for peo­ple who pre­fer a sporty style. This smart­watch has a light­weight poly­car­bon­ate body that is avail­able in five col­ors: black, kha­ki, cam­ou­flage, olive and graphite.

Amaz­fit T‑Rex have a rather bru­tal design. The gad­get is eas­i­ly con­fused with a reg­u­lar sports watch. Pho­to: xda-developers.com

The 1.3” screen has a res­o­lu­tion of 360 x 360 pix­els. Through the stan­dard appli­ca­tion, you can down­load dif­fer­ent watch faces, although there are not many of them. The strap is made of soft sil­i­cone and fits snug­ly around your hand. Dur­ing phys­i­cal exer­tion, the clock does not turn.

On the right side under the dial there are but­tons for man­u­al con­trol. They are com­fort­able and do not work from acci­den­tal touch­es. The main advan­tage of Xiao­mi Amaz­fit T‑Rex is auton­o­my. The man­u­fac­tur­er claims that with­out recharg­ing the watch works for 20 days.

These smart watch­es are posi­tioned as a gad­get for sports and out­door activ­i­ties. They are not afraid of water and dust. The shock resis­tance of the gad­get is also declared, although the man­u­fac­tur­er does not use the most mod­ern Goril­la Glass 3 glass.

Benefits of Amazfit T‑Rex

• Good bal­ance between price (about 9,000 rubles) and qual­i­ty
• Record auton­o­my
• Water Resis­tant — 5 ATM (accord­ing to GB/T 30106–2013)

Disadvantages of Amazfit T‑Rex

• Not the biggest fea­ture set
• The design does not fit the strict style of cloth­ing

Honor MagicWatch 2 — smart watch for athletes

One of the best smart watch­es in the top 10 from the bud­get seg­ment. The gad­get is pow­ered by the Kirin A1 proces­sor, this is Hon­or’s own devel­op­ment. The man­u­fac­tur­er has imple­ment­ed a lot of per­son­al­ized watch faces and a large num­ber of func­tions that are typ­i­cal for sports devices.

The case of Hon­or Mag­icWatch 2 is made of stain­less steel, has IP67 pro­tec­tion lev­el and WR50 water resis­tance. Pho­to: forbes.com

The 1.39-inch AMOLED screen has a res­o­lu­tion of 454 x 454 pix­els. On a sin­gle bat­tery charge, Mag­icWatch 2 can oper­ate up to 168 hours at rest. The man­u­fac­tur­er posi­tions this gad­get as the best device in its class for ath­letes. The watch has a heart rate mon­i­tor, 15 train­ing modes, 13 run­ning cours­es and many oth­er use­ful fea­tures.

Benefits of MagicWatch 2

• Robust stain­less steel hous­ing
• 15 watch faces to choose from
• Health Options
• Com­pact dimen­sions
• Good auton­o­my

Drawback of MagicWatch 2

• Do not sup­port addi­tion­al appli­ca­tions

Honor Band 5 — budget smartwatch

The main advan­tage of these smart­watch­es is their price. Hon­or Band 5 cost only 3,600 rubles. The gad­get is able to mea­sure the lev­el of oxy­gen in the blood, it has a pedome­ter, stop­watch, heart rate mon­i­tor and timer. The device ana­lyzes the qual­i­ty of sleep, focus­ing on phas­es and breath­ing. Oth­er use­ful fea­tures of the Hon­or Band 5 smart­watch include:

• dis­play text noti­fi­ca­tions on the dis­play;
• 8 watch faces to choose from;
• the abil­i­ty to con­trol music;
• mes­sage noti­fi­ca­tions;
• col­lec­tion of train­ing sta­tis­tics.

The Hon­or Band 5 has a nar­row ver­ti­cal dis­play, but it fits all the essen­tial infor­ma­tion. Pho­to: pcmag.com

Benefits of Honor Band 5

• The bat­tery lasts for 6 days of active use of the watch
• Bright and clear screen
• Very afford­able price

Disadvantages of Honor Band 5

• Miss­ing GPS mod­ule
• Some­times the sen­sors are wrong

Garmin Venu is the best watch for body control

This is a smart watch with a bright 1.2” dis­play with a res­o­lu­tion of 390 x 390 pix­els. The man­u­fac­tur­er has made many watch faces and ani­mat­ed screen­savers for dif­fer­ent train­ing modes.

The Garmin Venu (in its price range) has one of the broad­est fea­ture sets for body con­trol to date, includ­ing:

• sleep mon­i­tor­ing;
• Pulse Ox sen­sor for blood oxy­gen sat­u­ra­tion analy­sis;
• sen­sor for mea­sur­ing and deter­min­ing changes in heart rate;
• stress lev­el sen­sor with a reminder to relax;
• con­trol of body hydra­tion;
• breath­ing exer­cis­es.

There’s even a Body Bat­tery fea­ture to mon­i­tor your body’s ener­gy lev­els in real time. It helps to plan the dai­ly rou­tine, choose the best time for sports or recre­ation.

The Garmin Venu smart watch has a min­i­mal­is­tic design and looks quite styl­ish. Pho­to: digitaltrends.com

Benefits of the Garmin Venu

• Bright AMOLED dis­play
• Good auton­o­my
• Advanced soft­ware for ath­letes
• Many sen­sors
• Accu­rate heart rate mon­i­tor

Disadvantages of the Garmin Venu

• Garmin Pay pay­ment sys­tem is not wide­spread
• Not very afford­able price (about 35,000 rubles)

Apple Watch SE is a hybrid of smart watches of the third and fifth generations of Apple

The $25,000 Apple Watch SE is a cross between the now dis­con­tin­ued Apple Watch Series 5 and Apple Watch Series 3. In terms of func­tion­al­i­ty, the SE ver­sion is infe­ri­or to the flag­ship Series 6, but if you do not need the ECG func­tion, blood oxy­gen con­cen­tra­tion sen­sor and the Always on Dis­play option, the Apple Watch SE will be your best choice.

The gad­get is equipped with the same chip as in the Apple Watch Series 5. Built-in mem­o­ry is 32 GB. The watch is based on the watchOS 7 oper­at­ing sys­tem. Among the use­ful fea­tures are an altime­ter and an accelerom­e­ter, which appeared in the flag­ship Series 6. In real time, Apple Watch SE deter­mines the height above sea lev­el. The man­u­fac­tur­er claims auton­o­my at 18 hours.

From afar, Apple Watch SE can be con­fused with the flag­ship mod­el Apple Watch Series 6. Pho­to: engadget.com

Benefits of Watch SE

• Pre­mi­um Design
• A large num­ber of func­tions
• Many body col­ors
• Wide range of straps

Disadvantages of Watch SE

• Com­pat­i­ble with iOS only
• Rel­a­tive­ly lit­tle auton­o­my

Huawei Watch GT 2 is a smartwatch that has significantly surpassed its predecessors

The first gen­er­a­tion of Huawei Watch GT was unsuc­cess­ful and received a lot of neg­a­tive reviews, although there were pos­i­tive com­ments about them. The devel­op­ers have done some seri­ous work on the bugs, releas­ing a real­ly good and func­tion­al watch — Huawei Watch GT 2. The gad­get has two ver­sions that dif­fer in case diam­e­ter: 42 mm (female mod­el) and 46 mm (male).

The female mod­el looks like the Sam­sung Galaxy Watch Active 2 and has a 1.2” AMOLED dis­play with a res­o­lu­tion of 390 x 390 pix­els. The men’s watch has a slight­ly larg­er screen: 1.39 ”diag­o­nal with a res­o­lu­tion of 454 x 454 pix­els. The built-in amount of mem­o­ry is only 4 GB, of which only 2 GB is avail­able to the user.

Thanks to the clas­sic dial, the Huawei Watch GT 2 is indis­tin­guish­able from a mechan­i­cal watch from the out­side. Pho­to: techradar.com

Huawei Watch GT 2 has 15 sports modes, a heart rate sen­sor, sleep qual­i­ty sen­sors, a pedome­ter, a calo­rie count­ing option, a com­pass, a phone find­er func­tion, and some oth­ers. The bat­tery charge lasts for 14 days, but with the GPS con­stant­ly on, the gad­get is dis­charged with­in 30 hours.

Benefits of Watch GT 2

• Large set of fea­tures
• Good auton­o­my (when GPS is not work­ing)
• Always on dis­play func­tion
• Pre­mi­um Design

Disadvantages of Watch GT 2

• NFC mod­ule only works in Chi­na
• No third par­ty app sup­port

Realme Watch is an inexpensive smart watch with a large display

The Realme Watch device made it to our top smart­watch­es due to its good bal­ance between price and qual­i­ty. At a cost of less than four thou­sand rubles, the gad­get has a 1.4‑inch touch screen with a res­o­lu­tion of 320 x 320 pix­els. The smart watch is com­pat­i­ble with Android devices, equipped with sleep mon­i­tor­ing, calo­rie count­ing and phys­i­cal activ­i­ty detec­tion.

The gad­get mon­i­tors the heart rate, deter­mines the lev­el of oxy­gen in the blood and sup­ports 14 train­ing modes: foot­ball, table ten­nis, run­ning, yoga and so on. The charge is enough for 7 days of bat­tery life with the includ­ed heart rate sen­sor.

The shape of the Realme Watch case is sim­i­lar to the top mod­el of the Apple Watch. Pho­to: wareable.com

Benefits of Realme Watch

• GPS mod­ule
• Motion Sen­sor
• Lots of fea­tures
• Afford­able price

Disadvantages of Realme Watch

• Miss­ing NFC mod­ule
• Not the high­est screen res­o­lu­tion

Xiaomi Mi Band 5 is the best budget fitness watch

These smart watch­es are suit­able not only for sports, as they have ample oppor­tu­ni­ties. For a mod­est price of about 2,000 rubles, Xiao­mi has equipped the device with many fea­tures. The man­u­fac­tur­er posi­tions this gad­get as a fit­ness track­er. But it can be used as a clock, stop­watch, timer and cal­en­dar. Built-in sen­sors help you mon­i­tor your heart rate to detect abnor­mal­i­ties and alert you to health haz­ards.

Xiao­mi Mi Band 5 track the qual­i­ty of sleep and col­lect sta­tis­tics. The track­er noti­fies the own­er of the smart­phone about incom­ing calls and mes­sages, and noti­fi­ca­tions from social net­works and appli­ca­tions also come to the watch. There is an activ­i­ty assis­tant that sets a score from 1 to 100 based on dis­tance trav­eled, fre­quen­cy of train­ing, calo­ries burned, over­all mobil­i­ty and oth­er indi­ca­tors.

Mi Band 5 does not dif­fer much in shape and design from pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions of these smart­watch­es. Pho­to: www.gsmarena.com

Advantages of Mi Band 5

• Bat­tery life up to 14 days
• 11 sports modes
• Super afford­able price
• Many func­tions to con­trol the state of the body

Disadvantages of Mi Band 5

• Not the most accu­rate pedome­ter
• There are unfin­ished and use­less fea­tures

What smart watch to choose from the top

It is impos­si­ble to sin­gle out the best gad­get from our list, since all users have dif­fer­ent require­ments and finan­cial capa­bil­i­ties. But still there are gen­er­al rec­om­men­da­tions:

• If you want the best smart­watch for iOS, choose the Apple Watch Series 6
• Android device users can rec­om­mend Sam­sung Galaxy Watch 3
• Hon­or Mag­icWatch 2 is suit­able for ath­letes
• If you need an opti­mal device in terms of price and qual­i­ty, you should pay atten­tion to Huawei Watch GT 2

If you’re won­der­ing how smart­watch tech­nol­o­gy has improved in recent years and which wrist gad­gets have been lead­ing in the past, take a look at our 2019 smart­watch rank­ing.

*All prices are at the time of pub­li­ca­tion of the arti­cle