is a senior reporter focusing on wearables, health tech, and more with 13 years of experience. Before coming to The Verge, she worked for Gizmodo and PC Magazine.
After a long stretch of slim pickings, the last couple of years have been huge for Android smartwatches. Now there are more good options than ever — with more on the way soon.
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What we’re looking for How we test smartwatches Collapse Smartwatches are meant to help you keep track of your notifications, as well as your health and activity. We do a mix of benchmark testing and experiential, real-life testing. That means snoozing with them, taking them out on GPS activities like runs and hikes, working up a sweat in several workouts, and comparing how they do against long-term control devices for heart rate, sleep, and GPS accuracy. It also means evaluating how easy they are to pair, how annoying are notifications, and in the case of Android watches, checking to see if features are universally available across different phone makers (i.e., do all the Galaxy Watch features work if you have a Pixel phone?) Some factors we consider in our rankings are durability, performance, accuracy versus consistency in metrics, and of course, battery life. Processor Collapse Android smartwatches have long been foiled by outdated processors. Is the chip under the hood powerful enough to run Wear OS or the platform’s own proprietary operating system smoothly? Ecosystem Collapse Does a watch work better within one company’s product ecosystem versus another? Will you have to buy a new watch if you switch phones? Smart features Collapse These days, most wearables are capable fitness trackers. However, they’re not all capable of controlling your smart home, contactless payments, or interacting with digital assistants. Support Collapse Is this device likely to last you a while, or will you need to upgrade sooner than you’d like? How communicative is the OEM about forthcoming changes? Battery life Collapse Can you get through the day without reaching for a charger? If not, does it support quick charging?
If you’d rather wait until Wear OS settles down a bit, there are platform-agnostic smartwatches and fitness watches you can buy in the meantime. Otherwise, you’ll want to be aware of the Wear OS version powering your watch. Mobvoi, for instance, has generally been a step behind Google and Samsung in rolling out the latest version of Wear OS. You should also take note of whether the watch you want is using the latest processor, or a last-gen model.
So long as you keep the aforementioned caveats in mind, Android users have more smartwatch options than ever before. I’ve rounded up my top picks, but if none of these is the right fit, you can always check out our fitness tracker buying guide.
Best smartwatch for Samsung phones
Sizes: 43mm, 47mm / Weight: 77g, 85g / Battery life: Up to 30 hours with AOD, 40 without AOD / Display type: Always-on OLED / GPS: Built-in GPS / Connectivity: LTE (optional), Bluetooth, Wi-Fi / Water resistance: Up to 50 meters, IP68 / Music storage: 16GB
If you have a Samsung phone, you’ll get the most mileage out of a Samsung smartwatch. And of the four watches Samsung has in its current lineup, I recommend the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic. Although Samsung launched the Galaxy Watch 7 last July, there wasn’t a refresh for the Classic. That means you ought to be seeing some good deals for the Classic soon, if not already. It’s not often that I recommend a last-gen device, but such is my deep love for the physical rotating bezel. For what it’s worth, Android Central reports that that Samsung’s leaked Wear OS 6 plans include late 2025 updates for the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, as well as the Galaxy Watch 7, Galaxy Watch Ultra, and Galaxy Watch FE.
If you want the latest and greatest, the Galaxy Watch 7 offers an upgraded 3nm Exynos W1000 chip and a new 3-in-1 BioActive Sensor. It’s a marginal improvement over the 2023 models, but I don’t feel like Samsung introduced anything last year that requires having them. Mostly, I recommend the 7 if you prefer a smaller size, don’t care about the rotating bezel, and want something a smidge more futureproof.
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