These widgets are now "live" so they offer a real-time feel, that makes them all feel more intuitive. And Body Battery in particular has been overhauled. You'll need to probably hunt down some third-party apps to truly reach the ceiling of this experience, though, given that the native software needs some work, with mapping, navigation, and performance analysis undercooked compared to Garmin. If you use GPS frequently for sports, it has an incredible 60 hours of GPS battery life which outpaces any other watch. With regular use, the watch can last up to 45 days, a claim that holds up well among users. To achieve such great battery performance, there are some compromises that Garmin has made. For instance, the screen isn’t up to the same standard as other smartwatches, instead, they have oped for a small 1″ monochrome display, quite a difference from the AMOLED color touchscreens you might be used to seeing. You now have Apple-rivalling features like ECG and Fall Detection and it’s one of the only smartwatches that is capable of monitoring blood pressure once calibrated with a cuff-style monitor first.

If your watch won't turn on, it may be because its battery has been dead for an extended period. Allow your watch to charge for up to 15 minutes, it will turn on automatically once it has enough power. It's expensive but powerful, and during testing, we easily found this to be the most capable wearable that the brand has ever made, albeit it's still more likely to be found on the wrists of weekend warriors rather than true adventurers due to that limited 36-hour battery life. Still, that's good enough for most of us. Your main experience with the watch is with the daily suite of wellness metrics, displayed via widgets. It's pretty extensive, with Body Battery (energy levels), stress, steps, HRV Status, activity minutes, breathing rate, sleep, sleep coach, and more, all on display. Although it is not a health device, but its captured health and fitness data is pretty accurate and precise. You might be wondering what health data it can measure? Let’s read the next sections.Garmin has been busy updating some of its smartwatches with solar power. The most affordable solar smartwatch from Garmin (although still relatively expensive) is the Garmin Instinct Solar. Although there are plenty of great smartwatches on the market, Apple’s watches are the best there are for many people, especially those who also use iPhones. The Series 8 is the latest and greatest standard Apple Watch, for sure, but the upgrades are minimal on the previous model. The Apple Watch is the best smartwatch family of devices, and the Apple Watch Series 9 is the latest and greatest flagship. It gives you all of Apple's latest features from watchOS 10, without splurging on the adventure kit you don't need from the Watch Ultra (see above) or Ultra 2. Google's Pixel Watch 2 runs Wear OS 4 and works with most phones running Android 9.0 or newer via the Google Pixel Watch app, which requires a Google Account to log in. It's not exclusive to Pixel phones and should pair just fine with devices from any other Android phone maker, including Samsung.

Similar to how the Apple Watch works only with iPhones, the Galaxy Watch 6 series is exclusive to Android phones. Samsung's latest smartwatches require a device running Android 10 or higher with more than 1.5GB of RAM. Although you can pair the Watch 6 with non-Samsung Android phones, some features, including irregular heart rhythm notifications, phone separation alerts, and the Camera Controller app, work only with handsets of the same brand. Also, it reduces the requirement of putting the smartwatch into charging frequently. Furthermore, it takes only 2 hours to get fully charged from 0% to 100%. There are of course smartwatches that work with multiple phone platforms, so the likes of smartwatches made by Samsung, Fitbit, Huawei and smartwatches that run on Google’s Wear OS software. That includes watches from Fossil, Skagen, Michael Kors and Tag Heuer. Many of these smartwatches though won’t offer identical experiences and features across platforms. Features like music players and responding to notifications are optimised for users who own Android phones for instance. Can your smartwatch be used to make calls without a phone? Of course, you’re going to choose the perfect smartwatch for you based on more than just battery life. But for some, that’s a deciding factor between two models you might be considering. If you’re often away on adventures, you’ll benefit from a solar charging model like the Garmin Instinct 2 Solar.The headline feature of this smartwatch is the improved battery life. It's comfortably better than the Pixel Watch and Apple Watch, giving you 2-3 days of use before needing to return to the charger. OS: Wear OS | Phone compatibility: Android | Case size: 45mm | Battery life: 50 hours | Water rating: 5ATM | Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, LTE | Display: Super AM OLED | Weight: 46.5g For In short, if you have the money, and being able to make and take calls on your wrist is a priority, then the Venu 2 Plus is simply one of the best Garmin smartwatches you can buy. Smartwatches from the likes of Apple, Samsung along with Google’s Wear OS smartwatches will usually require charging every few days, so it’s good to know whether you can disable features that can help to preserve that precious battery life. Things like adjusting screen brightness or disabling continuous heart rate monitoring can generally help on that front. The design is now dated, and it's boxier and has more bezel than the Series 7/8/9. There's also no always-on display or ECG.