If you're an Android user on the hunt for a new wearable, you can't do much better than to get the best Wear OS from among the many great options detailed below. This category has expanded well beyond the realm of popular names like Google and Samsung, with countless brands now incorporating the software into their watches.
Wear OS continues to make big strides in terms of features and functionality as well. So, even if you don't know where to start, we've tested some of the best Wear OS watches out there to help you make the right choice. Whether you want the latest and greatest or don't mind saving some cash by going for a slightly older model, there are quite a few Wear OS smartwatches from which to choose.
Michael Hicks is Android Central's resident smartwatch geek, having reviewed or tested dozens of wearables from Samsung, Google, Apple, Garmin, Fitbit, Coros, Polar, Withings, Amazfit, and others. He spends his free time running or hiking while wearing several watches at once, testing which is most accurate.
At a glance
Best overall
Although it's not too different from its predecessor, Samsung's newest Galaxy Watch 7 does come with some improvements, including new gesture features and an excellent heart rate sensor. And of course, it also packs in all the extra features you could want in your wearable as well.
Best design
The Google Pixel Watch 2 proves to be a worthy sequel, even if it looks like a clone of the first-gen Pixel Watch. Retaining its gorgeous looks, this one is available in Bluetooth or LTE options. There's only one size, but it looks and feels extremely premium, with unmatched haptics.
Best ultra-premium
Sure, the Galaxy Watch Ultra is an expensive option compared to Samsung's last premium smartwatch, the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro. But the advancements found here merit its inclusion over the older Pro model, with the amazing battery life, fast performance and increased storage making it worth a purchase, if you have the money.
Best value
The Mobvoi Ticwatch E3 may not be as fancy as Samsung's and Google's offerings, but it provides plenty of value. You get stuff like GPS, HRM, NFC, and Google Assistant, as well as a variety of health and activity tracking features in a well-made product.
Best battery life
The OnePlus Watch 2 comes in one large size, lasts longer than most Wear OS watches, and is pretty rugged on top of it all. It can't yet match all the nuances of other models, but that could also change with the right updates. It's a solid option with plenty of upside.
Best previous-gen
Yes, it's a generation old at this point, but don't disregard the Galaxy Watch 6 just yet. This sturdy Wear OS smartwatch is still excellent in many areas and shares a lot in common with its recent upgrade, but for a cheaper price.
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Best style
Skagen's Falster Gen 6 doesn't have the best battery life, but it looks fantastic on any wrist. This Wear OS smartwatch boasts a sleek and attractive design and doesn't skimp out on fitness features either, giving you all the basics such as SpO2 and heart rate monitoring in a gorgeous design.
Best lifestyle watch
As the name suggests, the Fossil Gen 6 Wellness Edition focuses on health and gives you daily, weekly, and monthly stats based on the plethora of fitness data collected by its sensors. You also get a speaker onboard and a built-in mic. How cool is that?
Best overall
Launched recently, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 doesn't offer a lot of improvements over its predecessor. In fact, our Galaxy Watch 7 reviewer noted that it's largely an iterative update over the Galaxy Watch 6, with many features likely to come from the previous model. However, there's still a lot to like about Samsung's newest smartwatch.
So, what are these new additions? Well, the newest-generation model comes with an improved processor, which gives it a slight performance and battery life boost over the last-generation smartwatch. You also get new double-pinch and knock-knock gesture shortcuts, built into many apps and system tools. These allow you to quickly silence timers, turn off alarms, play/pause music, pause/restart workouts, and dismiss notifications. although they annoyingly don't work every time. Then there's all the usual good stuff like a truckload of sensors, 10W charging, two size options, and multiple band styles and colors from which to choose. All these goodies make the Galaxy Watch 7 one of the best Android smartwatches you can get in the market today.
However, the Galaxy Watch 7 does have a few shortcomings as well. First off, while the gesture features allow you to speed up a lot of navigation, they annoyingly don't work every time. Many of the features found on the newest model will be coming to the Galaxy Watch 6 too, making it difficult to recommend if you're simply upgrading from the 6. But if you're in the market for a first Galaxy Watch purchase, or it's been a while since you upgraded, you can't do much better than this one.
Best design
Google followed up its first smartwatch with a sequel in the form of the Pixel Watch 2 which looks like a clone. Choosing not to tinker much with the overall design, the focus instead lies on the functionality. One of the biggest off the bat is that you no longer have to reset the watch when switching or transferring to a new phone. Now, once you make the switch, pair the watch with the new device and pick up where you left off.
Our Pixel Watch 2 review outlines all the ways that it improved over its predecessor, keeping the parts that worked and adding or improving on those that didn't. It's very comfortable to wear, and its rounded display gives it a sleek look we appreciate. Plus, the haptics for notifications remain sublime. Third-party apps look great, Fitbit integration is excellent, and performance stays smooth throughout. Using the new Snapdragon W5 chipset is a big reason why, ensuring stability that wasn't always there in the original Pixel Watch.
The beauty of all this is that you don't need a Pixel phone to benefit from all the features, meaning Google doesn't keep any locked or tucked away. Changing the charger, however, is a slight annoyance. The Pixel Watch 2 uses a proprietary wireless charging base, though you can use the ones made for the Fitbit Sense 2 or Versa 4 as alternatives if you have them handy.
Best ultra premium
Most Wear OS watches will last a day at most with features like continuous heart rate active. But the massive Galaxy Watch 5 Pro lasts around 40-45 hours with all health sensors and sleep tracking active, and it offers speedy charging. The watch has also experienced a massive improvement in health tracking and heart rate data, bringing it more in line with offerings from other contemporary smartwatches. Other improvements to the CPU, display and GPS make it an appealing watch for athletes.
The main issue here, as our Galaxy Watch Ultra review explains, is that the price may put some people off, especially when the Galaxy Watch 7 is so much cheaper. In a comparison between the Galaxy Watch Ultra vs. Galaxy Watch 5 Pro, we also noted that the vast improvements in CPU, display, health sensors, GPS, and other areas burn through the same 590mAh capacity faster, making it a harder sell to those that still have the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro.
The improvements overall are still reason enough to purchase this watch, and the Galaxy Watch Ultra is an objectively better offering than the Galaxy Watch 7. But the price makes it tough to recommend outside of a premium pick, and the heaviness of the design may also put people off, depending on personal preference.
Best value
Our TicWatch E3 review lays out all the simple perks of this model. For starters, it has a large and bright 1.3-inch HD display, encompassed by a rather large and bulky bezel that you'll either love or hate, depending on your preferences. Fortunately, the watch is compatible with 20mm interchangeable bands, so swapping it out for a new one is never going to be an issue. It offers IP68 water resistance and is suitable for pool swimming.
Thanks to the Wear 4100 chip and 1GB of RAM, we found "little to no delay in opening apps or loading up the Play Store on the watch," while the battery life lasts 1.5 days even with 24-hour HRM and SpO2 tracking, AOD, and sleep tracking. Or you can use Essential mode, which uses tilt-to-wake and still tracks heart rate and sleep and extends your battery life to a full 20 days per charge (in our tests).
You get more than your share of features on the health and fitness side of things. The Mobvoi TicWatch E3 offers onboard GPS, activity tracking, heart-rate monitoring, sleep tracking, and more. There are a few extra perks, such as Google Assistant and Google Pay. These are all fantastic additions, but the short battery life is a drawback. This is not unheard of for Wear OS watches, though. If you can live with that and the chunky bezel, this is an incredible value that's hard to beat.
Best battery life
The OnePlus Watch 2 isn't without its challenges, as we noted in our review, but the upside is considerable for this good-looking Wear OS watch. Its dual-chip design is unique in that it delivers the power and versatility of Wear OS with the efficiency that comes with RTOS, an older interface that focuses on background tasks. There's only one size and no LTE variant, but there's also no doubt the Watch 2 will look good on any wrist.
While the entire software layout feels generally intuitive — especially given how nicely Wear OS and RTOS integrate — it's odd that OnePlus would choose not to integrate the digital crown more into navigating things onscreen. It may have a large AMOLED display, but the crown is conveniently positioned to scroll up and down as well. Notifications come through smoothly except for the times they don't seem to make it to the watch. These are fixable points via software update, so hopefully OnePlus works out the kinks and improves what is an already solid smartwatch.
Battery life is outstanding for Wear OS, lasting at least a full day longer than competitors before you need to recharge at about four days. All that despite the various activity tracking features available, and the third-party app access afforded by the Play Store. With 32GB of internal storage, there's plenty of room to install apps and save music playlists directly to the Watch 2.
Best last-gen
The Galaxy Watch 6 is still a great Wear OS watch, and if you were looking for something less pricey than the Galaxy Watch 7, or the extremely expensive Ultra, this one might be for you. Now that they're frequently on sale for much less than their launch prices, the Galaxy Watch 6 and 6 Classic continue to be worth buying if you're looking to save money without compromising on quality.
In our Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 review, we praised the performance, design, health features, and fast charging, but had a complicated view of the fact that it didn't change too much from the Galaxy Watch 5. Having said that, this watch does come with a marginally better SoC which gives it a slight performance boost over the previous-generation smartwatch. You also get slightly bigger displays, even though the case is now a bit thinner.
The battery life isn't entirely bad, getting you a day's worth of use from a full charge. However, for heavy users, it falls short of expectations. For example, GPS-tracked activities can drain almost 25 percent of the smartwatch's battery, while sleep-tracking takes up 20 to 30 percent of the battery. This means you'll probably need to juice up this thing multiple times a day if you're a heavy user. Fortunately, the charging speed on both the Galaxy Watch 6 and Watch 6 Classic is blazing fast.
A great upside is that the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic kept the rotating bezel that Samsung popularized with the older models — something abandoned by the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro design. If you want the best parts of some older model watches in one affordable package, the Galaxy Watch 6 is the one you want.
Best style
Skagen has a knack for delivering stylish wearables, and the Scandanavian-inspired Falster Gen 6 design is no exception. It comes in a sleek 41mm stainless steel case and works with all 20mm bands. The 1.28-inch AMOLED display is accompanied by two push buttons on the side and a rotating home button. Thankfully, the updated Snapdragon Wear 4100+ processor doesn't just offer smooth performance; it also ensures the Skagen Falster Gen 6 will eventually get upgraded to Wear OS 3, if not newer version(s).
Our Skagen Falster Gen 6 review broke down the many perks that come with this Fossil spin-off. We like the Fossil Wellness app that showcases data from automatic sleep tracking and the new SpO2 sensor, with the results broken down into daily, weekly, and monthly stats. Thanks to the processor, we found that it has "smooth navigation and relatively quick app startups," even with the older Wear OS 2.3. And the watch can go from zero to 80 percent charged in just about 30 minutes, which somewhat compensates for the strict one-day battery life.
Best lifestyle watch
Are you interested in finding a wearable that blends stunning design elements with a solid set of smartwatch perks? If so, the Fossil Gen 6 Wellness Edition may be what you're searching for. This release from Fossil offers improved performance, as well as fast charging speeds, accurate health tracking, and more. It's very similar to the original Fossil Gen 6, but with a newer 44mm case and stainless-steel finish that's very attractive.
One of the most notable improvements to the Fossil Gen 6 is that it's equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 4100+ chipset, so performance is smooth and seamless. Additionally, the 1.7GHz co-processor allows the smartwatch to use always-on health metrics without negatively affecting performance or draining the battery life. You'll get more detailed heart rate readings, more precise sleep tracking, and better health statistics all around.
While the Fossil Gen 6 is an excellent lifestyle smartwatch, there's one thorn in this wearable's side that has yet to go away: battery life. Our reviewer said he had to charge his watch once or twice a day, which is only bearable because its charging speed is extremely fast, hitting 80 percent in 30 minutes. Also, Google is working on making Google Assistant available on Wear OS 3 watches with Qualcomm chips, so you're stuck with Alexa for the time being.
How to choose
As you can see, Wear OS covers quite a bit of ground in the wearable market. While it might be slightly different from the Wear OS experience you're used to, the latest and greatest Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 is the best option simply because it offers just about everything from an assortment of health sensors to Google Assistant support, all in a nice design. And since it's backed by Google, that'll be helpful for Samsung to get new software updates just as quickly as Google's own smartwatch.
Speaking of which, you can pick the Pixel Watch 2 instead, which is what we'd suggest if you want something a bit more stylish or care about Fitbit integration. But that'll cost you a bit more and lacks a larger display option than 1.2 inches. You might come across a discount, but if not, Samsung is the way to go.
In the end, run through the health, wellness, and notification features that are most important to you. With WearOS, you might want to be able to leverage features like Google Assistant, Google Maps, Google Wallet, and more, so see how (and if) these work on the watch as well. Battery life is also a key consideration: if you are active and tend to use the watch a lot to track workouts as well as run apps and more, you'll want a smartwatch that can last beyond a day per charge, or that at least recharges quickly when it needs a boost.
Finally, consider the phone you own. While the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 is the best overall option, it works best and unlocks all its features with a Samsung Galaxy phone. If you own a phone from another brand, you might want to consider another model on this list. If you own a OnePlus phone like the OnePlus 12, you'll find that the OnePlus Watch 2 is the perfect companion.
