Best Cross Platform Support
- Garmin Venu 2 Plus
Best For iOS
- Apple Watch Series 7 GPS
Best Fitness Tracker
- Fitbit Sense
A watch is a pretty standard piece of tech that most people have probably had at some point in their lives. They’re useful, convenient, and available in an extremely broad price range. The ever-shrinking nature of electronics, however, has provided an opportunity for the market to be shaken up, with the introduction of smartwatches. After a couple of generations of working out the kinks and improving battery life, smartwatches are now a pretty solid choice for anyone looking for a watch. They offer extra features like GPS, heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking, exercise tracking, and much more, all while offering a battery life that can be longer than a week.
Many smartwatches come with LTE support, allowing you to use them as a phone, to have mobile data, and to work entirely independently of a smartphone. For many people, however, this is an extra cost for something that reduces battery life when they already carry a phone in their pocket or bag most of the time. Thankfully most smartwatches have a version that only communicates via Bluetooth, simplifying the matter.
To help you find the best Bluetooth smartwatches around, we’ve drawn up a list of the best Bluetooth smartwatches in 2022.
Key Features
- Broad range of fitness tracking features
- Stress monitor
- Integrated GPS
Specifications
- Battery life: 6 days
- Display size in inches: 1.58
- OS: Apple Fitbit OS
The Fitbit Sense is a smartwatch that focusses heavily on fitness and wellness tracking tech. Fitbit is known for its fitness trackers and this is just a logical combination of the two pieces of tech. As a smartwatch, it’s not the most feature-rich, but it has the basics sorted. It does offer some particularly useful features such as Alexa and Google Assistant voice functionality. Battery life is solid, reaching six days under standard usage, though using features such as the GPS will significantly reduce this.
Fitness and wellness features are where the Sense shines though. It can monitor your heart rate 24/7, it can survive going up to 50m underwater, it can monitor stress, skin temperature, heart rate variability, and more. It comes with a pair of straps designed to fit any wrist size, though other styles of straps are available if you prefer a different material or clasp. The main downside of the Sense is that many of the analytics are locked behind a paywall. While you do get 6 months of premium subscription included in your purchase, it’s annoying to have to keep paying for the features.
- 24/7 heart rate monitoring
- Alexa and Google Assistant support
- Comes with two straps for any size wrists
- Premium subscription required for many features
- Potentially unreliable step counts
Key Features
- Large, bright display
- QWERTY keyboard
- Faster charging than previous generations
Specifications
- Battery life: 18 hours
- Display size in inches: 1.9 or 1.69
- OS: Apple WatchOS
If you’ve got an iPhone and are looking for a smartwatch, then the Apple Watch Series 7 GPS is basically a no-brainer, as long as you don’t mind the price tag. Integration and compatibility with iOS devices is seamless, though if you use an Android device, you’re out of luck. In terms of features, the Series 7 is a market leader with highly customisable watch faces, full keyboards for texting, and a large always-on display.
Fast charging makes it easy to top up when it’s low and minimises downtime. Unfortunately, you’ll have to charge it often as the battery life is exceptionally low at just 18 hours. The lack of compatibility with Android phones is a major limiting factor in terms of appeal. The price is also pretty high. While models start at $399, they go a lot higher than that.
- Fantastic compatibility with iPhones
- Full qwerty keyboard
- Fast charging
- Awful battery life
- More expensive than comparable watch models
- Not compatible with smartphones other than iPhones
Key Features
- Body composition sensor
- Sleep tracking
- Can automatically recognise workouts
Specifications
- Battery life: 3 days
- Display size in inches: 1.2 or 1.4
- OS: Apple Wear OS
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is designed to work best with a Samsung smartphone, it can work with other Android-based smartphones but doesn’t support iOS devices. There are some features that require a Samsung phone to work, however, which may be annoying if you don’t have a Samsung phone. The health metrics available include a body composition scanner, giving you stats on your body fat percentage for a fuller picture of your health.
The battery is good for three days. While that certainly isn’t much compared to some other models, it’s a lot more than an Apple Watch. The price is also fairly reasonable given that this is a high-end watch. 16GB of on-board storage provides plenty of space for storage of apps. Fans of the previous generations may miss the rotating bezel.
- 16GB of on-board storage
- Relatively well priced
- Reasonable battery life
- Some features require a Samsung smartphone to work
- No iOS support at all
- Doesn’t have the rotating bezel of previous models.
Key Features
- Vibrant AMOLED display
- Improved version with more storage and better accuracy
- Can make calls when paired with a compatible smartphone
Specifications
- Battery life: 9 days
- Display size in inches: 1.3
- OS: Custom
The Garmin Venu 2 Plus is a generally platform-agnostic smartwatch that offers many of the features of the Apple Watch. While some features aren’t supported on all platforms this is because of platform restrictions rather than Garmin walling off features. It allows you to make calls directly from your watch. You can also respond to texts and emails with pre-written responses, though you can’t type your own response at the time.
Battery life is strong with 9 days under standard usage. It features a huge range of sports and activities that can be tracked to monitor your fitness and performance. You can download music and play it directly to a paired Bluetooth headset without needing your phone, excellent for phone-free runs. The price is very high, however, more expensive than the standard Apple Series 7.
- Can select a pre-written response to emails and texts
- Can download music and play through Bluetooth headphones
- Advanced sports tracking
- Larger than the previous model can be awkward on small wrists
- Expensive
- No keyboard
That was our roundup of the best Bluetooth smartwatches in 2022. Have you recently bought a Bluetooth smartwatch? What sold you on it and what has your experience been with it so far? Let us know down below.
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