Best Apple Watch alternatives 2024

Finding the best Apple Watch alternative means different things to different people. Some of you are iPhone owners who want a smartwatch that's better for fitness or battery life. Others are switching from iPhone to Android but want a similar experience since Apple Watches don't work on Android. 

We're here to help find the next best option, regardless of which phone you own. The Apple Watch Series 9 is a reliable and polished device, but after nine square iterations, you might find the whole experience stale. You can always buy the Apple Watch Ultra 2 for its upgrades to battery life, display size, and fitness tools, but the monster price tag will have plenty of people looking elsewhere.

We'll say upfront that Apple purposefully designed iOS so that only the Apple Watch gets official apps, iMessage, and other tools. So our recommended smartwatches can only provide surface-level smarts...unless you switch from iOS to Android.

That being said, we have plenty of Apple Watch substitutes that we love, with or without that patented square look. Based on our reviews and experiences with these wearables, these are the best Apple Watch alternatives for Android or iPhone, including both universal and Android-only options.

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At a glance

Best overall

Our Pixel Watch 2 reviewer called it the "Apple Watch of Android," praising the smartwatch for providing a similar level of quality in terms of performance, design, and UI. So, of course, it tops our list of the best Apple Watch alternatives, provided you have an Android phone.

Not many of the best Android watches have a functional rotating crown, so if you're switching from an Apple Watch, you'll appreciate the familiarity. The 1.2-inch display will have less text space than you're used to with a squircle display, but its edge-to-edge design makes it more stylish than the typical sporty or massive watches from other Android brands. It'll feel like a fashion statement on your wrist.

You'll enjoy six free months of Fitbit Premium, with daily training recommendations and a Daily Readiness Score that Apple can't offer — a fair trade-off to Apple Fitness Plus. You do also get guided workout videos, though admittedly without the music and production value Apple offers. 

More important is that the Pixel Watch 2 has all the sensors of a Fitbit Sense 2, with all the stress, skin temperature, sleep, and AFib data you're used to, plus blood oxygen data that Apple no longer offers since the Massimo suit. Generally speaking, you can expect accurate data and a comfortably light fit at night. 

On the software side, Wear OS apps shouldn't be too different from the watchOS apps you're accustomed to, and on-device Google Assistant should give you a better experience than you're used to with Siri. Google's Wear OS polish and Material You touch should make the transition easy and fun, and you can count on three years of software support. That's short of Apple's typical promise, but better than any non-Samsung alternatives.

Best budget

Moving onto iPhone 15 Pro owners (or those with older models) looking for cheap Apple Watch alternatives, we should look closely at Amazfit watches. One of the more reliable budget brands, Amazfit crams a ton of useful features into its watches. So long as you don't need messaging or apps, you should seriously consider the GTS 4.

If you're a fan of the squircle look, the GTS 4 design will appeal to you. Its 1.75-inch display is quite similar in size and resolution to the Series 9 41mm (1.69 inches), and the case itself is lighter and thinner, making it more comfortable to wear. You also get the rotating crown, useful for skimming through the watch's built-in apps.

With the Amazfit GTS 4, you get built-in dual-band GPS for accurate tracking, a mic and speaker for Bluetooth calling and Alexa voice commands, and PPG and SpO2 sensors for tracking your health. Amazfit takes your health and workout data and calculates data like training load, post-workout recovery time, and VO2 Max. That, along with automatic workout detection for indoor strength training and outdoor workouts, makes it useful for fitness fans.

Unlike many of our other picks, the Amazfit ecosystem doesn't have third-party apps, which extends the battery life but leaves you with a pretty limited OS. It's mainly meant for reading notifications, not responding to them. Plus, you won't find a tap-to-pay option here. If you can live with these compromises, you'll be able to save a good chunk of money compared to an Apple Watch!

Best fitness

The Garmin Venu 3 has most of the same perks as the Amazfit GTS 4 above, only in a much more polished form and with a much higher price, on par with what you'd typically pay for an Apple Watch. It tops our list of the best fitness watches, but it also has the same drawbacks in terms of lack of third-party apps and general "smarts."

Unlike most Garmin watches with their thick, plastic-heavy designs, the Venu 3 is comfortably thin, steel-bezeled, and has a gorgeous AMOLED display. It packs a mic and speaker for Bluetooth calling and your phone's voice assistant; the latter feature passes through your phone's assistant rather than offering its own, which limits some of its functionality but is still useful. 

With its latest-gen Elevate sensor, the Garmin Venu 3 can take ECG and skin temperature readings, along with heart rate, blood oxygen, and stress. It has a new Sleep Coach that uses your data to recommend better sleeping habits, and an enhanced Body Battery graph that tells you how much specific activities like naps, workouts, or drinking affect your daily energy.

In terms of fitness, you get Garmin's patented multi-satellite system for very accurate location data, dozens of sports modes, custom indoor workouts with animations and muscle maps showing how to do exercises and their impact, and a recovery widget telling you how long to rest after an activity. 

Our Garmin Venu 3 reviewer praised it for its comfort, quality, and accuracy. He noted that Garmin improved the UI to make it more useable, but in truth, it's still a very simple and limited interface compared to an Apple Watch. You can technically send quick-reply messages to texts on the Venu 3, but only with an Android phone. Aside from a few compatible music apps like Spotify and Amazon Music, you won't find third-party apps, either. 

Best Ultra 2 alternative

Although we're big fans of the Apple Watch Ultra 2, we know that most people aren't willing to drop $800 on a watch just to get better battery life. If you're looking for an Android smartwatch with long battery life, you have three main options: the OnePlus Watch 2, TicWatch Pro 5, or Galaxy Watch 5 Pro. And of these three, Samsung's watch is the one we'd recommend first. 

Significantly lighter and cheaper than the Ultra 2, the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro also has a titanium case, sapphire glass protection, and MIL-STD-810 durability. Rated to last 80 hours per charge, the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro consistently hit the three-day mark in our review testing. That's essentially double what the Apple Watch Ultra 2 can hit, or on par if you set it to the battery saver mode.

It has blazing performance and a digital bezel that lets you swipe your finger around the display to rotate through widgets and apps, without needing a rotating crown. The health sensors match what an Apple Watch offers, while adding a unique BIA sensor that measures your body composition. 

We'll note that the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro is a couple of years old, and the Galaxy Watch 6 may be a better Apple Watch alternative for regular buyers. You can also hold out for the Galaxy Watch 7 Pro, which should arrive this summer with the same longevity and faster performance — plus, hopefully, better fitness features.

Best hybrid design

We've focused on smartwatches that can match the Apple Watch for app smarts or fitness tracking. But some people want an Apple Watch alternative that'll help them escape from "smarts" and simply provide health data and style. In that case, you should look closely at the Withings ScanWatch 2.

Seriously, just look at it. Aside from the circular portion of the screen dedicated to notifications and health data, it'll look to everyday folks like a normal, high-end watch with a stainless steel finish. If you're sick of that squircle look, the ScanWatch 2 will feel like a major style upgrade. 

You'll still get a digital crown to rotate through data, but the small grayscale screen doesn't fit much data on it. You're mostly going to use it to check when to pull out your phone, but that may not matter if you don't use Apple Watch apps that often. 

As for what the ScanWatch 2 tracks, you'll get heart rate, blood oxygen, HRV for stress, ECG for AFib detection, high and low heart rate warnings, and skin temperature data, as you'd expect. What's unique to Withings is that it takes 24/7 temperature readings, not just at night, giving you more insight into workout temperature variation, possible illnesses, and other insights. 

Keep in mind that this watch doesn't have tap-to-pay, calling, or a voice assistant packed in. That may or may not be a deal-breaker, but most of the best hybrid watches have these sorts of limitations. With its 30-day battery life, the Withings ScanWatch 2 is all about blending in and only providing minimal info when you need it.

Best health tracking

The Fitbit Sense 2 essentially had its health sensors and software stolen by parent company Google for the Pixel Watch 2. While that took the top spot with its improved "smarts" and apps, many people will prefer the Fitbit Sense 2 as an Apple Watch alternative because it lasts six days instead of one, costs less, works with both iOS and Android, and has that thin squircle look for Apple fans. 

We initially gave the Fitbit Sense 2 a mixed review because it launched with disabled features and without any Google apps, but we later got Google Maps and Google Wallet in post-launch updates, lessening the sting a bit. Still, this is a health and fitness watch first and foremost, relying on Fitbit Premium data to help you improve as an athlete (or simply lose weight) over time.

If you can accept its limitations, this watch will give you all the health data and notifications you could want, plus Bluetooth calling, Alexa voice assistant commands, Google Pay, and turn-by-turn navigation. 

You can also turn to the Fitbit Versa 4 if you want the same design but a more affordable price; you do miss out on most of the health sensors like skin temperature and blood oxygen, but it does at least give you heart rate and fitness tools. The Fitbit Charge 6 is another option with almost all of the same sensors and an extra day of battery life, but you'll miss out on the mic and speaker and will have to get used to a much smaller display. 

Best Apple Watch alternatives: How to choose your new favorite smartwatch

As we said from the outset, your search for an Apple Watch substitute will vary based on what kind of smartphone you have. We tried to pick several fitness watches that work regardless, but these (by necessity) have limited smarts because longer smartwatch battery life requires compromises. 

If you still have an iPhone but you're sick of Apple Watches, it depends on why you're switching. For better fitness tools, you can look at Garmin, Fitbit, or other running watch brands, for example. But there isn't an Apple Watch alternative with the same quality of apps and integration with an iPhone, since Apple keeps other brands from accessing them. 

If you're a new or prospective Android phone owner, you should look at Wear OS watches first and foremost because they replicate the apps and smarts that you're used to. Unfortunately, your selection is pretty limited. Although OnePlus and Xiaomi have recently joined the Android watch ecosystem, Google and Samsung are your main options.