Over the vacations, I held a smartwatch magnificence pageant with my household. On Christmas, I drove to my mother and father’ home with a plastic Safeway bag carrying 13 smartwatches and requested my bemused family members in the event that they needed to assist me with an article. Most of them had by no means worn a smartwatch, which made them excellent for my little experiment.
I poured out a messy pile of Android watches, health watches, and an Apple Watch onto my mother’s festive tablecloth. Then I informed every decide to put them in a row, with the “prettiest or coolest” watches on the left and the “ugliest or most boring” on the suitable, specializing in which gadgets they’d “truly need to put on.”
All informed, I acquired 21 members throughout generations, starting from my 80-year-old great-aunt to my teenage nephews and niece. After every vote, I might combine the watches again right into a pile in order that the earlier particular person’s decisions would not affect their choice.
Why did I rope my family members into this little experiment? Although I attempt to make my smartwatch evaluations as goal as doable, specializing in battery life, efficiency, and health accuracy, lots of people will select a watch solely based mostly on appears to be like, consolation, and vibes. And I believe that may be a blind spot for me.
I am pleased carrying cumbersome, sporty watches or heavier fashions to get higher battery life, and I believe tech reviewers have gotten used to smartwatches’ thick, machine-cut look. However when my mom informed me that my Garmin watch regarded like a “spaceship on my wrist,” it acquired me considering that I ought to try to recalibrate my psychological picture of a handsome watch. Therefore, the smartwatch magnificence pageant!
CES 2025 stored me busy after the break, however I lastly acquired to tally up the votes this week. And I wager you will be as stunned by the outcomes of my smartwatch magnificence pageant as I used to be!
How I selected and prepped the ‘contestants’
I selected 13 smartwatches for my take a look at: the Amazfit Cheetah Professional, Apple Watch Extremely 2, Coros Tempo Professional, Fitbit Cost 6, Fitbit Sense, Garmin Fenix 8, Garmin Intuition 2X Photo voltaic, Google Pixel Watch 3, OnePlus Watch 2R, Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Professional, Galaxy Watch 6 Traditional, Galaxy Watch Extremely, and Withings ScanWatch 2.
I attempted to have a good cut up between “sporty” and “mainstream” watches, in addition to costly and inexpensive ones. I made a degree of together with the Cost 6 and Sense to see how a health band or a generic-looking squircle would examine in individuals’s minds to fancier or conventional rounded smartwatch designs.
I wasn’t certain whether or not to incorporate the hybrid ScanWatch 2, because it appeared too totally different from the remainder with its traditional look, however I used to be curious how a lot non-techy individuals would care about an old-school impression or if it will really feel too old school for the Gen Zers.
Whereas I had extra smartwatches I thought of together with, I did not need to overwhelm my household with too many decisions. They got here to celebration and socialize, not do an unpaid survey.
I selected to not cost my smartwatches earlier than the take a look at; would you need to spend Christmas morning charging watches? I had a justification for it: I needed individuals to give attention to the watches’ bodily designs, and I assumed brighter shows or prettier watch faces would possibly subconsciously sway their votes. Nonetheless, you would possibly disagree with the choice because it’s arduous to evaluate how a smartwatch appears to be like with out the show turning on.
Lastly, I informed my family members to try to ignore the colour of the smartwatch bands when the primary couple informed me they hated the orange bands on the Fitbit Cost 6 and Galaxy Watch Extremely. I assured them that these straps may come in numerous colours.
The outcomes of my smartwatch magnificence pageant
The desk above exhibits what number of votes every smartwatch acquired from 1st to thirteenth place. The desk beneath exhibits the whole factors, with the contestants ranked from most to least factors. I gave a proportional quantity of factors for every vote: First place is price 13 factors, second place 12 factors, and so forth, down to 1 level for thirteenth place.
As you may see, the Withings ScanWatch 2 crushed the competitors, considerably predictably. Many relations did not like what most of the smartwatches regarded like and informed me that the hybrid watch is perhaps the one one they’d severely contemplate carrying.
However you is perhaps considerably stunned to see the price range OnePlus Watch 2R are available in second. Everybody appeared to like its distinct scale bezel and flat look, preferring its rounded aluminum case to the fancier titanium of many rival watches. Contemplating the ScanWatch 2 is barely a smartwatch with its tiny OLED show, you can name the Watch 2R the actual winner of the pageant.
Nearly nobody favored the Garmin Intuition 2X Photo voltaic, the last-place choose, however I totally anticipated that. It is a huge, area of interest look ahead to outdoorsmen. One particular person informed me it regarded like one thing Grasp Chief would put on and that she anticipated Cortana to hop out of it.
What stunned me extra is how little individuals cared for the three costliest smartwatches: the Garmin Fenix 8 (seventh), Apple Watch Extremely 2 (eighth), and Samsung Galaxy Watch Extremely (twelfth). All of them misplaced to the Fitbit Sense (sixth), which one member of the family referred to as “so generic-looking that it makes me mad.” The Sense regarded mild sufficient that my feminine relations, specifically, thought it will be essentially the most comfy and “odd.”
That is a reasonably large knock towards all of the tech reviewers like myself who gave these flagship watches glowing evaluations and praised their distinctive designs. Individuals did not thoughts the Fenix 8 as a result of it was flat and “normal-looking,” however it was just too huge for lots of them, and so they did not like what number of buttons it had. As for Apple and Samsung, their hard-edged, square-ish appears to be like made them look each synthetic and “too huge.”
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Samsung’s older smartwatches did higher; the Galaxy Watch 6 Traditional (4th) divided the voters, with some loving its distinctive rotating bezel and others discovering that it made the watch too huge. The Galaxy Watch 5 Professional (third), which Samsung has all however deserted, captivated individuals with the power of its distinctive sunken bezel and metallic look.
Actually, I am unable to low cost how a lot individuals favored the Professional merely due to its shining silver in a sea of black watches. However the white Coros Tempo Professional (tenth) and titanium-bezel Amazfit Cheetah Professional (eleventh) low cost that concept a bit. Their brightness solely highlighted how “low cost” and “unattractive” they regarded, with just a few of my extra lively family members appreciating the Tempo Professional’s lightness for exercises.
Probably the most polarizing candidate was the Pixel Watch 3 (fifth). It was ranked top-four for almost half of the voters, with three first-place votes from relations who beloved its rounded, comparatively mild look. However different voters had visceral reactions to it wanting “like nothing,” like a “creepy water drop,” or “like a unadorned rooster breast with none seasoning.” My household has a novel method with phrases.
What I realized from my smartwatch magnificence pageant
21 individuals is an honest focus group, however this take a look at was hardly definitive or correctly managed. In an ideal world, I might have ensured every watch case and strap was the identical colour, that the shows had been lively, and that folks weren’t peeking at different individuals’s votes out of curiosity earlier than they voted themselves.
Nonetheless, I really feel like I realized some classes from my experiment:
- Dimension issues. Most individuals did not just like the tiny Fitbit Cost 6, however in addition they cared extra a few comfy match and skinny case than a big show.
- Individuals do not care if a giant watch is proportionally mild due to titanium; they’d relatively it’s compact and will not discover if it is aluminum.
- They cared rather more about how the watch regarded from the top-down (what they’d see) than from the facet (what others would see), which makes the bezel (or lack thereof) extraordinarily vital.
This take a look at jogged my memory why Apple Watches outsell each different model, past identify recognition and iPhone dominance. They’re skinny and petite and safe-looking, and so they do not invite unflattering comparisons to non-smart or hybrid watches like rounded smartwatches do.
Android smartwatches can not help however look “too huge” to individuals exterior of the tech area, although the 40mm Galaxy Watch 7 or 41mm Pixel Watch 3 would possibly escape that label. So though I prioritize bigger shows and batteries and so forth, I want to recollect when reviewing smartwatches that lots of people would possibly see my positives as negatives.
Belle of the ball
The Withings ScanWatch 2 has a delicate OLED grayscale show that is still off while you’re not taking a look at it, preserving a traditional fashion whereas monitoring well being information behind the scenes like coronary heart fee, AFib, stress, blood oxygen, and pores and skin temperature. It lasts as much as a month per cost and can present glimpses of your notifications within the tiny show cutout.
Reasonably priced fashion
The OnePlus Watch 2R might not have the traditional metal design of the OnePlus Watch 2, however based mostly on this magnificence contest, chances are you’ll not care. Exterior of appears to be like, although, that is an all-around good possibility, with a 1.43-inch show, the identical chipset and reminiscence because the Pixel Watch 3, and constant three-day battery life.
