The Top Smartwatches 2020

Our take on The Wirecutter’s latest round up.

The Wirecutter has come out with its latest ranking of smart watches. With wellness and fitness tracking in mind, we’ve boiled their Top Four to our Top Three:

• Most iPhone users should get the Apple Watch SE. Apple Watch is still the smartest watch around, and, though the SE is not NOT the latest and greatest Apple Watch, (that would be the Series 6), it does everything you need for fitness tracking, looks just as good, and costs 30% less. I appreciate their self-restraint.
• Regular people looking to get in shape or stay in shape should get the Fitbit Charge 3, which The Wirecutter calls the most accurate, user friendly, and social.
• Super jocks should get the Garmin Forerunner 645. The Garmin was “our testers’ favorite GPS watch in almost every way,” writes Kevin Purdy. If you want you want to track you heart rate mid triathlon, Garmin is your choice.

While The Wirecutter recommends that Android people get the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2, this is mainly because it handles phone notifications smoothly, and “home control.” Turning on your living room lights via your watch, I suspect, will prove more frustrating than helpful, and if you’re looking for fitness or sleep tracking, either the Garmin or Fitbit will do the job better. Also, in our experience, Samsung doesn’t play as nicely with others: They lack the universe of apps built for Apple (iOS) or Google (Wear OS), and they do not have an open API allowing direct syncing to third parties, like, say Count.It!

In sum: Any of these trackers will work nicely. Strapping a computer onto our wrists shouldn’t be necessary for to remain active and healthy; but, in today’s sedentary, modern world, we’ve found that a bit of feedback on our activity level doesn’t hurt, and often helps!