The Best Cheap Smartwatches

The best cheap smartwatches can help you stay connected while replacing your fitness tracker. And you don't have to be an iPhone user to wear a smartwatch, because there is a slew of Wear OS (formerly Android Wear) watches from which to choose. Even the Apple Watch itself has become cheaper.

There are also a plethora of smartwatches from a squadron of obscure Chinese vendors, most of which cost less than you think. We tested several of them to see if any were worthy of your wrist. 

Amazfit Bip

Specifications

Works with: Android, iOS
Display: 1.28 inch (176 x 176)
Heart Rate: Yes
GPS: Yes
LTE: No
Battery Life: 45 days
Water Resistance: Up to 5 feet
Mobile Payments: No

Reasons to buy

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Best value smartwatch

The Amazfit Bip is a stylish touchscreen watch with smartphone notifications, lengthy battery life and built-in heart-rate monitor, GPS and GLONASS for accurate workout tracking. Cheap heart-rate-tracking devices are notoriously unreliable, but we put the Bip to the test and found it to be almost as accurate as our Garmin Forerunner.

You can eke out 45 days of battery life from the Bip without using any of its smart features, but even using the heart-rate monitor and GPS to track workouts, we went two weeks before the watch dipped below 50 percent. That's incredible for a smartwatch. The Bip's 1.28-inch, 176 x 176-pixel color screen isn't stellar, but the always-on display is useful for using the watch as, you know, a watch.

The one downside: The Bip lacks an app store, so it's not really playing in the same field as the Apple Watch, Samsung's Tizen OS watches, Fitbit's Ionic and Versa, or Wear OS smartwatches from companies like Fossil and LG. But that's a small price to pay for such a bargain.

Apple Watch Series 3

Specifications

Works with: iOS
Display: 38mm or 42mm
Heart Rate: Yes
GPS: Yes
LTE: Yes, for $100 more
Battery Life: 18 hours
Water Resistance: Swim-proof
Mobile Payments: Apple Pay

Reasons to buy

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Best for iPhone owners

The 38mm Apple Watch Series 3 with GPS is the best cheap smartwatch for most iPhone owners. The watch integrates seamlessly with the phone, so you can easily view notifications and respond to messages directly on the wrist. The Series 3 also has many of the same fitness-tracking and heart-health features that we love about the higher-priced Series 4. The more affordable Series 3 can passively monitor your heart rate and send you a notification if it detects an irregular heart rhythm.

The good news: You don't need to splurge on the LTE model to get the best features. Apple rolled out watchOS 6 this fall, bringing even more features to the Series 3, including a stand-alone Watch App Store and fully independent watch apps, popular iPhone apps like Calculator and Voice Memos, and new health apps for tracking periods and measuring noise levels.

Fitbit Versa 2

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Fitbit Versa 2

Specifications

Works with: Android, iOS
Display: 1.4 inches
Heart Rate: Yes
GPS: Connected to phone
LTE: No
Battery Life: Five days (two with always-on display)
Water Resistance: Swim-proof
Mobile Payments: Fitbit Pay

Reasons to buy

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The best smartwatch for sleep-tracking

The Fitbit's Versa 2 makes slight tweaks on the original Versa, including an AMOLED display and built-in Alexa. Fitbit's smartwatch offers all of the features we liked in the original Versa, such as accurate heart-rate tracking, lengthy battery life, colorful touchscreen display and in-depth sleep analysis. That's why the Versa 2 made it to our best cheap smartwatch list. 

The Versa doesn't have onboard GPS, which would make it a more capable Apple Watch rival, and its app store isn't as well-stocked as Apple's. But with five-day battery life, cross-platform compatibility, an affordable price and sophisticated sleep-tracking features, the Versa 2 is a solid smartwatch for most people.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Samsung Galaxy Watch Active

Specifications

Works with: Android, iOS
Display: 1.1 inch Super AMOLED (360 x 360)
Heart Rate: Yes
GPS: Yes
LTE: Yes
Battery Life: 24-36 hours
Water Resistance: Swim-proof
Mobile Payments: Samsung Pay

Reasons to buy

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A great smartwatch for small wrists

Samsung's first-gen Galaxy Watch Active smartwatch is its most affordable — and also one of the best cheap smartwatches for Android users. The Galaxy Watch Active sports a faster processor and easier-to-use software than other Android watches that run on Google's Wear OS platform.

The only downside: The Galaxy Watch Active doesn't have many well-known apps, especially compared with the Apple Watch. Luckily, Samsung's built-in apps, including its fitness-focused options, are more than capable of handling most tasks.

Samsung just released its second-gen Galaxy Watch Active 2, which comes in two sizes and includes LTE connectivity and an ECG sensor that will eventually be able to detect atrial fibrillation. However, that watch is more expensive.

Credit: MyKronoz

(Image credit: MyKronoz)

MyKronoz ZeTime

Specifications

Works with: Android, iOS
Display: 1.22 inches (240 x 240) or 1.05 inches (240 x 240)
Heart Rate: Yes
GPS: No
LTE: No
Battery Life: Three days
Water Resistance: Up to 50 meters
Mobile Payments: No

Reasons to buy

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Best value hybrid smartwatch

The MyKronoz ZeTime hybrid smartwatch is an elegant and versatile timepiece that combines traditional watch functionality with a high-tech touch screen in a fairly organic fashion. I appreciate that the company offers two models, to accommodate different wrist sizes. Paired with an iOS or Android app, the ZeTime delivers a long list of smartwatch functions without overwhelming the user.

Its weakest link is the software, particularly its use of European rather than North American formats, the confusing hand setup instructions and a glitchy music app. Also, the lack of third-party apps, compared with similarly priced Android Wear watches, limits its usefulness.

Fitbit Versa Lite

Specifications

.95Works with: Android, iOS
Display: 1.34 inches (300 x 300)
Heart Rate: Yes
GPS: Connected to phone
LTE: No
Battery Life: Four days
Water Resistance: Splash-proof
Mobile Payments: Fitbit Pay (with Versa Special Edition, $90 extra)

Reasons to buy

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A fashionable cheap smartwatch 

Fitbit's Versa Lite is one of the best cheap smartwatches on the market and offers many of the same features that make the Versa our favorite mainstream smartwatch. It's also more colorful than its higher-priced siblings, with Marina Blue and Mulberry Plum options alongside a classic silver with colorful bands. But the Versa Lite also sacrifices some of the features that make the Versa so well-rounded, including swim tracking and onboard music storage. If those features are less important than price, the Versa Lite is worth buying for the battery life and solid fitness tracking.

TicWatch E

(Image credit: TicWatch)

Ticwatch E

Specifications

Works with: Android, iOS
Display: 1.4-inch OLED (400 x 400)
Heart Rate: Yes
GPS: Yes
LTE: No
Battery Life: 24 hours
Water Resistance: Splash-proof
Mobile Payments: No

Reasons to buy

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Best affordable GPS watch

The Ticwatch E (for Express) is a simple, fitness-focused Wear OS watch that impresses with built-in GPS and GLONASS for more accurate run tracking. It offers the usual smartwatch features, though, as with all Wear OS devices, you'll get more from pairing it with an Android phone than an iPhone, because then you can answer calls and texts from the watch. The Ticwatch doesn't have an LTE connection, so it relays those calls and texts from your phone.

I also love the band on the Ticwatch E, which is interchangeable if you prefer a less sporty look.

Time for the results

Spoiler alert: Many cheap smartwatches are pretty terrible. You typically need to spend a fair amount to get the best smartwatch with all the apps and fitness-tracking features you've come to expect. But, there are plenty of smartwatches — Wear OS, Apple Watches and Chinese watches from Amazon — that we'd be more than happy to have on our wrists. 

And that number could potentially grow after CES 2020, where we've seen some new cheap smartwatches introduced. Amazfit, for example, unveiled the Amazfit Bip S, which promises 40-day battery life, and the rugged Amazfit T-Rex smartwatch for extremely good value. We'll see if either of those models crashes our list of top-rated options, but here's what we think of the cheap smartwatches available now.

Tom's Guide Staff

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